Enterprise Car Rental Damage Scam
Complaint
Bret
Country: United States
• We rented a car Enterprise in Sidney, Ohio after my daughter had an auto accident due to icy roads. The person who rented us the vehicle was very polite and professional except when we went to complete the inspection of the vehicle. It was about 5:30 pm and getting pretty dark out. It was difficult to tell if there were any defects on the car. To make matters worse, it was backed into a parking spot. The ground was a snowy mud mixture so we were not able to stand behind the vehicle to attempt to inspect the rear of the vehicle. The employee assured me the rear was not damaged. It would have been easy to pull the vehicle into the heated and lighted garage bay to properly inspect the vehicle but I am sure he was ready to go home. When we returned the vehicle two days later there was a different employee working. She inspected the vehicle and noticed a swirl mark in the paint on the rear hatch and a very small concave spot. The employee asked what happened to the car. We explained that we have no idea because we didn’t notice it. She was extremely rude and all but accused us of lying. We asked to have the employee who inspected the vehicle when we rented it to complete the check in and were told that was not possible. I looked the car over much closer this time and discovered at least 10 areas of varying degrees of damage. I photographed these and pointed them out to the employee at which.time she just stared at me. We notified our insurance company that we are disputing the issue. We are usually too busy to buff our own vehicles, we definitely didn't buff a rental car and cause the swirl marks. I have no intention to ever rent from Enterprise ever again and I am going to tell anyone who will listen to me not to rent from them either. They are not professional or polite and I am convinced they caused the swirl mark when they cleaned the car last and are trying to get our insurance to pay for the damage to the vehicle.
Comments
I have not used there services since and I advise everyone that I know to use other rental places, because Enterprise in LaPlace, Louisiana understands that this is a rural community and they will only take advantage of them. So sad.
BEWARE don't get scammed! Take pictures and document everything even if they refuse to write it down prior to renting a car. The customer service at this location from their manager was horrible and accusatory.
IT WAS AN AWFUL EXPERIENCE, and I will be calling our Better Business Bureau to make a complaint!
From the pattern of complaints, it appears that they have some "damage recovery" department set up as a "profit center", and they are maximizing their profit from "damage". They have trained their site employees how to set up customers to ensure there is no record or likelyhood of documentation of "prior damage" to refute the claim. On return, the second employee can then safely claim any small scratch or ding, knowing there is no prior inspection to refute it, so they can just search for anything.
You'd have to take pictures of the whole car, or get access to the past "repair" invoices on the particular car, to prove you've been set up, and they could still claim it was an "accident". And since they're probably not actually "repairing" these small scratches, even those records wouldn't catch them.
No inspection on original delivery, which sounds like they were "sloppy" or "just busy", is an active step in supporting later claims of "damage" by the customer. It looks innocent, because it's what's not there that should be, that is the clue. This same pattern of "split deception" for deniability is common with various types of consumer fraud. It all looks "accidental" rather than planned, but requires coordination between different employees.
Note that the final "settlement" attempt was through the manager himself. .This too, fits common scam patterns, where the routine actions needed to support the play are carried out by low level employees kept in the dark, but the final play is by one experienced at it, who knows when to push it or fold. It's like a poker game.
This type of shakedown is usually framed as a "settlement", aimed at getting money out of you rather than getting it tied up in some insurance claim with your insurer, which would also leave a trail in the insurance industry's claim tracking system. It appears that the insurance companies are on to them, and routinely reject these claims. That's why they offered to "settle" for just the amount of your deductible. That also shows planning. They are, in effect, shaking you down for your deductible, portraying it as a "settlement" so most people will just quietly pay it rather than file an insurance claim they think might raise their rates.
Fraud is about getting your money "voluntarily", while also giving you a "reason" to just pay it and shut up. When you find those elements in what appears to be "an accident", recognize that you may actually be looking at a carefully crafted scheme to separate you from your money. The whole "collision damage waiver" bit is part of this attitude that customers are for shearing.
You should also file a complaint with the local District Attorney. Any scam that routinely preys on travelers, like car rentals, is often underreported, because the victims have to leave and have no time to mess around with reporting it. Any complaints that result, however, should be funnelled through the local District Attorney, as they are responsible for policing state and local consumer fraud laws.
There was no damage that I WAS ABLE TO SEE when I was renting. The gentleman was very abrupt when he took me out to the car. He circled the car starting at the trunk and going around to the right side of the vehicle, so never really looking closely at the left back door. He couldn't get away fast enough, like it was time to go home. I definitely noticed an attitude. That car was parked at work in the same spot every day and at home on our driveway. No way could any damage have been gotten on the left passenger door. So way. I was so careful. They allowed me to drop the car off at the body shop. I parked the car toward the back of this lot, picked up my car and went home. Then we get a call that there is $1,000 worth of damage to the back door. My husband went to see the damage and could not see anything nor could the enterprise employee. They had to look at every angle and wipe the car with his hand to notice what would look as if someone's butt leaned into the car. Since enterprise allows me to drop the car off somewhere else, who is to say that damage wasn't received after I dropped it off, but I don't think so, because I believe the damage was there already. This is a scam and how convenient that it is just the amount of the deductible and who want to report it to their ins. co after just putting a claim in. This is disgusting. $1000 to strip the paint to put some kind of skin on in order to repaint it. I'LL NEVER RENT FROM THEM AGAIN, and I've learned a lesson. Do not trust.