Enterprise Rent A Car Threw Away a ticket and caused my License suspension. Staten Island New York
I was working in sales part time for my friends business. We usually took his car on sales runs, but the radiator went and we rented from Enterprise to get some scheduled runs out of the way. A one day rental basically. Mistake number one, Enterprise swaps out the original rental for a different car without notice. Didn't seem like a big deal, so we went with it.
Mistake number two, in a light rain we discovered the wipers weren't working. We fiddled with the controls a bit and they came back to life, so fine. Later that night we get pulled over for a brake light being out. The officer is told it's a rental, which I thought would be the end of it. He gives me the ticket anyway and says to present to Enterprise and all should be good.
The car is returned to Enterprise a day later, along with the ticket, and the guy says it will be taken care of. Not a big deal right?...
TWO YEARS PASS. I go to the DMV randomly to renew my license. go through the whole process, and at the very end, the woman says: "Wait, your license has been suspended.." I call the number she gives me to get more info. The ticket was never responded to. Probably thrown out or lost the same day.
We speak to Enterprise about it, and they say they have no record of the rental - that they don't keep records that long. Are you kidding me? If this were 1974, I may believe a company of Enterprise's size only has paper records, a file folder of reciepts in a corner. So if a car rented by Enterprise has a fault that gets the driver in trouble, they aren't liable, because they don't keep records that old? How about taking care of it when you recieve notice and it wouldn't be a problem?
4 Updates & Rebuttals
Enterprise Rent-A-Car
St. Louis,Missouri,
USA
Enterprise Rent A Car
#5UPDATE Employee
Fri, March 06, 2015
Mel, we take customer service seriously and want to assist you. Please email Care@Enterprise.com with your contact information, exact location you rented from, reservation/rental agreement number and reference # if you still have it so we can address this situation. Please reference 150306-000975. -Tatiana
Responsibility
#5Author of original report
Fri, March 06, 2015
My being the driver and taking responsibility is exactly why I'm here now. It's more than what Enterprise or you can say from my point of view.Again, the car was already a swap out from the model that had been paid for.
I've worked as a driver so I know all about checking the basics before taking off. That said, no customer is expected to do a 12 point inspection with a full pit crew before driving off the lot.
The one thing I would say in defense of both parties, is I'm surprised the ticket was even written, once the officer learned it was a rental, but what can you do? I followed instructions and got the paperwork to the people who were supposed to see it. What happened then?
If they had responded to the ticket in a timely manner, I imagine it would have been thrown out altogether, but that's wishful thinking because in the real world, I'm already taking full responsibility.
As for non-compliance, that would also be on Enterprise. There would be no notice if the response was immediate. Whoever thought the best idea would be to throw it out or ignore it...? Wow, what else is there to say?
Bubba Lee
REd Deer,Canada
Tyg - Wrong and Nasty again
#5General Comment
Thu, March 05, 2015
The OP presented the ticket to Enterpise and reasonably expected by the behaviour of the person who accepted the ticket and vehical return that it was taken care of.
Not being Paranoid he reasonably expected that people would do as they say.
Now he is in trouble, and a reasonable person would expect that Enterprise will loose the comming Lawsuit and if he can get the ticket heard in court he will be able to get it delt with with no extra penalty or voided entirely as the ticket was issued for a vehical registered as a rental to Enterprise.
Hopefully this turns really ugly and People at Enterprise loose their Franchise.
Be charitable Tyg, some day others will Judge you, then being a troll wont be so much fun.
Tyg
Pahrump,Nevada,
USA
Driver...
#5General Comment
Thu, March 05, 2015
Sorry "Mel" but you are ignoring a small fact in order to place the blame on them. YOU WERE THE DRIVER!!! Its YOUR responsibility to ensure the vehicle YOU want to drive has all working equipment. It would have taken YOU less then 3 mins to do a safety check. It also sounds like you had someone with you so they would have made this process faster. No YOU did the OTHER thing and ASSUMED. While normally you should be able to make small assumptions easily, sometimes YOU assume at your own risk. So the first part is on you for NOT doing a quick safety check. The second part is on you as well, YOU made ANOTHER assumption. That the rental company is going to be able to do what YOU wanted. At the end of the day, the tickets was in YOUR NAME!!! Reguardless of WHO owned said vehicle, the citation YOU recieved was YOUR RESPONSIBILITY to ensure it was cleared. By making that assumption YOU accept ANYTHING that happens because of it. YOU ASSUMED!!!Now I agree that it was a fixit ticket and shouldnt have been a big deal for them to handle. But in most states even in traffic court, YOU the person who the ticket has been made out to MUST be present. They can go to bat for you all they like, its STILL a non compliance issue. YOU DIDNT SHOW ON THE COURT DATE!! YOU are lucky a bench warrant wasnt issued. Accept that not only did THEY drop the ball but YOU did as well. At the end of the day the ticket was YOURS The repair was thiers.