Complaint Review: Enterprise Rental Car

I rented a car from Enterprise Rental Car in Tampa, Florida this past week.  We had to take a taxi to the pickup location from the airport, which was on my itinerary which cost us $15.00, as we had five people in our vacation party. When we arrived at the pickup location, someone from the car dealership had to find the Enterprise (only) guy at this location.  I told him we were here to pick up our rental car and showed him my literary.  He told me that we were at the wrong location and that someone from the other location called and/or sent us an email a couple of days ago, stating that we needed to pick up our car at a different location.  Which we never received a call or email stating that we needed to pick the vehicle up at this new location. He called over to the other location to talk to someone to see if they called or emailed, which they stated they did. 

He told me that he had no vehicles that this location, but a minivan.  I said him if we could get the minivan for the same price, he said “No” and laughed.  He got off the phone, and told us that someone would be bringing over the vehicle from the other location.  We waited for at least 45 mins to an hour for this vehicle to show up.   The vehicle showed up and the enterprise guy said I will go out and look over the car.  It was raining pretty good outside, so to see any kind of marks, scratches or dents would be very difficult on a BLACK vehicle on a pretty dark, rainy day.  I was concerned but the employee was complacent about the condition of the car.

I returned the car 3 days later, on a bright sunny day at the location that we should have picked the vehicle up from according to when we picked the vehicle up. The same employee made an extremely anal inspection and, after bending down really low, noticed scuff marks that he/I had not noticed in the previous rainy day on the driver’s side bumper.

I explained I was positive I did not damage the car and asked the employees to check previous records to see if this 'damage' is already documented. They said they picked up the car from the repair shop, so there was no scuff’s on the bumper when it left the repair shop.   They never checked the previous records.  This strategy makes customers vulnerable to being charged for preexisting damage or unnoticed marks.

My $200 deposit is being withheld plus an additional $50 and I am being accused of 'damage' I never did. I have not heard or received anything from Enterprise to date.  Too many other customers have had the same issue and are being charged for preexisting, barely visible marks called 'damage' upon return.  This is a shoddy and dishonest business practice. As a result I see no need to rent a car from Enterprise ever again. The sad thing is, I am sure they don't care.