I booked a van through Enterprise for when I was moving house. I wanted a van that would be big enough to fit all my stuff in without doing too many journeys. I booked it online, and then phoned the branch to check they had received the reservation, that I had booked the right size van and to ask for the free pick up service as told to do on the website. This was all confirmed.
On the day, I sat and waited for the pick up service. Half an hour after the time they were supposed to pick me up I was still waiting. As I was on a tight time schedule that day I phoned the branch. The phone rang and rang and rang. When it was eventually answered I was told that someone had set off half an hour earlier and would be there shortly. I did query why they had only set off at the time they were supposed to be picking me up when I lived 20-25 minutes away and was told they were busy. Why had no-one given me the courtesy of a phone call to inform me of this?
Ten minutes later my lift finally appeared. The young man that was picking me up was friendly and chatty, but seemed very rushed. He admitted that they were shortstaffed, and that Saturdays were always like this. When we got to the branch it seemed like chaos. The phones were ringing off the hooks, and there were people queueing out of the door waiting to return or collect vehicles. The young man started doing my paperwork with me, then showed me out to check the van over. The van was not the size that I had ordered and confirmed, but quite a bit smaller and would not have fit my double bed in it. When I complained I was told that the van I was due to have had been extended by the person who currently had it. As you can imagine I was not happy with this at all.
When I went back into the branch he went to speak to his manager, who sat in a back office and seemed completely disinterested in my situation. At this point it was too late to order a van from somewhere else. The manager never bothered to come out and speak to me or apologise. Luckily, at this point someone else drove into the lot in a van. They clearly had not planned ahead to know that this was coming back, but it did work in my advantage.
When the paperwork was finished and the payment had been made, we went out to check around the van for damage. The van was in a state, with the glass smashed in one wing mirror and dents all over the place. After marking these down, I was then informed that there was a £600 excess on the insurance, which I could chose to reduce down to £100 for an extra £10 per day. Why had I not been informed of this before? I chose to go with the option because I have heard many a story of people being stung with hire vehicles, but was not happy at adding £20 to my bill at the last minute.
When I returned the vehicle after the weekend, the branch was once again busy and I had to sit and wait for 20 mins for a staff member to become available. While I waited I heard many strange sales tactics going on, e.g. people being charged extra to go into the size of car they thought they had already booked, because this car had 5 doors. They then checked the van in with a fine tooth comb, much more meticulously than when they checked it out. I then had to wait another 20mins before a driver became available to take me home. Obviously the staff were too busy trying to sell to take me home.
I felt sorry for the young people working there. They were far too busy for the amount of customers they were dealing with, and the manager looked as if he didn't care how busy or stressed they became. The more customers clearly meant more chances to exhort money out of them. I would be very wary of using them again.
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Advantages: good prices, pick up service, take debit cards, don't require a licence for 12mths Disadvantages: Perth branch closed at weekends, sometimes no vehicles available
magdadh 29.05.2009 (29.05.2009)
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Review of Enterprise Rent A Car
Jul 11th, 2008
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