RECCE ROOM

This is not a repo story, but it is directly related to daily car rental. The difference between debit and credit cards. For many Car Rental employees, this is the bane of their existence. Why? Because of the strife that comes from stupid people with their debit cards.  Background In car rental, most rental agencies require a renter to provide a Driver's License and a form of payment in order to rent. The Driver's License is obvious - the law in all 50 states requires a driver to be licensed. The preferred form of payment for most rental agencies is a credit card. Some 20 years ago or so, when many banks started issuing check cards with the VISA or Mastercard logo on it, a new problem arose.  The Reason The reasons for a car rental agency to use a credit card are numerous: :Liquid" funds - when the rental needs to be extended, a credit card can be run again. Cash would simply run out.  A person with good credit is far less likely to wreck a rental car.  A person with...

In San Antonio, a woman refused to return her rental car, and eventually sold it for meth . I'm sure there's a heckuva repo story behind this one. 

This is not a repo story, however there is quite a bit of humor. Working at Enterprise Rent-A-Car in Memphis was an eye-opening experience, to be sure. One of my first days on the job at the largest location in the entire state at that time provided a bit of humor, as well as insight. A female rental return a car, and had the audacity to ask if she could get $100 off for rental for flashing her breasts. A fellow employee grab the spare clipboard behind the counter and showed her the pre-printed page which read: Want to trade "services" for all or part of your rental bill? * Flash = $20 Feelski = $40 "The whole shebang" = $100 * Qualified applicants only.

The holiday weekend is upon us. My thoughts and prayers are with the folks it major car rental chains who are dealing with customers who did not plan ahead for this weekend. The Facebook page,  Things I Learned at Enterprise   has some hilarious posts up. That is to say, if you were once and Rental, you can see the irony and the hilarity of it. I'm sure the humor might be lost on the others. Every major car rental chain will over book reservations, simply because so many people do not show for their reservation. People would often ask: "what's the point of making a reservation if youre not gonna have my car?"  Here are a few statements that people use, or used to use, when someone had a reservation, but there was no vehicle to fill said reservation: "It’s a reservation, not a confirmation... I’ll call you to confirm." "Just let me go to the back and use my wizard powers to conjure up a vehicle for you, one sec." "Reservation locks in th...

This is not a repo story, but it is from my days in car rental. It was a very unfortunate situation oh, that was totally preventable. At this stage in my car rental journey, I was a manager of a location. As the manager, I had gained a reputation among all of the local branches. If they had a trainee that just wasn't cutting muster, they would send that training to me. Within 90 days, that trainee would be shaped up or shipped out. Nevertheless, I never fired a single person. When they shipped out, they did so of their own accord. I started all new and rehab trainees with a specific training program - just to make sure they understood the purpose and processes of car rental. Just about every single trainee learned how to fill in the gaps in their car rental knowledge with that training program. Now some figured out the car rental just wasn't for them, and they left the company soon thereafter. Of the ones who stayed, almost all of them became much better employees after under...

A woman stole a rental car  because demons  told her to steal it.  Yes, it's from Florida.  Although there are many things in the story that do not add up, one that stood out to me was that the woman said the rental employees did not rent her a car, claiming they had no cars to rent her at that time. But then, she stole a car from them. Did she lie about that part? Or did she come back later and steal the car after it had been returned? Was that car simply reserved for someone else, and therefore not available? Did the rental employees lie to her, because they didn't want to rent her a car? Something else? During my rental days, this would have been called a " conversion ." The car had been converted from a revenue-generating state to a non revenue-generating state. Funny & sad story any which way you look at it. 

Not a repo story, but it happened in my car rental days and it was funny. I was renting a car to a lady whose regular ride was in the shop. Not unusual. The rental car, depicted by the red car in this drawing, was parked in "Stall #1." Right next to it, on the right, was a concrete sidewalk, six inches off the ground. The renter and I both walked up on it, and down on the pavement as we circled the car in a pre-rental inspection. The renter noted aloud: "I'd better be careful of that sidewalk when I pull out!" Me: "Yes, ma'am. Good news is you can drive straight ahead to get on the street." Renter: "I see that. Good!" She got in the car, and for some reason I still have not figured out to this day, she cut the wheel sharply to the right and drove right up onto the sidewalk . I felt like Bill Engvall: here's your sign . Posted via Blogaway

Once I rented a car to a woman who had 3 wrecks in a single week. Over the weekend, she'd wrecked her car and she came in Monday morning to get her car in the shop, and get a rental vehicle. I rented her a car. Her car was ready Friday afternoon. So, she dropped off the rental with me around 2 pm on Friday afternoon. I gave her a ride to the collision repair facility. About an hour later, I got a call from the collision repair facility. The same lady was needing another car. I asked the Repair Writer if the shop had messed up the repair... some shops did, from time to time, miss some part of the repairs. No, I was told, she had been in another collision on the way home. I picked her up from the shop, and rented her a car again. In the process of turnig right onto the main road, she pulled out in front of someone and collided with them. She was, of course, in the rental vehicle at that moment. Her 3rd collision in a week. Posted via Blogaway

This could have been  the repo story from Hell... Two men... * Stole a credit card. * Flew to Nashville. * Used a phony driver's license. * Fraudulently rented a car (from Enterprise). * Stole a license plate to put on the rental car. * Sold the rental car to an unsuspecting person. * Returned home. If only we could have banned any one of these acts, the rest might never have happened. Really, though, it just shows that criminals do not obey the law. And this might have been a difficult repo had the police not been notified by the honest folks who were scammed. Posted via Blogaway

Sometimes, people write bad checks. Sometimes it is purposeful, and other times it is accidental. When I worked at Enterprise Rent-A-Car, a renter once paid for his rental with a bad check. He secured the rental with a credit card and paid the balance with a check when he returned the car. My boss, Rich, completed the transaction and accepted the check when the renter returned the car. I was a new trainee at the time. We were presented with the returned check in short order. Rich attempted twice more to put the check through only to have it returned both times. He worked with the local branch of the issuing bank and learned that the account holder had an amount deposited every other Thursday which would cover the check. Evidently, the account holder - our former renter - would get paid on Thursday at 1:00 p.m. and would withdraw the cash at about 3:30. We had tried to run his credit card for the balance, but it had been closed! The next such Thursday, at the time indicated by the ...

Not a repo story... though it might have predated a few. I had this conversation a few times during my car rental years in Memphis: Caller: "Y'all haz trucks?" Me: "Sure do! We carry the Ford F150, Chevy Silverado, and Dodge Ram. When would you like to rent one?" Caller: "Naw! I'm talkin' 'bout S-V-Us." Me: "Good news! We carry SUVs as well - Ford Explorer and Chevy Blazer." Caller: "What are the qual'fications?" Me: "You need a valid Driver's License and major credit card to rent." Caller: "I ain't gotz no credick-cart. Can you rent with cash?" Not on the more expensive vehicles, like SUVs! .

In my car rental days, I developed a simple training program for new trainees. Car rental was, in those days, an industry that recruited heavily from people straight out of college and looked first for personality traits, instead of specific experience. Just thought I'd put that on here - in case any car rental people find this blog (about 30-40 per month wind up here from Google searches), or in case I have a hard time remembering later! Overall Greet customer and determine if they have a reservation. Select car. Establish qualifications. Vehicle inspection / Sell optional products. Return of vehicle. We've talked about the first three. Now on to the final three parts - vehicle inspection, sell optional products, and the return of the vehicle. Note: in some companies, optional products are sold at the counter, then the vehicle is inspected; other companies inspect the car first, then offer optional products. VEHICLE INSPECTION A good rule here is ...

In my car rental days, I developed a simple training program for new trainees. Car rental was, in those days, an industry that recruited heavily from people straight out of college and looked first for personality traits, instead of specific experience. Just thought I'd put that on here - in case any car rental people find this blog (about 30-40 per month wind up here from Google searches), or in case I have a hard time remembering later! Overall Greet customer and determine if they have a reservation. Select car. Establish qualifications. Vehicle inspection / Sell optional products. Return of vehicle. ESTABLISH QUALIFICATIONS There are three main qualifications to rent a car: Identification Form of payment Insurance coverage IDENTIFICATION A person must have a valid driver's license in Tennessee to rent a car (state statute).  The Rental Agreement requires personal identifying information such as: name address contact phone number DL numb...

In my car rental days, I developed a simple training program for new trainees. Car rental was, in those days, an industry that recruited heavily from people straight out of college and looked first for personality traits, instead of specific experience. Just thought I'd put that on here - in case any car rental people find this blog (about 30-40 per month wind up here from Google searches), or in case I have a hard time remembering later! Overall Greet customer and determine if they have a reservation. Select car. Establish qualifications. Vehicle inspection / Sell optional products. Return of vehicle. GREETING The customer's first moments in your rental location should be pleasant. Make sure the branch is clean.  Be friendly and welcoming when the customer walks in.  Allow the customer to "get his bearings" in a new environment.  Most customers will state their business. Have a positive response ready.  Ask if they have a reservation...

I can understand bad luck. I can understand poor driving skills. I can understand a momentary lapse in judgment. I can even understand really bad circumstances. But some things take the cake. When working in the car rental field, I played witness to a person being at fault in no less than three collisions within a week's time frame. We got a call from her on a Monday morning - she was taking her car to the repair shop and needed a rental. She had been involved in a collision over the weekend. I rented her a car. Friday, she returned the rental and I returned her to the repair shop to pick up her newly repaired vehicle. Moments later, I get a call from the repair shop asking me to come pick her up again. I asked if her car repairs had been incomplete (a rare occurrence, but it was possible, and I'd seen it happen before). They said no, she had wrecked her car on the way home from the repair shop. I picked her up again, and rented her another car... And watched a...

Not a repo story, but from my car rental days. Customer had an odd expectation. It turned into a funny conversation. Situation: There had been an ice storm. Many people had damaged cars. Rental cars were in short supply as they were almost all rented. Note: Some insurance companies reimburse more than others for a rental car. You want as much of a daily allowance as possible, and you want there to be at least 20 days, if not 30, of consecutive reimbursable days. A gentleman walked in to the facility and announced he needed to rent a car. Sure enough, we had received computer confirmation moments prior that his insurance company would offer to pay $25 per day towards a rental car. At that moment in time, we had a Ford Explorer, and a Dodge Grand Caravan. Both vehicles, as negotiated by his insurance company, could be rented for $39.99 per day (plus applicable taxes, of course!). This was a good bargain - at the time, the retail price for either would have been $89.99 per day! ...

This story by request. Setting: Dyersburg, TN - June 1999. I have just been hired by Enterprise. Previously, I had worked for a rent-to-own place, so repossession was not foreign to me at all! My manager, Rich, learns this over lunch and he tells me that he wants me to help him repo a car. At the time, we didn't really go over details of why we did a repo or when. Rich explained that this was generally up to the manager of each Enterprise location, with a few broad guidelines. Rich also explained, as was his way, that there was really only one reason we would ever repo a car - only if the customer owed money. Made sense to me. I learned later, as Rich predicted I would, what circumstances generally happened leading up to a repo. But this day, I was wide-eyed and full of wonder. The vehicle was a nice Chevy pickup truck. The renter lived a bit of a drive away from the branch - 30 minutes or so. We drove to the house, and Rich taught me the 2 most fundamental rules of a re...

From a guy who was actually paid to repo cars. Man, I never knew they'd pay ya to do it - I always thought you got to repo just for the fun of it! Oh, and here's a post from " Failing Enterprise " too. I hold no ill-will toward ERAC whatsoever. Much the opposite. But the site is funny, and informative.

No, I was never late on rental car fees or anything of the sort. But I almost got towed one day. Here's the scoop: Setting - spring 2006. I had just taken part in a miniature Iaido seminar, taught by my former karate instructor, Sensei Suarez , who was in from Kentucky, and we were both visiting mutual friends at the Nashville Aikikai . A small group of us went to a late lunch following the session. The place was a Mexican restaurant in downtown Nashville. When we arrived, the parking lot was full. So I parked in an adjacent parking lot. It was empty. That should have been my first sign. Speaking of signs, there were not any "no parking" signs visible to me, or the members of my party (I drove the owners of the Nashville Aikikai, Sensei Suarez, and Mrs. Usagi altogether). We went in and had a leisurely meal, recounting martial arts stories of old. Toward the end of the meal, the owner of the restaurant calmly approached us and asked if the Jeep across the street wa...

This did not happen to me. Instead, this was shared with me by a current co-worker who is also former Enterprise. The renter rents a car and, not surprisingly, does not return the car. My coworker (MC for this post) goes through the motions. The renter just will not return the car. MC turns it over to the loss control department, and they go through the needed processes to report the car stolen. Part of that process is sending certified mail, demanding the return of the vehicle. There is a 10-day waiting period after this before a rented car can be reported stolen. This all happened at the end of this 10-day window. MC is driving through downtown Nashville, when he spots the vehicle in question - a silver Nissan Maxima. In his rearview mirror, he sees the renter crossing the street and getting into the car. A few deft driving moves puts him right behind the delinquent renter, and right in the way of flipped birds from angry drivers nearby! MC uses his cell phone to call t...