Forum menu
Reporting to the credit card company as fraudulent is good start. IME they are really good at refunding straight away, that then shifts the onus to Enterprise to chase you for money rather than you chasing them for a refund. Hopefully they'll give up and go away, make it difficult and not worth their effort
I think your only line in this is going to be accosting the lad that did the walk around with you and seeing if you can 'jog his memory'.
If he has a 'memory lapse' and can't remember the conversation....eyeballs are a bit like fog lights - sometimes they bulge out from the body work when they are not meant to.....
report any damage that has not been listed on the rental agreement within the first hour of the start of your hire
Point out to them that you did, just before the start which was within 1hour of the start.
Don't give up, email radio 4 money box, thisismomney podcast, must be a mse forum post on this.
I rented a car ages ago, company found a windscreen chip, charged me say 100 quid, I got quote for 50 quid to repair and forwarded it, hire co reviewed quote to 50 quid. Cant believe they still try it on, google goldcar alicante airport they are notorious.
I passed my test when I was 17 and I'm 54 years old and have never been in a crash as a driver or ever had to make an insurance claim. I have to use enterprise cars for my work and somehow I've managed to damage three different cars during work journeys with the tax payer footing the bill. We instigated a policy to video cars inside and out on arrival and return including all the bodywork (including the roof), wheels, wheel wells, aerials, parcel shelves, dashboard lights, etc as we've collectively been fleeced for all of these items. Ive had to provide video evidence to disprove claims twice recently. Shysters.
I posted earlier about them trying to invoice us for damage caused and that I asked for evidence etc from their branch and that I had heard nothing further so thought the problem had gone away, well today one of my team got an email about an unpaid invoice so I'm expecting to have to go at them again.... absolute shysters as above.
This particular rental was dropped off at the driver's house and they parked it down the street and then just knocked on the door and handed the keys over. No documents to sign or anything... I will be contesting it as far as I can be bothered but likely will end up paying just to shut them up.
Don’t give up, email radio 4 money box
Done! Thought about CC'ing my mates Kyle and Oliver at Enterprise but they don't deserve the heads up.
must be a mse forum post on this.
Turns out there is. Dozens of them.
I'm never renting a car again!
I’m never renting a car again!
Like I said, I'd have given you a lift!
Unless you have any evidence to suggest this damage was pre-existing to your hire unfortunately, we have no option but to hold you liable or the costs of the repair.
English Law operates on the principle of innocent until proven guilty. Have they evidenced that this alleged damage even exists?
likely will end up paying just to shut them up.
... which is exactly what they bank on.
English Law operates on the principle of innocent until proven guilty.
Whilst true, civil verdicts are returned on a balance of probability.
and IIRC the hire co have the before sheet with no damage and the after inspection sheet with the damage - plus you sign to say what damage is on the car when you get it.
the real error here is not having the damage recorded on collection
I use enterprise a fair amount, always check the cars carefully and always get them to note even minor damage that is less than they would normally charge for
Ive never had the slightest issue. Infact last time I hired I was upgraded 3 levels at no cost to me
I'm sure the OP wishes he was as perfect. 🙄
The actual real Error is that Enterprise have this shit built into their operating model and regularly fleece money from their customers.
sorry - it really wasn't meant like that. apologies
Im just suprised that you got this sort of service from enterprise. Have you tried escalating it to a regional / head office?
Heard recently of a group of lads hiring a T6 for a weekend away. Multivan thing with really flash alloys.
One of the guys swapped them for the steelies and new hub caps from his van.
Wasn't picked up on return.
I would follow the process that TJ linked to starting with their internal process and then escalating to the external one. Not a car hire thing but my wife recently had to go through a complaints process with EDF energy and although she had no luck with the internal one once she had done that and got to the ombudsman she got all her money back from EDF along with a small payment plus EDF gets charged by tthe ombudsman fle the pleasure. That may be enough to.make enterprise back down
I hate car hire companies
It may well be that being fastidious about checking vehicles thoroughly on pickup and videoing and photographing the entire vehicle has meant that TJ has been treated fairly, others who’ve taken Enterprises’ word on its delivery/pickup condition have been ripped off because they can’t prove otherwise. <br />The moral being spend half an hour going over the whole car with a camera, and do a sketch of the car on all sides and make notes about the locations of any damage. This was part of my job for around five years, and failing to note and photograph damage or other issues can lead to a world of hurt. And not just bodywork and interior, wheels and tyres, including the spare if fitted.
Also do the same when returning the vehicle.
I couldn’t find any of my old car condition check sheets, but a very quick search produced this:
Just delete the tinted bits of URL across the sheet and the company logo off the top and print off when/if hiring a car and photograph it when handing the keys in, and also the one filled in when picking the vehicle up, then you have a record they can’t argue with, along with the photographs taken of the vehicle.
Posted this before.
Origin Stamp. Free Blockchain timestamped tool usable on a mobile phone. Photograph everything before handing in the keys...
https://originstamp.com/
Surely a video starting with the in car display date and time - which matches with the phones time stamp data of the recording. Show interior walk around and then do the wheels and the tires.
Sixt send you the car return photo history when you collect your car so you can see what's been recorded previously which can be handy. My old man got photos of his latest polestar hire on the back of a low loader with the wheels smashed up and not a straight panel down that side......
Probably why it was an electrical bag of nails cutting out at random on the mway and not playing nice with chargers.
Last hire car I had from Avis lit up like an Xmas tree on the way back to the airport. All the dash lights together. They seemed about as worried about this as me.
The moral being spend half an hour
Er, what?
No, I'll have the guy doing the inspection actually noting the damage. It shouldn't be up to the customer to do everything twice.
yet to have a good experience with one that i have used directly.
I think the best one was a knackered corsa delivered for the wife to use while hers was getting repaired. It arrived with 1 flat front tyre 2 bald and 2 with nails in! the side looked like it had been side swiped and the screen was cracked.
You can win those cases but its a PITA. Enterprise rented me a car with an illegal tyre plug in one of the tyres. I took it back the same day I picked it up, showed them, they said 'Oh dear' and arranged for me to take it to a tyre place.
I wasted several hours of my life dropping this car off, collecting etc. in the end but it all got sorted, job done I thought.
Then I got the bill.
So I went back to the local branch and said why do I have a bill?
e: Because you punctured the tyre.
me: No it had a leaking (illegally) plugged tyre.
e: Not according to the report
me: I showed it to you in the rain, remember?
e: No
Me: It was only 2 weeks ago, how could you forget that?
e: Sorry I don't remember that happening
Me: Well, luckily here's a video of you looking at it.
e: Oh, Ok I will let the repairs dept know.
So then you think ok now it's sorted? Was it f***. So they went ahead and billed it anyway. Call into the branch, oh it's out of our hands sorry. You'll need to raise a complaint (or some other thing its called). I'm on holiday at this point, called the complaints people who basically went round the whole if you didn't note it it's your fault line, at which point I lost my stuff with that guy as who would accept a car with an illegal tyre repair in the first place, and did he think I bough a jack with me every time I collected a car to check for it? The day after I got back from holiday I went back into branch, having called ahead to warn them of my likely viewpoint if I walked back in and it wasn't sorted.
Miraculously the manager had managed to resolve it this time and it went away. Still never got an apology though.
You dont have the luxury of a video, but ultimately they're going to fob you off unless you get someone from the branch to intervene, and dont let them tell you they can't. They clearly can.
I have a local choice of Enterprise or Arnold Clark. Rock and hard place?
Last time I tried to hire a van from Enterprise I was 15 mins late picking it up.
'Sorry mate gave it to someone else cos you were late, we have another, but we just need to clean it, will be about half an hour'
Nope!
TBF Arnold Clark have been ok, but I have been mindful of taking the no excess insurance options.
Those with annual car hire insurance policies, check the Ts & Cs. When I first got a policy, there was a condition about not being able to hire a car within 200 miles (might have been more) of your home address. Not sure why, but I haven't noticed it on later policies.
Is the excess insurance for car hire worthwhile as a precaution? I’ve just booked a car with Avis without all the extras but this thread is making me very nervy.
There were a few years where I was booking hire cars 2 or 3 times a year and the annual price was cheaper than paying the extra premium for just one hire. Never used it, but made the whole experience feel less stressful for me.
It covers stuff like this plus also your own incompetence. And given when you hire a car, you are in an unfamiliar car, in an unfamiliar place, statistically you are likely to be more incompetent than normal.
Is the excess insurance for car hire worthwhile as a precaution?
Yes IMO
I reversed a hire car into a pole. £375 bill - my excess insurance covered it no question
I have an annual policy from insurance for hire car £48 a year
enterprise is £15 a day, arnold clark £10
These companies are utter scum. We shouldn’t have to live out lives with paranoia and believing we’re going to be ripped off if we slip up.
I remember calling out a mismatch between the relatively clean pre-rental infection sheet and the ragged Spanish Fiesta hire car which was a collection of scratches. I’d already rejected their first offer for having bald tyres. I was taking their excess (drive it like you stole it) cover, so it didn’t matter but what a pack of miscreants.
When my car was being repaired I had a BMW iX hire car from Enterprise I paid £7 per day for their excess insurance, capped at £70. They didn't bother inspecting the car when they collected it. Without the cover, their excess was £2K... 😳
Mayabe I got lucky with an LWB tranny from enterprise a couple of years back..
No bothers, but I did buy the extra excess insurance for about £20 iirc, and they saw me videoing the van before taking it away and again when dropping off.
Followed the complaints procedure by asking the local branch for the Area Manage and Regional Head Office contact details. No reply.
Phoned the number and was given a generic customer services email address so sent my complaint to them. No reply.
Sorry for biting at TJ last night but you are infuriatingly perfect at everything.
If I hear nothing this week I'm going into the branch on Saturday morning. I'm just afraid that if I do that I'll blow my chances of getting a refund and might have to satisfy myself with paying £200 to bellow a torrent of foul language in someone's face.
When my car was being repaired I had a BMW iX hire car from Enterprise I paid £7 per day for their excess insurance, capped at £70.
You can get annual policies from places like Insurance4CarHire. I think I paid about £40 last summer for my annual policy to cover holiday hire car. Money well spent.
Good luck OP, sounds like you have a bit of an uphill battle.
I was just looking through my emails this morning to see who last contacted me about the alleged damage and it was Kyle - who is I assume the same person the OP is dealing with. The most recent email I have is from the branch manager who just says he is "contacting me about an unpaid invoice as apparently my accounts dept are insisting on a PO" - yeah no shit Sherlock - it's to stop people like you trying it on with made up invoices in the hope of just getting them paid without any question. I have asked him for all the details of said invoice (he didn't think to include it in the email) and I have had no response as yet... My last correspondence with Kyle was "prove we signed for the van in mint condition or jog on" followed a week later by "Since I have heard nothing more I am assuming the matter is closed". Clearly, some 2 months later on they are trying a different tactic. ****ers.
NO worries Sharkattack. On rereading I can see why it annoyed 🙂
Is the excess insurance for car hire worthwhile as a precaution? I’ve just booked a car with Avis without all the extras but this thread is making me very nervy.
As others have said, broadly yes. The cost is normally relatively low for buying one of these policies from a separate supplier and it gives peace-of-mind.
But... it's an insurance policy that you're buying from an insurance company - so it pays to be cautious! Read the Ts + Cs before purchasing to make sure you're actually covered. Note the exclusions. And, if the rental company says there's damage then you'll still have to pay them, and then make a claim on your excess policy.
In terms of general doom-mongering about rentals, unfortunately it is more about the rental location and the staff than the brand. In many cases there's nothing to worry about, but there are definitely some rental offices where charging for damage is part of the business model. In the OPs case, doing a one-way rental is always something to be particularly cautious about - because there could be very different attitudes to damage between staff at 2 different locations.
Taking heed of all the advice in this thread - doing a reasonably thorough inspection, taking photos / videos, asking for anything you're not happy about to be noted, and buying a separate excess cover policy - should cover 99% of things.
What they said.
As a minimum, do a walk around the car whilst videoing it on your phone (on pick up and drop off).. it's standard 'arse saving tactics' and perfectly normal practice.
If you do happen to graze an alloy rim or scratch a wing miror or something minor, then some cheap excess insurance cover will cover that.
If they try to pull your pants down over a pre-existing problem, you have video evidence to back your defence up that it was already broken.
It's a sad sign of the times, and I'm sure hire companies do try it on sometimes...but I'm equally sure some customers 'drive it like they stole it' and wonder why they end up with a big bill.
Be aware these excees covers only cover genuine damage in my opinion not an option for shady practices of the european holiday hire car companies.
I got charged 250€ for a tiny less than a stone chip mark on a very scruffy Yaris in Spain. We thought we picked up scuffed alloys, bumpers and dented doors but let the bonnet as unmarked on the collection inspection. Chances are it was already known about and a 'trap' by the hire car company.
Claimed on my excess insureance and they refused payment because the damage was not significant and not actively casued by any carelessness or wrong doing by me. Fair wair and tear effectively.
I take out hire car company provided cover now the lack of stress about damage and their fear of charges is worth the cost. I literally can collect a car, not inspect it other than a cursory check and then return it free of worry.
I wasn't expecting to receive this. Not yet anyway.
Apologies on behalf of the hassle and lack of communication you have received here. I am in touch with our Damage Recovery team in order to close down this claim, and any payment still held by Enterprise will be processed for refund for you tomorrow. This may take a few working days to arrive, but rest assured I have settled this with the team over there.
I have launched an investigation / disciplinary process into the failings and breakdowns in communication here, which has unfortunately left you with a poor rental experience. For that, I genuinely do apologise, as I don't believe your experience reflects at all the high level of service we aim to provide.
If you ever needed anything in the future, please reach out to myself and I will be more than happy to personally oversee your booking and discount the rental to amend the hassle caused here. If you have any questions at all, please reach out and let me know.
This is my response from the branch manager after asking for the Area Manager and Regional Head Office contact details. It's my first response from anyone apart from the quite blunt shutdown I received initially. As far as I knew no one was doing anything to sort it out which is why I was so frustrated.
I didn't even have to go down there with my Bombers.
Good stuff.
Thats more the sort of response I was expecting
Be aware these excees covers only cover genuine damage in my opinion not an option for shady practices of the european holiday hire car companies.
I was shopping for car hire insurance excess cover last week and at least one particular policy had an exception for the particularly cheap and notorious hire company Green Motion…
Some rental brokers now offer to bundle excess cover which might give you a bit more clout when the fingers get pointed.
I’ve only ever been stiffed once and Section 75’d Europcar. In the Med I tend to rent from local suppliers who are far less picky or diligent (cars are a bit shitter)
That's good news.