Enterprise Rent-A-Car Price Gouges A Stranded Customer

I HATE Enterprise car rental. Every time I give them another chance, I’m always sorry.

While traveling for work in Florida, the group I was working with took me to Enterprise in Gainesville. Enterprise quoted me $500 for a month long car rental, and the rest of the group left me in the Enterprise office, trusting that everything was fine. The minute the manager saw that I was alone and stranded, the price of the car rental kept going up and up to over $1200 for a month long rental. They knew I couldn’t go anywhere else to rent a car and they had me like a cat with a mouse.

They also assured me that if the rental car broke down that they would come out right away from Gainesville and give me a replacement car.

Well, while I was working in Ocala on a Saturday or a Sunday (the weekends were the most lucrative for me to work in that job), the car engine warning emergency lights came on, and I was afraid I would damage the car if I continued to drive it (I didn’t want to be liable for that), and because of what the rental agent had said, I was thinking it would be easy to get a replacement car and that Enterprise would be happy that I heeded the emergency lights and didn’t keep on driving the car and ruin it. I walked in the sweltering heat to a used car business and the salesman kindly allowed me to call Enterprise on his cell phone as I didn’t have a phone with me. I was on the phone for way over 45 minutes. All the Enterprise offices were closed and the best they could do was tell me to pay (myself) for a bus or a taxi to ORLANDO (hundreds of miles away) and get one of the Enterprise replacement cars there IF they had any. By then the used car salesman was getting more and more worked up that Enterprise wouldn’t help me and I guess he was thinking he might have to help me, so he yanked his cell phone away from me in a huff and yelled at the Enterprise operator. He said, “give me the keys!” and ran across the highway, started up the rental car and deposited it for me to start driving no matter if the engine emergency lights were on or not.

I left in tears. Thankfully, the car ran alright, but it had been a scare. I figured out that probably what had happened to the car was that the outside air was open and the air conditioning was on and the car over-heated.

The next thing that happened while I was working in Clearwater, Florida, was similar. The people I was working with paid me and dropped me off at Enterprise rental car. They only left me there after I was assured that I would be taken care of. The manager was a woman and I felt I could trust her more than the slick male managers at the Gainesville office. THE MINUTE the manager saw that I was alone and stranded, the LIES started streaming from her mouth. It was shocking and slimy. In the same sentence, she would say the price was $75 and then $85 (for some stupid reason I mentioned that I had just been paid $85) and then it jumped up to $150. I honestly didn’t have enough money to get a car for the weekend so I could work and I wouldn’t have had any gas money either. They had advertised $9.95 or something and of course that wasn’t available, but I didn’t think it would be.

Once again, I left that office SWEARING I would NEVER rent from Enterprise again. It was a really really HOT sweltering Florida day, and I had to cross a super busy street with no cross walks, it was AWFUL. I missed another weekend of very lucrative work. I think they call that street “Suicide Alley.” I have never witnessed such disgusting liars before and I will GLADLY join any class action lawsuit against Enterprise in a nano second.

Isis Marks

More on Enterprise car rental at the Failing Enterprise home page.