Parents BEWARE!!!!!!

To any Parents that rent from Enterprise.
I rented a car last weekend from enterprise and the brake lights didn't work this was minor to what was found in the console A LOADED GUN. I shutter to think if a child had found this.When we informed the manager at the office where we rented this car we were told oh we have found drugs in the cars you cant get in trouble.
It was dismissed like finding an old shoe.
The aggravation this caused me. Let alone thinking what could have happened. Enterprise needs to address this matter immediately not treat this like it didn't happen.
Parents look in every nook and cranny of these cars.
This could have been a horrible tragic incident.
Because Enterprise doesn't check the cars properly. I have contacted the Regional Mgr. he feels an apology is sufficient not in my book. So I have contacted the Regional VP. This is not going to be swept under the carpet.

I can definitely see where that would be cause for concern. The normal procedure would be for the branch manager to have the local law enforcement agency come to your location and retrieve the weapon.

"This is not going to be swept under the carpet."

What exactly would you like them to do, besides apologize? If someone hasn't already asked you that, they should have.

I think the problem is not only the fact that car preps and other employees are not being properly trained, and the car preperation procedures being enforced. Enterprise is the only rental car company in the industry that rents cars on a cash basis. This is a haven for criminal activity! There is absolutely no excuse for this happening!! An apology is the least they could do. Other than this I suppose they could give you free upgrades or a free day of rental or not make you pay for the rental the gun was found in. The only other thing they could do is change who they rent cars to AND improve training and enforcement of rental car cleaning and preping procedures.

I no longer work for Enterprise. I really sympathise with you for what happened. Have you seen Michael Moore's bowling for columbine? I think part of the problem is also in the way guns are handled in the US.

Enterprise employees do become very jaded after a while because they do find all sorts of things in these cars when they return. This is true for any rental car company. But for Enterprise, I think it has extended past what is acceptable and I think the reason is because of it's underwriting procedures. If the company didn't accept cash, criminals wouldn't be attracted to it, and it wouldn't be as easy for them to access these cars and use them for crime.

THANK GOD nothing happened!!!

Please, JeahHo could you be more sympathetic?

TFCERCTIT

Perhaps you might want to rethink your position. Branding Enterprise irresponsible because a customer left a gun in a car is placing the blame in the wrong place. There are many problems with what you say.

1) How can you train someone to better clean out a car?? Its a simple task parents routinely assign to kids so it doesnt take a brain surgeon to accomplish this task. I dont care how many hours you train someone, mistakes will be made. Have you ever made a mistake??

2) Is the previous customer responsible in any way??

3) Why is it fair that only customers with credit cards get to rent cars?? What about people that screwed up their credit and are starting over?? What about older Americans like my parents that dont believe in credit cards?? What about people who have never made enough money to qualify for a credit card??? There are millions of honest people that dont have credit cards and may want to rent a car. Please tell me your reasoning for discriminating against them.

4) Since you were an employee at one time, how many cash rentals did you write that ended up being used for criminal activity?? 1 out of 2 , 1 out of 5 , 1 out of 20 , 1 out of 1,000 ???

5) I worked at a branch that serviced a dealership. A police officer had returned our car and accidentally left his badge and gun belt (with gun in it) under the truck seat.

Bottom line is mistakes happen, there are millions of honest people without credit cards, and I am sure, plenty of criminals with credit cards.

Next theory please.

fairness has nothing to do with it.

cash deposits are a risk because there is no guarantee that you will get any owed amount past the deposit amount. this is why ERAC requires proof of residence up the as s before renting on cash.

we would use our discretion on whether or not to roll a car or walk a customer. If two old people came in and wanted to rent a car on cash, I'd be more lenient on the whole two utility bills matching address on license thing. However if a 21 year old punk came in with cash we'd find a reason not to rent the car.

Illegal? Probably.

hattrick-appreciate your point of view. Thank you for dissecting my post and giving me the chance to strengthen my original position. Here is my response to you:

First of all I did not brand Enterprise as solely responsible for this potentially catastrophic event. You will notice that I also blamed the United States of America’s policy on hand guns. Maybe I should expand on this. Yes OBVIOUSLY we all realize that the previous renter is to be blamed for leaving the gun in the car in the first place. Don’t you think that Enterprise should take responsibility for letting the next customer FIND IT THERE?!?!?!?!! Have you ever rented a room in a hotel and found a loaded gun between the sheets? If you did, wouldn’t you blame the company’s cleaning staff and subsequently the management? I WOULD.

Furthermore, even though I argued training and underwriting procedures are part of the problem doesn’t mean I am necessarily blaming the company. I think the company could rent on a cash basis if it changed its underwriting guidelines to regulations. In fact the group I worked for did this. I am not sure if it had an impact on the group or not as I left not long afterwards. I do know the company’s motivation for changing the guidelines to rules was because there were too many cars being damaged by cash renters who purchased our collision damage waiver and the group was losing money on these deals. It shouldn’t take a drop in profits to acknowledge that employees do not always adhere to the guidelines. (before you start pointing out that companies have a right to take measures to keep their profits up and lower their costs, I agree with you and I’m not saying that the motivation shouldn’t be profits…but that it should also be incidences like the one described by the concerned parent who started this post) The countless stories on this site and other anti-E sites and the many customers who have written to Enterprise directly about their concerns should motivate the company to take a second look at its practices.

Another thing-and a view this entire site is based on-if Enterprise actually implemented the mottos, mission statement, and its own guidelines, it wouldn’t have all these problems. I am sure that it would be able to rent on a cash basis without having to worry so much about drug dealers, pimps and other shady characters taking advantage of the fact that yes there is a huge customer base that can’t or won’t rent with a credit card who Enterprise wants to serve. Managers are so pressured to make sure that a certain percentage of their fleet is on rent that they sometimes will take in the customer who doesn’t qualify 100% to rent on a cash basis.

Why hasn’t Enterprise done more to find out WHY this happened in the first place? Why hasn’t an investigation taken place? Why haven’t questions like “Who was in charge of cleaning cars at the time this customer rented the vehicle?” “Who checked the customer into the car?” “What kind of training has the car prep or other persons involved in cleaning cars at the time received” “What can we do to improve the preparation of our cars so that we can avoid this from happening in the future” If I were the parent who started this topic and discovered a LETHAL weapon in their rental car, I would be demanding that these answers be given. Whoever was cleaning cars that day should have been disciplined and put on probation and an incident report should have been written and the customer should have been reassured that the company is doing everything in its power to avoid this from repeating itself.

Ya I’ve made mistakes. There have always been consequences.

Ya the previous customer is responsible in some way. If it was a cop’s gun it would have a serial number on it and if anyone had been injured from it, that cop would get in SERIOUS trouble.

You would be surprised how many people turned out to be shady characters. I had many different managers. Because of our bad debt our branch was banned from being able to do cash rentals. Made renting cars sooooo much nicer. I had one manager who would NOT approve a cash rental unless the customer met every single requirement-we rarely had bad experiences with customers then because the bad ones never qualified. I have had managers who authorized rentals that did not meet all the requirements. During that time, there was definitely an increase in our cars having pot in them, used you know whats, accidents while under the influence, etc. THANK GOD no guns were found but of course I worked in Canada where many people have never seen a gun in real life. The only reason I have ever seen a gun is because my friend’s dad is a Mountie hahahaha


We all know the reality that it is VERY hard to find a good car prep so YA you need to keep on top of the training and discipline!! Children are assigned this task by parents…do you have kids? You do realize that when the “clean their room” they shove everything in the closet and under their beds? You do realize when they “clean the car” they are shoving everything under the seats?? Hahaha

Ya, it is a simple job though and anyone should be able to do it. BUT you can’t let the simplicity of the job determine the level of training. JUST LOOK AT WHAT HAPPENED and it isn’t just this once! Customers are ALWAYS finding stuff in the cars-you say you worked for Enterprise…you probably got very used to people finding stuff in cars and just shrugged it off after a while. Most of it is harmless stuff and can easily be overlooked but A GUN WAS FOUND LOADED, DUDE, do you not GET THAT?

Bottom line: mistakes happen…when they do, take ownership, find out why it happened, and make sure it never happens again…learn from your mistakes or count on your mistakes repeating themselves!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Again to the parent you posted the original message: please excuse the passiveness of the bottom management you were dealing with and the insensitive people who have posted here without addressing your main concern. Take this as high up as you need to go…and hope that it trickles back down to the thousands of branches who every day are renting to people who don’t even qualify to rent a car in the first place.

Yes, You are right, a loaded gun is serious and there should be accountability. But again, you are relying people without a college education, some without high school educations to clean these cars. You cant expect them to really focus or even care about the importance of such things. You can fire someone everytime an incident like that happens but what good will it really do?? The next guy hired is more likely than not the same. No company can afford to pay someone who would actually care enough to ensure each and every vehicle is propperly prepared...not Hertz, Avis, National, Budget....no one.
Also I have found through internet research that a gun left in a car is not a unique experience to Enterprise alone. People have compalined about simuliar happenings at all of the other major rental companies and two have been sued over this within the last two years. Neither case was tied to Enterprise.
I do understand the seriousness of this situation but until you change basic human behavior (forgetfullness), no company will have a perfect record.
You could always drive your own car.........

hattrick, I will remind you about what you said about cleaning cars not being a difficult task, people get their children to clean cars. SO why wouldn't an adult, even if they don't have a degree, be able to clean a car and remember to check in every nook and crany.

Can any company you mentioned afford to have a customer's child shot in the head because they couldn't come up with a way to ensure that a loaded gun is not found in their rental car???

Sometimes I think because Enterprise employees are all college and university grads, they think everyone without a degree has the IQ of a monkey. Don't treat the car preps as if mediocracy is acceptable from people because they are doing a job that doesn't require post secondary education and the pay is appropriate for the level of difficulty.

You don't think the average car prep would care if a loaded gun was found under the seat of a car he/she had supposedly cleaned and as a result someone could have DIED? You really do underestimate the people you hire to perform the job. I guess they'll just live up to your very low expectations.

This has happened at other rental car companies and they have been sued?? AWESOME, finally some advice the original poster can USE!!

To the concerned parent who started this thead "Parents Beware" if they continue to ignore the problem and do nothing to give you peace of mind that this will never happen again, SUE THEM!!

Hey, hattrick, where did you hear about those lawsuits?? Care to divulge where you got this information in your internet research?

To err is human. mistakes do happen, when they do, acknowledge it, identify WHY it happened, think of ways to prevent it from ever happening again and learn from it, or else expect it to repeat itself...and don't expect the same LUCK that nothing will happen next time....

If only we COULD change human behaviour...guns wouldn't even exist.

hey I almost forgot to ask why you even bothered mentioning that loaded guns have been found in the rental cars of other major rental car companies.

I thought Enterpise rose above its competition because it was more conerned with its customer's happy rental experience than it was with what the competition is doing. Doesn't enterprise set its own standards? Don't look at whether or not guns were found in Hertz and other company's rental cars....do you really want to be like them?! NO! You want to be above them, don't you? TAKE RESPONSIBILITY and try to identify why this happened and what can be done to prevent it. That type of attitude will breed innovation...and will save your company.

Maybe I failed to identify the reasons why this occured in the first place.

At least someone tried.

ok, TFCERCTIT....why exactly do you care so much? there are negligent parents out there that leave their weapons at home and their own children kill themselves with them. Is it that you are bored? did you watch "Bowling for Columbine" too many times? My confusion comes to the point where you are so upset about someone leaving a gun in a glove compartment. Children don't usually go through a glove compartment, at least not as much as they probably go thorough your sock drawer or room. Rethink if your point of view is a product of Enterprise's forgetfulness or merely a product of some other issues that you might have. Bottom line, you have been forgetful and the rest of the world has too. Get over it...if anything, be happy you found it and saved a life... Gee, I think you're a Hero! Come on now...use your energy to fight the NRA, not Enterprise...guns are usually found in many other places aside from a rental car.

I highly doubt Enterprise-Rent-A-Car is a Failing Enterprise: www.forbes.com/finance/li...pe=Company

^^Go to that site...check it out.
What happened to you? Did they not let you go past the 1st interview? or did they not even call you back? haha...