Enterprise van rental 'damage' rip-off

agray2812

This week i have been helping my parents move home.
I hired a LWB van from Enterprise, in my name as my father would not drive the van. Paid £200 deposit and an extra £25 for excess reduction hirecharge for 2 days (with extra named driver £191. So this is not cheap but we went with enterprise because they are a known brand and supposedly reliable.

We returned the van yesterday and when the staff inspected the van there was a slight tear in the wall of the front drivers side tyre. We were then told this was caused by us and that we would have to pay for a replacement tyre. So £135 of my deposit goes up the swannie and we have ended up paying over £320 for the hire of a van for 2 days!!!

My biggest problem is not the cost of hire, or the fact that the excess was so high and the extra we paid was a waste. It's the fact that the 'damage' was not caused by us! I signed the forms when checke dthe veicle over, but not being and expert tyre inspector i have no idea i the 'tear' in the tyre was about to happen or not. What i do know is that at no point during our hire did any accidental damage hapen to that tyre. Therefore surely whatever happened to the tyre counts as 'wear and tear' obviously we argued this point but were basically told that we were liars and that the tyre must have been damaged.

I have photos of the 'damage' which if i ever work out how to download from my phone i will try and post up. I am contacting Entrerpises damage recovery unit to escalate this issue higher. Frankly, i felt physically sick when i left the rental office, it wa like being mugged! This has upset me deeply as £135 is a lot of money to me and i dont see why we should have to pay.

Any advice on how to proceed welcomed.
Many thanks,
Alan.

Strider590

I've never had a hire car inspected upon my return, but I reckon they notice the damage, wait for some poor sap to hire it out and then charge that person for the damage that was caused by someone else.

I don't think there's a lot you can do, just be more vigilant in future.

Whenever i've had hire cars or courtesy cars, if it's been delivered to my home, I inform them I won't sign for it, if they turn up after dark and I try to make sure it's not raining on the day too.
The other trick they seem to like, is taking the car into town after you return it, getting themselves a parking ticket and then sending you the ticket + admin fee's.

You just can't trust these people.... And that goes for every single vehicle hire company out there.

fivetide

Strider590 wrote: »

You just can't trust these people.... And that goes for every single vehicle hire company out there.

Bit harsh. Always used the same local firm for vans, never had an issue. They even let me off with a excess mileage charge as they couldn't change a £20 note and simply said "that's not your fault so forget it"

The only trick they pull is the reverse of the usual full tank - you get the van empty so they keep whatever you don't use although, I'm a pretty good judge at how much to put in these days.

Never had any issue with damage/inspection/charges. Does seem to be more common with the big 'trusted' brands though.

5t.

worried_jim

I once hired a van from Enterprise, didn't get ripped off on the deposit, just the price, I had no idea how much van rental was and paid a similar amount to you. A year later I helped a friend move and hired a van from a local company on his behalf as he had no credit card and it was less than half the price of enterprise- lesson learnt.

Strider590

fivetide wrote: »

Bit harsh.

Perhaps, but trust is not given, it's earned.

Premier_2

fivetide wrote: »

Bit harsh...

Ignore him!

I've never returned a hire vehicle without them first examining it and giving me the receipt (else there is always a danger that any hire car company will start adding charges later)

If you have that receipt confirming no damage on receipt, they can't bill you later.

Lesson hopefully learned. Ensure you get a receipt as to condition when you return a hire vehicle (just as they insist you sign one when you pick it up)

If you do cause damage, you do have to pay for it (unless you have insurance in place to cover such damage)
Tyre damage, particularly to the side wall, is not fair wear & tear - it is damage.

Notmyrealname

agray2812 wrote: »

My biggest problem is not the cost of hire, or the fact that the excess was so high and the extra we paid was a waste. It's the fact that the 'damage' was not caused by us! I signed the forms when checke dthe veicle over, but not being and expert tyre inspector i have no idea i the 'tear' in the tyre was about to happen or not.

It was caused by you if it wasn't there before. Tears in the sidewall aren't something that "just happens". So you at some point have kerbed the tyre, run up a kerb or driven over something in the road or the local tip or wherever it was you went to with the van.

thenudeone

Enterprise tried to charge me for returning a hire car with a nail in the tread of the tyre.

They had collected the car from a permanently manned gatehouse during the day, when I was in an office 50m away, but hadn't inspected it at the time and hadn't asked for me to check it before taking the car away.

I told them that I wouldn't entertain their claim for the above reason. That was the last I heard.

However, Although I knew there was a nail in it when I finished using it, I have no idea whether it was there before. I did inspect the car but there's no way either of us could know that - it could have been on the bottom of the wheel when I inspected it.

In any case, I would consider a puncture as a fair wear and tear issue, not a damage issue [it's not covered by a comprehensive insurance policy after all], and I would have fought it if they had pursued the matter further.

A sidewall tear, however, is slightly different, especially on a (presumably) modern well-maintained car. But if you signed the forms to say there was no damage on the car it's going to be a difficult one to defend, but still worth a try.

GolfBravo

Strider590 wrote: »

You just can't trust these people.... And that goes for every single vehicle hire company out there.

Unfortunately this is true.

A friend of mine is a finance director at one of the largest car hire companies, and he says that most of the franchises are crooks - and one of their franchised branches tried to rip him off as well.

To cut the story short, he hired a car through his employer (he gets 50% staff discount) for a short break. When he returned the car they charged him €800 insurance excess for allegedly scratching rear bumper. About three months later he did a internal follow up to find out how much the actual cost of the repair was - as it turned out the local franchise never made any insurance claims, never repaired the car (it wasn't even theirs, they leased it from Ford Europe), and charged 8 other drivers €800 excess for the same scratch.

LSfan

Due to the decline of qualities such as Good Morals, respect, honesty, politness and patience the world is sadly becoming a less desirable place to live in and we will only see more of this kind of thing

marlot

GolfBravo wrote: »

...as it turned out the local franchise never made any insurance claims, never repaired the car (it wasn't even theirs, they leased it from Ford Europe), and charged 8 other drivers €800 excess for the same scratch.

I hope he reported them to the police for fraud!

This is what I've always suspected. I think hire companies should be banned from doing the checkout on a blank form - you should always be given a copy of the previous checkin form, so you can see what it was like at the end of the last hire.

They are the experts in car inspection, not you. And the current system works entirely in their favour.