I was told that when I returned the car at the Sarasota airport. I can pay it with my debit instead of the credit card they needed on record for the rental. When I returned the car t to the guy in the parking lot. I told him that wanted to pay my bill on my debit card instead of my credit card. He said I would have to go inside to counter and that he would let them know. I waited for about 30 minutes to find out the guy outside closed the account outside. Meaning he charged it to my credit card already. Which cancels all records of it on the computer. I never use my credit card cause went I do my credit drops and I'm looking to refinance my home. Otherwise the guy outside was had a attitude, the car pulled to the right when taking off and on the dash it said it was do for and oil change. I will never rent from them again.
Lorin Lappino, this team is happy to take a closer look at your rental in order to help and provide some help and answers for you. Please email [email protected] with your contact telephone number, email address, exact rental office location, and your reservation and rental agreement number. Thank you! – Carol H.
Received a letter from Alamo Damage Recovery unit saying I owe for damages done to a rental car. First, I never rented from Alamo. The date they stated is the date I picked up the car in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. But did not rent it from Alamo. I have tried contacting this department a number of times and was on hold the entire time till it finally disconnects you. I called customer service for Alamo and they tried transferring me to that department but the same thing happened, on hold till I was disconnected. I tried emailing them with no response back. Their claim number: [protected]. Date of loss: 06/11/2020. Vehicle: 2019-ROGU-NISN. Rental agreement: [protected].
This is all bogus. Never rented from Alamo nor returned a car, ever, with any damage to any place I have rented. Is there anyone that can help resolve this. Alamo Damage Recovery Unit will not except calls.
AZ Drive Thru Storage, we assure you it's never our intention to inconvenience a valued customer. The damage recovery team are the sole administrators and ultimate authority regarding damage related concerns. Please contact that team directly at 1-866-300-3239 or by email at [email protected] They will be happy to look at this for you. Thank you! – Carol H.
Date: June 20, 2020 at 9:30am Booking reference number: [protected] Description: Alamo Rent a Car refused to...
On December 20th 2019, I arrived at the "Alamo Rent a Car" Miami International Airport location, to...
The resolution I want is a genuine "Loss Damage Report" with photos and employee/body shop witness statements, not a generic unattributed damage claim of "Passenger Front Door: Dent-dent right front door" with "Incident Details: advised to create claim to pass door". I need to be able to submit a proper claim to my insurance companies. Proper resolution would also involve letting my body guy examine the car to document the purported "damage" (I contend there was not any damage, and certainly not any damage that occurred while the vehicle was in my possession), then getting car repaired and back on the road ASAP to limit the continuing and additionally bogus "loss of use" claim that will allegedly be accruing.
Enterprise uses these complaint forums to pretend they are helping the customer. For instance, at another site my complaint is marked "resolution pending" even though Enterprise is doing nothing at all to resolve my complaint. Alamo (an Enterprise company) has verbally claimed I put a "ripple" in the passenger door of a rental car (for which, if I "did it", I have insurance -- but they refuse to provide the information necessary to pursue a claim). They refuse to allow my body guy access to the vehicle to verify the "damage", refuse to provide any photos or proof of damage, refuse to put me in touch with anyone who can resolve the problem. I have multiple responses from [protected]@ehi.com -- none of which actually respond to anything and some of which ask me for information that is actually in the prior email and email subject line. I have spoken to Tucson Alamo manager Mark Damon (the location where they didn't give me the "Rental Agreement Jacket" with all the contract terms in it -- and Enterprise continues to withold it). He finally contacted me a week after the rental. He says he can't assist and can't put me in touch with anyone who can. Their "Social Media" team has assured me I should follow the "advice" the Tucson manager gave me, based on reviewing his comments in my data file. (But, he did not give me any "advice" nor provide any steps toward resolution at all except for assigning a claim #). I have sent faxes to Tucson Alamo - both managers Pamela Swango and Mark Damon, Clayton J. Thornton, regional manager in Ontario where I returned the vehicle (and the branch making the bogus claim) and to their "Damage Recovery Unit" -- with no response from any of them except for the Tucson manager (who didn't know about my fax, didn't have any useful information for me, didn't explain what prompted his call, and didn't follow through on sending me the information he implied he would be sending). He did tell me the vehicle is on "litigation hold" -- meaning, I assume, that Alamo is building a large "loss of use" claim for what is, at best, extremely minor damage (or, as I contend, no damage at all). Any reasonable business would work with me to file my insurance claim and get the car back on the road ASAP. Enterprise, however, wants to send a "message" that customers need to buy their overpriced damage waiver, which I did not. So, their vehicle return system and their phalanx of customer service representatives are all there expressly to prevent the customer from resolving the damage claim in a reasonable and expeditious fashion. Moreover, it is my opinion that I was switched to the specific vehicle from the one I reserved for the explicit purpose of having a "ripple" in the door with no scratches, dings or other marks, so that receiving it in a dimly lit parking garage, I would have no opportunity to notice the "ripple". Which, BTW, I could not see even when it was purportedly pointed out to me. At worst, there might be a prior poorly done door repair job. My claim # is [protected]. My RA# is [protected]. My RES # is [protected]. My Allianz claim # is [protected]. I don't know if I can include a link, but I have detailed everything at my own blog: http://daltrey.org/b2evo1/blog7.php. There are no photos -- and Tucson Manager Damon assures me that neither Tucson nor Ontario took any photos of the damage (although Ontario told me at return that they would have to "check with Tucson" for photos of the vehicle before making their claim; and an online customer service rep. told me Tucson "has cameras" and will have documented the vehicle condition upon my receipt of it. Via another site, Enterprise "Social Monitoring" person Carol H. has told me to "follow the advice" of Mr. Damon -- but he didn't give me any advice, in fact he said that he could not assist and he could not put me in touch with anyone who can assist. I was told by phone customer service that I would be receiving a call from the "regional team", which has never contacted me; later telling me that the "regional team" takes care of matters "in the order in which they are received", which implies they have far more complaints than they have staff to deal with the complaints. On the other hand, Mr. Damon said the regional team cannot tell me anything different from what he has told me, and that resolution must come from the damage recovery unit -- for which he has no contact information (and the damage recovery unit has not responded to my faxes). Other online complaints suggest that the damage recovery unit routinely waits a month or more and then sends out unexpected and undocumented "damage" claims, thereafter sending the claim out to a collection agency to harass any customer who actually expects some proof that the damage occurred. All presumably based on the terms of a contract they have refused to provide me, with a company that is almost certainly not the same one running the damage recovery unit (as far as I can tell, the Tucson and Ontario branches are not the same legal entity).
But, it's not even possible to track down what legal entity or entities I am dealing with and the employees apparently don't know either -- although "Enterprise Holdings" is allegedly a $25 billion a year company and the largest rental "company", through its Alamo, National and Enterprise subsidiaries. I will walk if I have to rather than do business with this company ever again. This system suggests uploading documents -- I have fax receipts for all of my documents, but as far as I can tell no one at Enterprise ever actually reads them (Damon did not know I had faxed his branch). If Enterprise wants to provide me with some other fax number or secure document drop location, I will gladly provide them with additional copies -- though asking for redundant information appears to be one of their delay/harassment tactics, despite being able to look up my transaction based on my last name.
The complaint has been investigated and resolved to the customer's satisfaction.
Shortly after I posted this complaint (or perhaps while I was preparing it) I received an email from Nicola A. Cordell ("Nikki Cordell") of Risk Management, Enterprise Holdings, LLC, Phoenix in response to my Evidence Preservation Demand indicating "We have reviewed the claim. Alamo will be closing the claim and not pursuing this matter further". She states that she is attaching a formal written letter (not attached) and faxing it to me (but faxed instead to a fax number I don't recognize which may be one of their own). In addition, she references claim #VX50X109K, which bears no resemblance to the claim number 15577893 provided to me in the "Accident Report Summary as of 01/20/2020 19:31" by Tucson manager Mark Damon. So ... resolved, or NOT resolved? Inquiring minds want to know.
Barrington of Riverside, I assure you it's never our intention to inconvenience you. Please see my response to your review. For your records, the incident id is 34552652. Thank you! - Carol H.
I did get this resolved (I think). It took over 60 email/fax/phone communications commencing 1/14 through 1/22 and Alamo never did provide any proof of their "damage" claim -- verbally stated at vehicle turn-in to be a "ripple" in the passenger door. The communications in response to these online complaint websites are nothing but corporate "image management" and no effort is made to put the customer in touch with anyone who can document or resolve the made-up damage claim. "Customer Service" at Alamo apparently is dedicated to preventing customers from being able to communicate with anyone who can document or resolve the alleged damage claim. As far as I can tell, the procedure is to have the "Damage Recovery Unit" ambush the customer with an undocumented damage claim a month or so after the rental. At some point an Alamo manager from Tucson called me, apparently in response to my request made many days earlier on 1/14. (Tucson Alamo management had apparently overlooked and/or disregarded my earlier fax directly to them.) I had requested contact from Tucson because Ontario Alamo had stated they couldn't decide whether to make a damage claim until they reviewed vehicle condition from the location that rented me the vehicle. The Tucson manager had no information to provide me, confirmed there were no pictures taken at Tucson or at Ontario -- and admitted no one had even noticed my faxed "Evidence Preservation Demand" from days earlier. He did put me on lengthy hold a couple of times and stated he had been looking on his co-manager's desk for something (apparently my fax, which was directed to her, though he did not say that). While he assured me he could not put me in touch with anyone who could address or resolve the claim, the length of time I was on hold suggests to me that he was calling his own supervisor(s). In any event, Phoenix "risk management" responded to my evidence preservation demand the following day and agreed Alamo would not be pursuing a damage claim. Getting the right answer (or actually, any answer) on this was hugely time-consuming and completely negated the value of my having rented the vehicle in the first place (and then some). Among other things, I had to close my credit card account (and move a lot of auto-pays, etc.) to avoid the risk of Alamo simply charging my credit card for their undocumented and unilaterally imposed damage claim, something their contract would appear to allow them to do. Legislators should do something about this, such as require car rental companies to do a photo-documented walk-around at rental and at return, with any damage claims itemized in writing, signed by a car rental employee and acknowledged (or acknowledged and disputed) by the customer. I anticipate I will be writing my legislators to make this request and it will help if others do so too.
ReneP, we’ve noted your comments and would like to have the opportunity to look into this for you. Please send us a detailed email to [email protected] include the exact rental location, your contact telephone number, your claims, rental agreement or reservation numbers and any further information regarding your experience with us. - Carol H.
This is almost exactly what we are going through right now. I have been trying to contact Bethany Felix at Alamo who is handling the claim. I have several emails and phone call messages to her with no returns. They have already threatened us with lawyer fees and sending us to collections. And all without viewing the video documentation we have of damage on the vehicle before we drove it off the rental lot. Thankfully I was able to video record damage on the vehicle that was already there. Date stamped on video footage. All we have asked for is better pictures than the poor quality copies they sent us.
I see several complaints similar to this online. It’s sad to think how a huge company like this takes advantage of its (prior)loyal customers. They have also stated, in a letter to me, that I will not be able to rent from Alamo, Enterprise until this matter is settled. No need for that statement. Settled or not, I, nor my family or friends will never rent from them ever again.
@ReneP ReneP, we’ve noted your comments and would like to have the opportunity to look into this for you. Please send us a detailed email to [email protected] include the exact rental location, your contact telephone number, your claims, rental agreement or reservation numbers and any further information regarding your experience with us. - Carol H.
Attached to this mail I am attaching my formal complaint about the mal function of the vehicle rented from...
When you hear of customer's complaints about scams of false damage claims by rental car companies, you must admit you can be skeptical, but when it happens to you in a text book fashion your first thought is WOW! I cant believe this is happening and how horrible and helpless you can feel.
I reserved a car from Alamo for a family vacation. The car was parked in one of their spaces facing in. I had the presences of mind to do a walk around and take pictures and found several small cosmetic dents and scratches that I felt were due to normal wear and tear and didn't think anything of it. What I couldn't see is the front under carriage of the car that was blocked by the space because it was facing into the parking space. I rented the car from 12/29/19 to 1/4/20 and dropped it off at Alamo drop-off in the Salt Lake City Airport with a full tank of gas and no new damage. We stayed downtown so the car basically stay parked in a parking garage the whole time. When I returned the car the attendant redirected me from where others were dropping the cars off and told me to use a different car lane that is three rows over and goes all the way up to what I later found out was their booth where they file claims. No other cars were in that lane or were directed there. As soon as I park the attendant walked up to the car looked "under" the car and said, "What happened here?" as he pointed to a small pressed in spot in the plastic bumper no bigger then a baseball on under carriage part to the front right bumper. I told him everything on the car was preexisting and I had pictures but he still said they still needed my insurance to file a claim.
Despite my insistence that nothing happened and that it was preexisting, like all the other things on the car that I took pictures of, the attendant rudely pressed forward with the claim info and was argumentative, that is until a fellow employee came in the both then he flipped on a dime and tried to appear to be just "doing his job". I didn't take the bait to be rude back at him and told them this was wrong and I would need to speak with someone "after I raced to catch my flight". It's very convenient for them when they know you only have minutes for this step in your travel plans, so I complied and gave him the insurance info.
This is still a work in progress in that I just got back to work today, but here is my advice. First, realize you have to inspect the car with the attendant before you drive off. Their advertisement of "pick up the car in the isle yourself" only benefits them in these instances. Second, I have hired a former Alamo/Enterprise employee that worked at a airport location and he basically said that while this is not standard practice, it can be a modus operandi from time to time at certain locations and went on to say how aggressive they can be depending on where you rent. Finally, there are other steps I am taking that could help you:
Contact the credit card company that you used to pay for the rental. They may have secondary insurance coverage for you even if you declined coverage at the time of check-in. Contact the Better Business Bureau to report a claim, contact the Chamber of Commerce Chapter for both business and tourism, contact the State Representative's office. Contact the company and agent who booked the trip, in my case Delta Travel vacations via AAA. This is an important step to discourage or stop bookings at Enterprise and its affiliates in the future. And finally, make a copy of your complaint and post it to every known site of grievance. I am waiting to do this to see if it gets resolved because once it's on social media sites, they are impossible to take down from some sites. i.e., Yelp, Goggle, FB, etc. Also just to let you know who you are dealing with, Alamo Car Rental is owned and operated by Enterprise who also operates National Car rentals. In the future, I will never again rent from Alamo, National nor it's parent company Enterprise, despite being an almost exclusive National Customer for 28 years. This whole situation is incredibly shady and disappointing. I own a business and would never dream of treating a customer like this. The dent was pre-existing, but its not about that. Its about the principle of the thing and trying to keep their cars maintained by this practice is wrong and frankly stealing. Renter Beware!!!
The complaint has been investigated and resolved to the customer's satisfaction.
Dugy6,
We’ve noted your comments and would like to have the opportunity to look into this for you. Please send us a detailed email to [email protected] include the exact rental location, your contact telephone number, your claims, rental agreement or reservation numbers and any further information regarding your experience with us.
We look forward to hearing from you.
Regards,
Carol H.
Social Monitoring
From: Kenneth McKinnon
Date: Tuesday, October 8, 2019 at 4:57 AM
To: "[protected]@alamo.com"
Subject: Italy Car Rental
I filled out my concern on your portal some weeks back with no response. I have emailed different contacts I was provided by car trawler - none of which have responded.
I understand how difficult it is to adjudicate damage claims - very much a "he said she said" but I was aghast when this occurred when we returned the car. We had tried to identify scrtactches and were promptly rebuffed by the attendant who said this damage (as noted) was the only one that matter. This may be on us for not trying harder but we trusted this. As you will see from my emails we never did anything but angle park so there was no curbside possibilities. While a matter of trust - I have a 2008 650i BMW that the rims are perfect.
I would ask that you reverse this charge - one I didn't cause it and secondly it is not reasonable to charge for a new rim on a scratch to a rim.
Thank you for your help.
Kenneth R. McKinnon, QC
Managing Partner
Citrus Capital Partners Ltd.
[protected]
www.citruscapital.ca
The complaint has been investigated and resolved to the customer's satisfaction.
kwsken, we appreciate it when customers tell us about their experiences. I assure you that it's never our intention to inconvenience our customers. We would like to speak with you further. Please email [email protected] with your contact information, exact rental office location, rental contract, reservation, or rental agreement information and the details above so we can address this. Thank you. – Carol H.
rent period: 12/Sep/2019(Thu) 11;30am- 17/Sep/2019(Tue) 11;30am car type: Hyundai Accent 4DR, license plate...
Please note that a car was rented on the 12.15.19 to 12.18.19. The GPS was not functionable. We returned to...
I reserved a car from Alamo via Priceline for the morning of October 31, 2019. I had just returned from a...
my husband rented a car from Alamo rental car early October and he had an accident in the car. When we went...
I rented a car at the Detroit airport yesterday, Nov. 7 to drop off at the Flint, MI airport a few hours later where I would be picked up by a relative and driven to their home an hour away. After driving about a half hour the car started to race and stalled. I pulled over in heavy traffic and was able to restart and proceed but after another 15 minutes the same thing happened plus the engine light appeared and fortunately I was able to exit the Interstate and pulled over to the shoulder. I called Alamo roadside service and was assisted by an agent who said a tow truck would arrive and we would be dropped off at a Enterprise rental about 10 minutes away where we would be provided with a replacement vehicle. After over an hour a towing service called and said they would come and take us back to Detroit and would not take us to the nearby Enterprise location and we were on our own to find a ride. We were in an unfamiliar location with no nearby services and I called Alamo again but they could not get us to Enterprise and we should contact the highway patrol. Eventually another tow service arrived after 3 hours and took us to the nearby Enterprise where we got another vehicle. It was a terrible experience, I am 80 years old and feel Alamo should have a better system of providing a replacement vehicle in this situation.
The complaint has been investigated and resolved to the customer's satisfaction.
EJGnsh, thank you for your feedback. If you can provide a few more details, we would like to look into this further for you. Please email [email protected] with your contact information, your claims, reservation or rental agreement number, and the details of your experience. We look forward to hearing from you soon. –Carol H.
After my vehicle broke down on a holiday weekend (Aug 31, 2019) I thought I was going to need a rental car...
I reserved through Expedia. I asked the representative, Daniel, if they had an Expedition before he charged...
Upon returning the car at Savannah Airport on 10/24/19, the agent asked if we were aware of damage to the front bumper. We told him we were not, but that we had not damaged the car in any manner.
When the car was picked up at Bradley Airport there was no walk around the car by the agent there and we were merely pointed to the car in the lot and told to take it. We explained this to the agent in Savannah and he said not to worry as 99% of the time nothing will become of such incidents.
We are not responsible for this damage and should not be held liable for any damage we did not cause.
Information on Report:
Rental Agreement: [protected]
Vehicle #: LC127214
Damage Reported: Front Bumper
Employee # Filing Report: E48352
Vehicle: 2020 Nissan Altima
The complaint has been investigated and resolved to the customer's satisfaction.
William and Ruth Haley,
Thanks for your feedback. We appreciate it when customers tell us about their experiences. I have forwarded your comments to our Georgia Damage Recovery management and our team at our Bradley location. I have asked that they review your concern and contact you with further information about this claim. As this may take several full business days, your patience is appreciated.
Respectfully,
Carol
Rental agreement - [protected] 10/17/19 - 10/22/19 My fiance rented a vehicle from October 17-21 for a wedding...
After using your companies for many car hires i regret to inform you that i have to highlight shocking...
I rented a car at Alamo at Charleston, SC on 10/19 to 10/24. Upon return, I was told there was damage by an...
I have been rent many cars from different companies from Airport to 5a. Region (Valparaiso and Vina del Mar...
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