Purpose of blog.....bad rental car experience.

I created this blog because of my recent experience with Enterprise Rent a Car in Boise, ID. I was recently in a car accident one day while on my way in to work. After getting everything figured out with the police etc. I continued on to my office and later that day I was contacted by Stacey an insurance adjuster who worked for the other guys insurance company. I made arrangements with her for getting my car fixed. During the course of our conversation she inquired if I would need a rental car while mine was getting fixed. I told her that would be great as I had a family trip coming up. Stacey made the necessary calls to set up a "reservation" for me and told me someone from Enterprise would be in contact with me shortly. I waited, then I waited some more, finally after waiting a couple of hours I googled Enterprise and found the store where my car was supposed to be waiting. I called and could not get anyone to answer which was quickly causing my frustration to rise. A call a few minutes later produced the same result. Finally I was able to get through. I told the kid who answered my situation and told him my name and reservation number. I explained my frustration to him of not receiving a call and then not being able to get through. I could hear him pecking a keyboard while he searched for me and he mouthed that he was sorry, but they had been really busy all day since a few people from the store were sick or something. He must have found my reservation because he knew the shop I was going to and had all the insurance information. I explained that since my car was at the shop I would need to be picked up from my office (whats up with the cheesy "we'll pick you up commercials"). He said that would be fine that he could arrange for it. He proceeded to ask me if 3:00 pm the next day would be ok. I told him it would not as I had to have transportation to and from my office as I work in Boise and live in Eagle and it is not convenient for my wife to drive me every day. The kid then informed me that he was sorry(again) but they were putting people on a waiting list and that he had no cars for the next 36 hours. I asked the kid where the cars were and he said they were sold out because lots of people were traveling into Boise so their cars were all rented. He said he could call around to other stores and then call me right back. Does anyone want to guess what happened next? Of course no one called me back! I called the kid at the Enterprise back after waiting an hour and got a corny voicemail saying they couldn't come to the phone. I tried 5 minutes later and got a different kid. He apologized profusely again because they were so busy. He then had the nerve to ask if he could call me back again since he was helping another customer! I said no and he then asked to put me on hold and before I knew it I was listening to Enterprise commercials on the phone. When the kid was back on I lost it. I explained my situation again and tried to convey why I was so frustrated about everything. I told him how the adjuster set everything up, I had a reservation number, could not reach them multiple times and then how they never followed through with what they promised. More apologies flowed. I told him I just needed to pick my Suburban up how hard was that to do? "Suburban, that changes everything. We don't have any....blah....blah....blah...but we might have a Chevy Equinox in a day or two" What?! I was so mad I just stopped talking. I told him I wanted to talk to the store manager and he told me that the manager was "out of the office" but he would gladly pass the message on. Sure you will I said sarcastically. I jumped on the internet and found this same office had SUV's. I booked one for that afternoon. The Enterprise site told me to call the office to schedule a pickup. Nooooo! Well I called and I was shocked when someone picked up after a million rings (what happened to the answering machine?). I gave the kid (who knows which one it was) my reservation number and explained I had made a reservation for a Suburban that afternoon. He found it and said that while they would not have one at 2:30 they did expect one to be back by 3:30. I said that would work great, but how did he know the car would be back? He said if I would hold just a minute he would call the other customer and double check. I said ok and after a few minutes of listening to the awful phone commercials he came back on and said it would be back at 3:30 and they just needed time to clean it. When I heard that my blood started to boil. I told then gentleman who I was and then asked how they could have a Suburban for me at $130 a day but when I called earlier in the day and the insurance was only covering $50 or so they didn;t have anything for at least 36 hours. He rattled some garbage off and I asked for the manager again, who just happened to still be out. I hung up. I looked up some other car rental places and talked to a guy at the Avis which is right next to Enterprise (wonder why). They took my information, got it setup with the insurance company and got me in a car that evening. Now I know why they must be next door! Anyway, I was amazed at how poorly Enterprise handled my reservation especially since they claim to be so great on TV. I'm going to file a complaint and will let you know how it goes.