Oops! Enterprise Rent-A-Car sends customer the wrong bill

Here’s a problem that would seem easy to fix on paper, but is much more difficult in practice: Last summer, Anthony Buono began getting bills from Enterprise for toll violations. Bills he didn’t recognize. And for good reason — they weren’t his.

You’d think a quick phone call or a polite email to Enterprise would clear this up. But no, he received more invoices for the toll violations.

Buono explains:

Last July, I received a notice from Enterprise Rent-A-Car stating that a toll violation occurred on a vehicle which was rented to me at the time of the violation. Enterprise provided the Issuing Agency (NJ EZPass) with my information and transferred liability for the ticket directly to me.

Here is the problem: I did not rent this vehicle from Enterprise.

I am 100 percent certain of this fact as I have not rented a vehicle from Enterprise since 2008.

I contacted Enterprise about this matter and came to discover that another person with the same name as me actually rented this vehicle at the time the toll violation occurred. I do have an account with Enterprise as I had rented from them often in the past for business purposes. So perhaps when they wrote up the contract for this rental they used my info instead of that of the actual renter.

Tom from Enterprise said he spoke with John Williams from EZ Pass violations and that the matter would be resolved, but it hasn’t been. I have followed up with them several times but to no avail.

To compound the situation, NJ EZPass has since sent me three more notices for additional toll violations as it has me on record as the renter of this vehicle and responsible for these violations.

I have disputed these violations several times (phone calls, emails, faxes and written notices sent via mail) with NJ EZPass but they have rejected them due to “insufficient evidence.” NJ EZPass continues to send me notices and I cannot convince them that I am responsible for these violations. In addition to the amount of the tolls, they are assessing a $25 administrative fee for each violation and have sent further notices of intent to refer to collection.

Can you do anything to help me? Or at least tell me what to do to get this resolved?

EZPass’ terms and conditions don’t address this type of situation. And besides, if Enterprise reported Buono to EZPass, I think it needs to be the one to un-report him.

I contacted Enterprise on his behalf, and within a week, the company got EZPass off his back.

But what if I hadn’t been around to help? Buono sent me all of his correspondence, and I noticed that it was all by mail and phone. A brief, polite email may have been more effective. Here are some Enterprise contacts.

Beyond that, appealing to the higher-ups at EZPass might have worked. But I wouldn’t have counted on it.

  • Justin

    If i were him, I’d mail Enterprise a letter of correspondence, certified, with a an accessed fee for the rate equal to the time handling the mess due to it’s negligence and failure to correct the issue. If it failed to pay, small claims sounds like a good option. Why should he have had to go through this process and wasted his time, for THEIR MISTAKE.

  • Justin

    P.S. This would be easy to prove. They obviously have the contract on file. If it isn’t his signature, it was their mistake. See above.

  • Josh

    I agree with the others here — Enterprise’s policies, terms & conditions, etc are completely irrelevant, because he did not rent from them in the first place. Enterprise erroneously sent his name in, and is responsible for ALL impacts of that error. Their best action would have been to immediately submit a correction to EZ-Pass and follow up to make sure it was fixed. Not doing so borders on fraud, and it would be reasonable to sue them for all costs involved in cleaning up the mess.

  • http://www.imageswritten.biz Susan

    I wonder where all his correspondence went. I agree an email might, MIGHT have been helpful, but if he sent the mail certified, someone, somewhere would have signed for it. Where does the mail go??? When I went to small claims court when a client did not pay, the court did not consider email as proof, they wanted copies of letters (on paper) and proof I mailed them, certified receipts… even though my client had a dummy P O Box at a Mailbox store… that is what the court wanted to see.

    I also agree. Enterprises’ error, they owe him some consideration…everyone wants to pass the buck these days. It is so sad. They should have resolved the EZ Pass issue… it would have been so easy to work backwards with their forms, which they should have had on file.

  • Allison

    Car rental agencies seem to play fast and loose with customer data.

    About 6 years ago I rented a car from National at the Rochester, NY airport. Another gentleman rented a car at about the same time. Somehow, my credit card number got entered into this man’s Emerald Club account and I began receiving large bills on my credit card from National (the man was a frequent traveler). Apparently this other man never noticed the lack of billing because he assumed the credit card in his file was his corporate AMEX which is paid by his company(as I would be told later). It took about 6 months to figure out what happened, including an UNsuccessful dispute with my credit card (National insisted nothing was wrong and that I willingly added my credit card number to a total stranger’s account, which Chase Visa believed). Finally, I got National to fax me information on this Emerald Club account that has my credit card number attached to it. They faxed me all sorts of personal information about this man: address, business information, social security number, drivers license number, phone number as well as a full credit card number listed as a secondary credit card (mine was listed as primary).

    Imagine this gentleman’s surprise when a total stranger called him about this series of events. At first, he seemed skeptical about what I was telling him, until I recited his SSN, DL# and other personal information about him over the phone. It wasn’t until this other man contacted National was I able to get the charges reversed from my credit card. I received a $50 credit from National for my trouble.

    Since I am a good, ethical person, I shredded all of the man’s information once the situation appeared to be finally resolved to my satisfaction. I do admit to holding onto the information as a bargaining chip to incentivize the powers at be to move quickly on refunding the charges to my credit card.

    But think about it–National faxed a stranger sensitive personal information about one of its club members.

  • Ituri

    I’ve noticed a bit of a trend in the responses given to many problems here. Don’t get me wrong, its probably good advice, but I just feel the need to mention it.

    If a client contacts a company by phone and fax, you say they should also have emailed. If they used email and letter, you say they should have called. If they phoned and wrote letters, you say they should have emailed. If they emailed and wrote letters…. see the trend?

    A customer should not have to jump through a million contact methods to get a response from a company. In all my dealings, email has been more than enough. When that doesn’t work, a single phone call should clear the air. I personally haven’t written a letter in likely 5 years or more, and I know I’m not the only one like that. My overall point is… if a client has tried with more than one method to reach a company, it is not on the client to say to himself “well, maybe I should also *blank* them.” No, the company should respond. Not that BAD companies will respond to anything… ever tried to get a person at Bally’s Fitness? Yeah, doesn’t happen. ^_^

  • Rich

    There is a lesson here that I learned a long time ago. Don’t rent from Enterprise and do your best to stay out of New Jersey. I consider both of them to be considerably less than honorable.

  • Stephen – NYC

    Just a note, that now the EZ Pass Admin fee from New Jersey (as in PATH structures) is $50, up from the $25 they charged the OP. So you really have to keep on your toes. BTW, for any EZ Pass account (or similar toll-gouging authority you might be a member of – yes, EZ Pass doesn’t set the tolls, they just let the agencies collect them), be sure to add your car’s license plate to your account so in the event of some sort of boo-boo, they can match up the photo of your plate with their database. /end of toll rant

  • http://www.cockam.com ajaynejr

    (comments directed at a reply as well as the article)

    Not only are Enterprise and National the bad guys for mixing up customer information but also Chase Visa and NH EZpass are the bad guys for persisting in going after the wrong person to collect.

    In the two cases it may well have been better for the customers affected customers to leave the charges unpaid and let it cgo to collection and continue the dispute there.

  • Mike Wilson

    I too received notices of 7 violations from Enterprise. The violations were on Enterprise letterhead stating they paid for the tolls, doubled the toll, and added a $10 “administrative fee” for each toll. I logged onto my I-Pass account to see if my I-Pass was expired, or something else was wrong. The vehilce I had the violations was on my I-Pass account, and my account was current. I called the Illinois Tollway and talked to someone there and they said my account had no violations from the two months in question, nor were there EVER any violations against the vehicle I had the violations against. When asked if there was any question of a toll, would there be a violation against my account, and was told, “not if it was in good standing.” Which mine was, and since the vehicle was registered, there should not have been any violations in the first place. And in fact, I was not even on the freeway one of the days in question, and was in Pennsylvania on another day there was a violation against.
    I contacted Enterprise and was told that I would have to have a letter from the Illinois Tollway stating there were no violations against my account. They dropped all of administrative fees, and reduced the tolls from $4.40 to $2.05 and said I could send a check or money order.
    My question is: How can Enterprise bill me for tolls that do not exist? The Illinois Tollway has told me twice now that there are no violation against my account, nor on the vehicle in question.
    I wrote Enterprise a letter asking the same questions, sent it certified mail, it shows received with a signature, and have had no response from them at all.
    Any advise?

  • Thomas Goodrich

    I am a frequent customer with Enterprise New Castle, DE and have always found Enterprise Holdings and the employees of Enterprise exemplary. I am working with Enterprise St. Louis on a similar matter whereby a couple of months ago I received a letter from Enterprise that I had triggered a red-light camera violation in Washington, DC and they were assessing an administrative fee of $10 and further; they would be transferring liability to me. I had no problem with that and was anticipating receipt of the violation from DC. Instead, two months later I receive a letter from Enterprise that they went ahead and paid the invoice they had received from the office of the DC Treasurer and again assessed a $10 administrative fee. Upon contacting their customer service department, I was informed that the company recently changed its policy “because they didn’t want tickets on the cars”. The problem now is they apparently changed their policy on-the-fly, contradicting the previous notice and with no record of the violation or ability to provide a copy of such or the amount they presumably paid, I can no longer assert my rights to validate and/or defend the citation. These are questions that should be addressed with Enterprise as they have access to customers credit accounts. I am awaiting a response from Enterprise upon requesting they recoup the money they paid on my behalf and produce the evidence and allow to contest if necessary.