Enterprise Horror Story, any one else seen this?

[FailingEnterpriseAdmin]

Originally Posted by EnterpriseProblems

On Saturday,
12/10 I went to the enterprise rental facility at the
Ottawa Airport to collect a rental car which i had reserved through Expedia.
When I got there, i asked the man at the counter whether they had collision insurance and he offered to sell me some for $24 when my rate was $17 a day.
i decided to use my American Express, which has a collision waiver, if i rent with that card.
The rep took my card, tried to swipe it through their machine several times and could not get it to work.
He came back to me and asked i could use another card.
I asked him if he could not punch in the numbers himself and he said it was against company policy, even though i was right there and had already shown him by drivers license.
I went over, tried to swipe it myself and said there must by something he can do to allow me to use my Amex, and also told him in forceful terms (absolutely no swearing)
that i suspected he was trying to scam me into buying his expensive insurance.
At this point, something very strange happened.
The rep basically refused to complete the transaction and tried to get me to leave.
I promptly refused, and tried to get Enterprise corporate on the phone to get them to resolve this.
No one was available so i tried to get expedia to deal with the rep but he was absolutely stubborn.
Just to try to get the transaction done, i even offered to apologize, even though i certainly did not feel i had in anyway been abusive, and he still refused to finish the reservation.
I wound up renting a better car for less from Budget at the next counter, using the same Amex with no trouble.
I'm suspicious of what this man was up to and how my card did not work on his machine, the way he took offense at my legitimate concern about why the car was not working (scam or not?) and have decided to look into my legal options against Enterprise Corporate.
I was wondering if anyone else had similar experiences.
thanks

You probably had three strikes against you:

1. You had a valid reservation which they were going to dishonor and they probably would prefer to not have to reveal this.

2. You knew your rights.

3. You told them you didn't want CDW.

Given all that, I can understand how they'd want to get rid of you.

You probably don't have any legal rights, but coming here and pounding on them is a good start.

I'm surprised you're not getting better treatment in this thread.

Originally Posted by FailingEnterpriseAdmin

I'm surprised you're not getting better treatment in this thread.

A lot of the posts posted in the last 24 hours have sharp teeth! What gives?

[FailingEnterpriseAdmin]

Originally Posted by Unregistered

A lot of the posts posted in the last 24 hours have sharp teeth! What gives?

I don't know what's going on. Maybe people are getting cranky because Christmas is coming and they're feeling stressed. I do see that the posting rate has been unusually high for the past week, and today's count is already the second highest daily count ever.

You can actually have a legitimate ccard transaction "charged back" if you fail to secure a magnetic swipe or secure a proper imprint of the ccard on the same sheet of paper (ie contract) as the customer's signature. Bottom line is the ERAC employee could have gone about it a different and better way. Having worked at ERAC in the past (including airport location), I would be willing to surmise that the customer probably was being a dick about things and the bitter ERAC emplyee took it personally (which he/she shouldn't have). Customer service entails taking a certain amount of shit, we all know it. Having worked at ERAC though, I make a concerted effort now to be cordial even when receiving bad service since there are underlying factors that I am not always going to be aware of. You reap what you sow!

HERE'S MY 2 CENTS. wHEN i WAS WORKING AT ERAC (COUPLE YEARS AGO) EVERY OFFICE HAD TO HAVE A CC IMPRINT MACHINE AND THE TOLL FREE #S FOR THE CC COMPANIES. iF A CARD WOULDN'T SWIPE YOU GET THE PHYSICAL IMPRINT AND CALL IN FOR AN AUTHORIZATION # TO THE CC COMPANY. iF THIS IS DONE THERE IS NO WAY FOR THE CHARGE TO BE CHARGED BACK AS LONG AS THE FINAL SALE IS EQUAL OR LESS THEM THE AUTH.
As for an earlier post that the ee might have been new, I disagree. When i worked for ERAC they never put new employees at the Airport. Most of the Canadian airport locations required MA or above. Exceptions made for star MTs with lots of experience.

There's a real simple solution to all this for future. Tell the MT that you are going to take damage waiver, heck, even full boat. They will then treat you like gold since they know their stats are going to go up. When it come to actually signing the contract, then tell them you changed your mind and remebered you amex covers you and decline everything. They will try to weasel you into taking it at this point since you will have caught them off guard. If they do turn on you, just say gimme the damn contract so I can be on my way.

To the ERACer who thinks the customer was probably at his cc limit: (1) the customer mentioned that his Amex card had an insurance coverage, (2) there's no reason to doubt him on this, (3) only Amex gold cards and above come with rental insurance coverage, and (4) finally, all Amex gold cards and above have no spending limits. My guess is that the employee was trying to strong arm the customer into taking CDW.

Well, I do find this man's story very interesting... as I was working at ERAC that day! Let me tell you what REALLY happened!

This man was told we could only take a card that would swipe. For all of you ERAC employees that don't know, if a card won't swipe and you can't read the name that will show up from the magnetic strip, it is the first warning sign of a fake credit card, and thus a fraudulent rental. All credit cards must swipe in our systems, or we can't accept them. This is a VERY important security check.

So, the card wouldn't swipe. The customer even tried to swipe it himself, to no avail. The card was tried over and over, but the machine would not read the magnetic strip. No big deal, we just need another credit card, the customer was told. At this point, the customer was frustrated. That's fine, it happens. But then he said "I think this is a racist issue". Despite the fact that the customer before him, and many after him were also of a visible minority status, this issue should not have come up. We had no problems with those customers... but they also had cards that would swipe. This particular customer became increasingly abusive, yelling, calling the ERAC employee racist, unknowledgeable, unexperienced. He then asked to take a picture of us!!! In Canada, we have every right to refuse business with any customer, for no reason whatsoever, so that's exactly what we did, and we had PLENTY of reasons to not do business with this man at that point.

Tell me this. If you owned a jewelry store, and some random person came in and said "I want to borrow your $25,000 diamond necklace for 2 days" then failed your basic security check, then called you a racist, would you hand over the necklace to them? Any good business person would say "NO WAY!"

By the way, the next customer at our counter was a rep from VISA. She said that we were doing the right thing, as VISA can DENY any company the right to ACCEPT their credit cards if the card was not swept in the system. ERAC employees, and all other business people, keep this in mind.

Budget at the Ottawa Airport will also take credit card numbers written down on a piece of paper... the fact that they rented to this guy means nothing.

[FailingEnterpriseAdmin]

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Budget at the Ottawa Airport will also take credit card numbers written down on a piece of paper... the fact that they rented to this guy means nothing.

That's because it's in Ottawa.