Complaint Review: Enterprise Rent A Car

Our car unfortunately broke down while passing through Bishop, CA over the 4th of July weekend. We were lucky to find an honest and capable mechanic who didn't take advantage of our situation. Not so with Enterprise.

Bishop's entire economy is based on tourist industry. That's it really.  But this Enterprise office is only open M-F 8-5.  Honestly can you imagine the hotels or restaurants operating on that schedule? We rented a car from them on Friday, knowing that we would only need it for 1 day, but we were forced to rent it for 3 days since they are closed over the weekend.  We accepted this usury practice since they were the only place in town with a car to rent.  

The man at the desk understood our situation, and explained that we could use their courtesy drop-off when we got our own car repaired.  The next afternoon, our car was fixed.  We returned our rental car in pristine condition, with a full tank of gas on Saturday afternoon.  Both my husband and I took pictures of the car in their lot as we dropped it off showing no damage at all. And we drove home in our own car.  

Surprise, on Monday morning I get a call asking what we had done to the hood of the car.  Like another complaint on this website, they said it looked like someone had sat on the car, leaving behind a large dent.  I emphatically denied causing any damage, and even let him know we had taken pictures.  A full 10 days later I get a letter from Enterprise Claims department.  Apparently charging tourist 3 days rent for 1 day of use, isn't greedy enough for them.  They also want us to pay for damage done to the car in their lot when we weren't even in the city.  But still they don't have any pictures of the damage they can send to me.  For some reason it takes a month for that?  I guess that gives them lots of time to make as many more dents in the car as they want. Who knows how much more "damage" they manufacture to make their claim look good?  "Let's just make that dent a little larger shall we, after all no one has seen it or documented it yet?"

This seems like insurance fraud to me. They are reassigning their own liability insurance risk to their renters.  Most renters are visitors like ourselves who will need to use the 'courtesy drop-off' since they won't provide any actual customer service on the days renters need them.  And why should they?  Such an excellent diabolical scam.  They can charge renters for extra unneeded days on every car rental.  And they don't have to take responsibility for any security at their office or parking lot, because they can just pass those risks and expenses off to the tourists and renters passing through town.  These guys are running an absolute business scam.

This business has no interest in providing service when they can make more money and avoid more risk by closing their offices during the very days the majority of customers need them.  And they provide zero security on their lot, not even a video camera.  That's why I'm labeling it a scam.