Enterprise refused to rent a van to me??

judywoody

We are moving next week and I hired a van online from Enterprise - Last time I hired with them was 2 years ago or so and they always asked for a utility bill or something like that. Apparently they have a new system in place - so they rang me this morning to verify my address - surprisingly I failed and the lady said "oh unfortunately we can't rent to you at this time" - So I asked "is this a credit check or something?" (we are in a DMP right now but nothing more serious).
She said "yeah something similar, we do it through a third party company"..I was a bit taken aback at that point so I rang them 5 minutes later just to ask for some details. The other lady said it's not a credit check, it's just to verify my address. So I asked her "how on earth could I fail that, I've lived here for a year?" so she said "we check electoral role etc but it doesn't give me a reason why it's been declined".. Now I remember that I actually haven't had a letter from the electoral role since we moved here - so they use outdated data (since the electoral role is only updated once a year)?? My oh my, they must be losing loads of customers through this verification system - anyone else had this experience? I hasten to add that we hire cars almost every 2 months with other companies and NEVER have a problem because they ask for utility bills...

BeenThroughItAll

judywoody wrote: »

We are moving next week and I hired a van online from Enterprise - Last time I hired with them was 2 years ago or so and they always asked for a utility bill or something like that. Apparently they have a new system in place - so they rang me this morning to verify my address - surprisingly I failed and the lady said "oh unfortunately we can't rent to you at this time" - So I asked "is this a credit check or something?" (we are in a DMP right now but nothing more serious).
She said "yeah something similar, we do it through a third party company"..I was a bit taken aback at that point so I rang them 5 minutes later just to ask for some details. The other lady said it's not a credit check, it's just to verify my address. So I asked her "how on earth could I fail that, I've lived here for a year?" so she said "we check electoral role etc but it doesn't give me a reason why it's been declined".. Now I remember that I actually haven't had a letter from the electoral role since we moved here - so they use outdated data (since the electoral role is only updated once a year)?? My oh my, they must be losing loads of customers through this verification system - anyone else had this experience? I hasten to add that we hire cars almost every 2 months with other companies and NEVER have a problem because they ask for utility bills...

If it were me, I'd not worry about it too much, move on with your life and hire a van from somewhere else, then don't use Enterprise again. It's not worth getting het-up about.

DoctorFoster

BeenThroughItAll wrote: »

If it were me, I'd not worry about it too much, move on with your life and hire a van from somewhere else, then don't use Enterprise again. It's not worth getting het-up about.

Hear hear.

It's not like they're cheap.

judywoody

BeenThroughItAll wrote: »

If it were me, I'd not worry about it too much, move on with your life and hire a van from somewhere else, then don't use Enterprise again. It's not worth getting het-up about.

Oh yeah that's what I was planning to do .. I'm only worried that other hire companies will jump on the same bandwagon in the future...

Also, this new system is completely new to me. I guess an address verification isn't very useful anyway when you are actually hiring a van to move to another place..lol

judywoody

DoctorFoster wrote: »

Hear hear.

It's not like they're cheap.

Actually they were the cheapest for the van hire :-)

InsideInsurance

judywoody wrote: »

Oh yeah that's what I was planning to do .. I'm only worried that other hire companies will jump on the same bandwagon in the future...

Also, this new system is completely new to me. I guess an address verification isn't very useful anyway when you are actually hiring a van to move to another place..lol

Its relatively useful on the basis it demonstrates that you are at least being partially honest, in Experian/ Equifax's view, and dont live totally below the radar.

I dont know about the hire market specifically but use of counter fraud technologies like ID verification sold by Experian are getting increasingly common. The system is fairly straight forward, the merchant provides as much data as they hold on you and Experian returns with a validation level. Its up to the merchant to decide what level of verification they want to get to before accepting a customer.

As others have said, just take your business elsewhere

force_ten

you say that you have lived in your present address for a year, but the address check may require that you have been in your present property longer than this

and also you need a credit card with a good chunk of available credit so they can put a credit hold on their refundable deposit of about £350.00

I can understand them having checks in place as they are renting you something that would cost about twenty grand to buy, so they have to do all they can to protect their asset

as said just move on and try and rent from somebody else

force_ten

judywoody wrote: »

Oh yeah that's what I was planning to do .. I'm only worried that other hire companies will jump on the same bandwagon in the future...

Also, this new system is completely new to me. I guess an address verification isn't very useful anyway when you are actually hiring a van to move to another place..lol

an address check is extremely important for them to protect their asset, if you have lived in the same place for say 10 years then you are hardly likely to rent a van and then disappear with it,

if you have a history of moving from place to place with lots of short term addresses then you are going to be seen as a risk, I am not saying that is the case with you just using it as an example

mgdavid

judywoody wrote: »

....... I remember that I actually haven't had a letter from the electoral role since we moved here - so they use outdated data............

Why wait up to a year to fill in a form when you can do it yourself online immediately?
http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/faq/voting-and-registration/how-do-i-change-my-address-on-the-electoral-register

this needs to be just another item on the standard moving house list.

judywoody

Well, we don't have a history of moving from place to place - this was a one off- we decided to move into another city. They should just state: I you haven't lived at your location for longer than a year then you can't hire with us. Again, by doing that they loose a large customer base. Not living in the same place for 10 years doesn't mean you run off with their car, everybodies circumstances are different - Some people have children and need a bigger place for example. Other hire companies don't do that anyway to protect their assets, only Enterprise it seems. Actually I just rented another Van for £5 less with Hertz. Problem solved..

Thanks for the link, I didn't even know you can do that ..lol..Will register straight away.


By the way, we do have a credit card .. so no problem there.

agrinnall

judywoody wrote: »

They should just state: I you haven't lived at your location for longer than a year then you can't hire with us.

But I don't think that is what they are saying. What they seem to be saying is that if you are not on the electoral register then that is a factor in deciding whether to rent to you or not. The same could easily apply if you've lived there for 1 week or 10 years; if you haven't bothered to get on the register then it'll flag up to them. You'd probably also have problems getting credit for the same reason.