Another NYT Article About Enterprise Damage Scams

[FailingEnterpriseAdmin]

November 22, 2005
Sounding Off

Avoid Being Dinged for Rental-Car Dents

By CHRISTOPHER ELLIOTT
IT happened so suddenly. One minute, Shirley Kuhl was returning her rental car to the Enterprise Rent-A-Car lot at Baltimore-Washington International Airport. The next, she was on a shuttle van to the terminal, $500 poorer.

"An employee just materialized in front of me when I arrived," recalled Ms. Kuhl, a retired automotive worker from Green Valley, Ariz. "He said, 'I have to write up an accident report.' I said, 'What accident?' And then he went right to a small dent in the front bumper."

Although Ms. Kuhl denied denting the car, and although no one knew yet how much it would cost to fix the bumper, the company billed her credit card $500. She became even more suspicious when she checked the time of the card transaction. "The card was charged before I got off the shuttle bus at the airport terminal to catch my flight," she said.

To Enterprise, the Kuhl case, at least up to this point, is an example of employees doing their jobs - finding every scratch and dent, and billing clients who damage its cars. But to Ms. Kuhl and other Enterprise customers who have contacted me recently, it is an example of the car-rental industry's latest effort to squeeze every last dime it can from renters.

Some travelers wonder whether a few unscrupulous rental agencies return damaged cars directly to their fleets instead of sending them to the shop for repairs and then charge future customers for the same nicks and scrapes.

If so, Enterprise says it is not one of them. "We do not recycle dings," said Laura Bryant, a spokeswoman for Enterprise. Her company takes many precautions to prevent billing of customers for damage that they are not responsible for, including an inspection before the car is rented, and internal safeguards that would prevent a double-billing, she says.

But Ms. Bryant acknowledged that the system is not foolproof, particularly if a customer fails to note any previous damage to the car. "Obviously, every time there is a ding, the car does not go to the body shop. That's the purpose of the walk-around inspection, so that if there is a ding, you can walk around and acknowledge it," she said.

The system apparently broke down for Ms. Kuhl. She phoned a district manager for Enterprise to protest the charge. "Sure enough," she said. "Their records showed this damage was reported on an earlier rental." Enterprise promptly returned her $500.

How many motorists are billed for existing damage to the cars they rent? Of the scores of complaints I have received about damage disputes, I counted about a dozen recent cases that seemed to fit the bill. All of them involved Enterprise.

I asked Enterprise about another complaint about double-billing, which involved a vehicle rented in Pittsburgh. The story was almost identical to Ms. Kuhl's: a swift $500 charge, before any damage could be assessed. After my inquiry, Enterprise revisited its records and discovered the damage had been previously reported. It refunded the $500.

What happened? A company spokeswoman told me the vehicle had been returned on a Saturday, making it more difficult for the agents to check the car's repair history.

"This shouldn't be happening," said Kevin Miles, the past president of the American Car and Truck Rental Association. "Every car-rental company has safeguards to prevent customers from being billed twice for the same damage."

After reviewing all of these cases, I have found no evidence that Enterprise was purposely cashing in multiple times on the same dents and scratches. A company does not top J. D. Power & Associates' customer-satisfaction rankings for six out of seven years by doing that kind of thing. But I do think these isolated problems might be eliminated if Enterprise's employees became as vigilant about the pre-rental walk-around inspection as they are about examining the returned car.

Business travelers need to do their part, too. It's simple. The next time you rent a car, inspect the vehicle with great care - front, back, sides and top - before getting behind the wheel. Make sure that the rental agent notes even the smallest scratch on the rental agreement.

In other words, pay attention to your rental vehicle before you leave the lot, or you might have to pay up later.

E-mail: elliottc@nytimes.com

Im surprised that you didn't know NYT holds as much validity as Bush fighting the war on terror. NYT is about as unbiased as Michael Moore not picking McDonalds for Breakfast.


NYT is the laughing stock among all forms of media today.

Also Joe Scarborough had an entire segment on MSNBC yesterday on how NYT is a joke

"An employee just materialized in front of me when I arrived," recalled Ms. Kuhl.

Materialized. That's funny. She better get on the phone and give the Ghosthunters from the SciFi channel a call so they can debunk that ghostly activty. Plumbers by day. Paranormal Investigators by night. Who ya gonna call?

Most people in rental will never realize the absolute scam 90% of all DX's are.
As a former LC Admin, I can tell you right now 90% of damage to vehicles not caused by a documented accident or known by the customer...are damages within 5 rental contracts missed by MT's.
LC is a scam 90% of the time...you people are bitching because this lady is hurting your reserves, but maybe you should do a real trunk to trunk and not let MT's check damage upon check out and return, and that 90% will go down to 10% quick.
Most of the time it's the branches fault, get over it.

[Tigershark]

This article could have been written by any news agency across the country. I too am a former LC member. I agree, and unfortunately it is true, that a majority of the damages billed out by Enterprise are billed to the wrong customer. You have one person checking out the vehicle to a customer and another checking the vehicle in. They each have different perception of what is chargeable damage and quite frankly some do not even do a check out and just have you sign the contract in the office. These articles are fact and will continue to be made public. Some might say it is little damage that is missed. Well I had many claims where the damage was in excess of $1000. How do you miss that? For example I had a claim that the car was turned in at night and they spotted a chip in the windshield. The next day I get a claim for additional damage. $4000 worth to be exact. The customer was rear-ended and the trunk was out of line. How do you see a windshield chip at night and miss the trunk being out of line? Article is a joke? Pay attention to your co-workers checking in and out cars and see where the joke is.

[slave no more]

The reason why the cards are hit right away is because a smart person would just cancel the card immediately and let ERAC mail them a bill and take 10 years to put it against their credit. The employee and customer are both responsible for the walk around but guarantee that the bitch in this article walked out to the garage kiosk (I know the BWI location) and said "I am in a rush I cannot walk around this car ut my stuff in te trunk." FUCK HER! If you don;t want to walk around in the end then piss off. Now in this situation the damage was already there but again I guarantee that bitch was also at fault for not allowing the rep to do his/her job.

[mygpsuxass]

This article is an example of isolated mistakes. It even says that Enterprise does not intentionally bill customers for prior damage.

[WTF311]

Ok let me put this out there. How many ERAC workers like doing DX's? I hated it, heck I would let damage slide just to avoid the problem if it was nothing to bad. This whole section is a joke...

[gp65:(]

Originally Posted by WTF311

Ok let me put this out there. How many ERAC workers like doing DX's? I hated it, heck I would let damage slide just to avoid the problem if it was nothing to bad. This whole section is a joke...

That's true... Half the time, I wouldn't even walk around the car.

But I've worked with some beeyaches who did EVERYTHING by the book, and would write a dx for anything. I'm not sure what their deal is--- they are the same people who actually write the return time in the space for it on the contract and shred old reservation sheets.