Customer Forgets Guitar In Car; Enterprise Employee Tries To Extort $3,000

July 18, 2004

To Whom It May Concern:

On July 7th, 2004, I returned my enterprise rental car to (Arlington Auto-Body), the auto body shop that was fixing my vehicle. On Saturday July 10 I realized that I made a huge mistake. I left my prized guitar in the trunk of the silver Mitsubishi Galant without realizing until that Saturday morning July 10. I immediately called the Cranston, RI Enterprise office that wrote my contract for and provided me with the car initially. The office was closed until Monday morning. After more calls to other Enterprise offices and realizing that only the airport location was open on the weekend, I decided to contact a National headquartered office with the toll free number. When I reached a customer service rep. at the toll free office, I explained the problem. That rep. told me that the vehicle was taken from Arlington Auto Body to the Johnston office and cleaned, then it was driven to Midas muffler for an alignment, and rented by two other people since I had returned it.

First thing in the morning on Monday the 12h, I made contact with managers Nick and Fernando at the Johnston office. Fernando was helpful in following up with Midas, and the two customers that had rented the car since I returned it. Nothing turned up at this point in two days (July 12 & 13). After two days going by (Monday the 12th and Tuesday the 13th), I decided to visit the Johnston location because the guitar was not showing up anywhere. On the telephone Fernando told me that he would help me out by writing a brief timeline of where the car was and who had access to the keys after I had returned it so that I could do my own follow up since nothing was materializing. When I arrived a the Johnston location on Wednesday the 14th, Nick would not allow me to have any of this information stating that the “privacy act” prevented him from doing anything further for me. He gave me the telephone numbers of two individuals that could supposedly help me out. The woman that I called told me that she could not help and that she dealt strictly with car accident incidents involving Enterprise rental cars. The “area manager” did not return the two phone calls that I left him detailing the incident with my problem of stolen / lost property.

Luckily the Johnston car prep named Alphonse was the individual that went the extra mile to try and find my property. I approached him when I visited the Johnston office that Wednesday July, 14. He seemed the most helpful of everyone that I had dealt with to that point either on the phone or in person. He was really the only person truly sympathetic to my loss and seemed as though he sincerely wanted to help a customer with a problem. He told me that he checked the car's records and that the car I rented actually went from Arlington auto body to the Cranston location to be prepped before it went to Johnston. I told him that I would give a reward to the person who located my guitar. Alphonse contacted me on Friday 16 and told me that a “car prep” nicknamed “Boogie” admitted to him that he had my guitar but was scared to return it because he did not want to lose his job or police to be involved. A number of phone calls between Alphonse and myself followed that evening of Friday 16. Alphonse, “an intermediary not by choice”, was trying to convince “Boogie” to call me directly to arrange for me to pick up my property that he removed from Enterprise property 9 days previous.

“Boogie” finally called me Friday evening at around 9 p.m.. I asked him when I could get my guitar back. He immediately asked me, do you got the paper? Shocked at his response but fairly sure that he was asking me for money, I asked him what he meant. He responded, do you got the money? I’ll give you the guitar if you have the money. Again shocked at his “hostage like attitude”, I responded by asking him how much money I had to pay him to get my property back. He told me that unless I had $3000.00 dollars he would not give me the guitar. “Boogie” had an over-all disrespectful, belligerent, and thug-like demeanor toward me. Very suspicious of his motives, I asked him if he could briefly describe the guitar (thinking that maybe he was just trying to meet me to rob me of the ransom money that he demanded. He gave me a very accurate description of the instrument so I knew there was no doubt that he had it in his possession. I was in the Cranston police department when Boogie called me and I had a Cranston police officer (Officer Weekly) listening to the conversation while holding the telephone up to his ear so that he could hear Boogie incriminating himself. The officer heard him state that he has the guitar, that he would not give it to me unless I had the money, and Boogie’s description of the guitar to prove that he in fact had it. He was asking me to drive down a street called Hanover St. (off of Cranston St. in Providence, RI) and he would just be there waiting for me.

The Police strongly suggested that I not deal with Boogie and allow them to handle the investigation / recovery of my property. I opted to let the Cranston police department handle the ordeal given that “Boogie” was selfish, shady and rude toward someone whose property he had stolen. I was absolutely disgusted at the fact that this guy (an Enterprise employee) was basically holding a very expensive and more importantly sentimental item of mine HOSTAGE!!!!

The Cranston police informed me that this matter had to be given over to the detectives unit the next day (Saturday, July 17). I also spoke with a regional Enterprise manager named Jason that evening and he did a three way call between him myself and Alphonse so that he could get more info about this “Boogie”. Alphonse co-operated by giving up “Boogie’s” telephone number. In one last attempt to get “Boogie to return my guitar, I left a message on his cell phone answering machine telling him to return the guitar to Alphonse that evening or Police Detectives would be involved the next day. Boogie did not return the instrument. He instead left me a very “matter of fact”, and arrogant message on my cell phone the following morning, Saturday July 17. He said that he did not trust the Spanish kid, he did not trust me, he does not work at no enterprise and he don’t know nothing about no guitar. He finished by saying “you fucked up dog, you had to get police involved, now you ain’t never going to see your guitar again.” This was a message left to me from an Employee of Enterprise Rent-A-Car after he stole my property from Enterprise property and refused to give it back because I did not meet him the way that he suggested with the “ransom money” that he demanded!!!!

This is where I stand on Sunday evening July 18th as I wait to see if between the Cranston police department and Enterprise Rental company my guitar will ever be returned to me. I am disgusted with this individual “Boogie” and more importantly I am disgusted with Enterprise as a company who made such a poor choice in hiring an individual like this!!!

At this point, a theft, mental distress, and extortion law-suit against Enterprise car rental, as well as public exposure of this incident are first and foremost on my mind.

Sincerely,

The most dissatisfied customer that Enterprise car rental has ever had!!!

D.F. Rhode Island
 

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