Enterprise: We’ll Fu^H^HPick You Up!
A couple weeks ago (as you might recall) a woman backed over the hood of my just-parked car. She’s insured by GEICO, and they’re providing a rental car through Enterprise while the car is fixed (to the tune of $1500 worth of damage and a week’s repair work, actually — they’re having to replace the bumper).
Picking up the rental car was painless, as the body shop was an express claim center and had representatives of both GEICO and Enterprise on site. We were in and out within half an hour. Our first stop was the local police substation for a temporary parking permit (we’ve played knifey-spooney before, you see).
Since we had that temporary parking permit, though, I was a little surprised this morning when Kate called to say that there was a boot on the legally-parked rental car. It seems that a previous renter had accumulated three parking tickets exactly two months ago, and that those tickets — left unpaid — had become delinquent on, oh, Thursday. In a shocking display of efficiency, the car was booted for those delinquent tickets Friday.
The phone number we had for Enterprise went to an office that’s closed on weekends; the 800 number for Roadside Assistance didn’t provide any (“You should call the jurisdiction on the ticket and get them to release the car.” “I can’t, because they won’t release it without my paying the tickets.”). Eventually the woman who answered the phone for Roadside Assistance gave me a number for a local branch with Saturday hours, but they weren’t open yet.
Once they did open I called them, and it turned out they didn’t have any cars. They said they’d call once one was returned.
Given a choice of rental car companies in the future, we will not be choosing Enterprise. This isn’t the first time they’ve screwed us over.
