Complaint Review: ENTERPRISE RENTAL CAR - PRESTON NESPER - LONG BEACH California

Unfortunately, Lawanna did not understand Car Insurance, Car Rentals and legal transactions. I am party to this event in 2004. At the time of Lawanna's rental from Enterprise, she had filed a claim with her Insurance Company and her insurance policy provided her with rental reimbursement coverage. Lawanna was expecting, rightfully so, that her insurance company would pay Enterprise directly for her rental car since she obtained it as a replacement while her personal car was being repaired from the claim.

However, in cases like this there are a number of ways that a customer may still be responsible for payments to Enterprise. It is for this reason that all rental car companies, Enterprise included, take an electronic swipe of a renter's credit card at the begginging of every rental, regardless of which party is paying for the rental and how much they are paying. In addition, the renter signs a rental contract acknowledging that she is aware of this credit card swipe, the rental charges and that regardless of the reason, if a third party declines to pay for a rental car in full, she will become fully responsible for those upaid charges.

If my memory serves me correctly, Lawanna had extra days in the rental car that her Insurance company refused to pay and may have also elected to purchase extra coverages that were also her responsibility. At the time, she thought the body shop should be responsible to pay for those extra rental days since it was their fault her personal vehicle was not completed on schedule. Regardless, Preston Nesper, Tom, Khrystal and everyone at Enterprise were fully compliant in their charging of Lawanna's credit card for those rental charges. As a courtesy, Enterprise would attempt to contact their customers and alert them to this situtation prior to charging a card. However, ignoring their requests for payment, refusing to return phone calls and allowing time to elapse ARE NOT acceptable responses to a rental car company that is trying to obtain charges you are legally responsible to pay. It was a courtesy of Enterprise to allow as much time as possible to elapse in order to rectify this situation prior to charging the customers credit card. How much easier would it have been to just process the transaction and be done rather than continue tryint to contact the customer, the insurance company and/or the body shop in order to resolve this issue before the client's card was processed!?

This was an unfortunate even to be sure and it's easy to see why Lawanna would be frustrated by this situation. However, when you have a huge, multi-billion dollar company like Enterprise, voiding transactoins and refunding money back to their clients IS NOT an admission of guilt in any way. Rather, Enterprise values it's brand so much that it would attempt to make thigs right for a customer rather than allow it's reputation to be tarnished by the complaints of an agitated but uninformed customer. It is a great credit to Lawanna that she was able to bulldoze through a number of people at Enterprise in order to have her funds returned even though they were in their right to keep them.

She is obviously determined and aggressive and I admire those qualities. My guess is that if Enterprise knew this rip-off report were going to be filed, they would have even doubled her refund and given her more money than she owed in order to prevent it! The reason Lawanna reached out to Tom, his supervisor Chris and even the Regional Manager Michelle Kay but didn't receive a response from any of them is clear: There was nothing to respond to so it was easier to just return her money than be bothered with the problem she represented. But calling these people and Enterprise rip-offs, frauds and criminals is not only a gorss misrepresentation, but libel. Since Lawanna clearly values "justice" so much I ask that if she ever reads this rebuttal she does the right thing and repeals her report. Thank you.

P.S. for clarity, I highlighted a few of the most common reasons that a customer will be responsible to pay for rental charges that they were not necessarily expecting initially.

1) Customer elects to rent a more expensive car that is not completely covered by her policies rental allowance (I.E. rent a $40/day minivan when your policy only provides payments up to $30/day). Taxes and fees may also lead to a charge in excess of the renter's allowance

2) Customer elects Damage Waiver, personal accident/personal effects coverage, supplemental liability or other ancillary coverages. Typically an insurance company will not provide the rental allowance to be used for these items.

3) Termincation of coverage: The renter's policy may allow for a 20, 30 or other maximum # of days for rental reimbursement. Thus if a car is being repaired for a client with a $30/day, 30 day maximum then the rental must be returned on the 30th day or before. Any rental charges occurring after the 30th day will not be paid by the insurance company, per her own policy. In addition, an insurance company is not necessarily obligated to provide the full # of days that the policy allows: For instance, if a car is finished being repaired after 15 days then the client will be expected to return the rental and begin driving her own car. If she continues to keep the rental car for another 10 days then her insurance company will likely only pay the original 15 days of rental charges during the repair and the customer will be obligated to pay the additional 10 days to the rental car company in full.

4) The Insurance company, adjustor, or policy dictates that the rental reimbursement payments are made to the customer, not the rental car company. This would mean that the customer would be fully responsible for all rental charges and would have to pay them directly to the rental car company. She could then expect her insurance company to send her the reimbursement payment which she could then deposit in her own account.

This is not an exhaustive list of reasons that a customer at a rental car company may be required to pay for charges even though she thought her insurance company should be fully responsible.