http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/chi-tue-problem-0203-feb03,0,4509538.column?page=1
Cliffs:
Woman gets free 1 day rental voucher for Enterprise rental from Schaumburg Subaru dealership while her car is fixed overnight. Dealership tells woman to leave the rental car at the dealership and they'll take care of returning it the next day. Dealership looses the car before returning it to Enterprise and racks up a $3,000 bill when the car is lost for 37 days and is found in an impound lot.
Cliffs:
Woman gets free 1 day rental voucher for Enterprise rental from Schaumburg Subaru dealership while her car is fixed overnight. Dealership tells woman to leave the rental car at the dealership and they'll take care of returning it the next day. Dealership looses the car before returning it to Enterprise and racks up a $3,000 bill when the car is lost for 37 days and is found in an impound lot.
'Complimentary' 1-day car rental costs woman nearly $3,000
Subaru of Schaumburg, Enterprise Rent-A-Car eventually reimburse customer
The one-day car rental was supposed to be free, a perk of servicing your car at Subaru of Schaumburg.
For Eileen Hennessy, the so-called perk cost nearly $3,000.
The retired schoolteacher's tale of expensive rental-car woe began May 23, when she took her Subaru Legacy to the Schaumburg dealership for service. An employee from the dealership dropped her at a nearby Enterprise Rent-A-Car with a coupon for a free rental.
Although Subaru was paying for the rental, Enterprise required Hennessy to secure the vehicle with her credit card.
By the time Hennessy returned to the dealership that night to pick up her car, Enterprise was closed. Hennessy said she was told by an employee at the dealership to leave the car there—someone from Subaru of Schaumburg would return the car for her.
Hennessy said she drove the rental car into the service area, handed the keys to a Subaru employee, then drove home in her Legacy.
More than a month later, Enterprise called her and asked when she planned to return the rental.
Shocked, Hennessy said she had returned it to Subaru of Schaumburg May 23.
Enterprise finally found the car on July 2—at a tow lot in Rolling Meadows. The rental-car agency told her she owed it for the tow, 37 days of storage fees and more than a month of rental charges.
The grand total: $2,871.
Hennessy said she called the dealership and was assured it would handle the problem.
But in mid-July, Enterprise charged the full $2,871 to Hennessy's credit card, which the Des Plaines resident paid. After not hearing back from the dealership, Hennessy wrote Subaru's corporate headquarters. In August, Subaru wrote back, saying the dealer denied accepting the keys to the rental car. It said the rental had been towed from a parking lot at a business next door to the dealership—implying she had parked the car there.
In the fall, Hennessy took a brief break from making calls. Then in October, Enterprise charged another $30 to her credit card because Subaru of Schaumburg did not pay for the initial "free" rental day she was promised May 23.
Incensed, Hennessy made a fresh round of calls but got nowhere.
In late January, she wrote What's Your Problem?
"I am a retired Chicago Public School teacher. I am recovering from double knee replacements, but this problem seems even more difficult," she said. "I'm not stupid. I mean to carry through on this. I'm just a woman, a senior citizen. That was not good enough for them to want to help me."
The Problem Solver called Subaru's headquarters in Cherry Hill, N.J., the dealership in Schaumburg and Enterprise Rent-A-Car.
Subaru, both at the corporate level and locally, denied any wrongdoing.
"The dealer believed the customer had returned the car to Enterprise, which is what they're told to do and is normal practice," said Michael McHale, a Subaru spokesman. "The customer says she handed the keys over, but can't say who to. Our dealership says she parked the car in the wrong lot."
Enterprise took a different approach. After researching the case, it agreed to refund all of Hennessy's money.
"We are not holding her responsible for this," said Lisa Martini, an Enterprise spokeswoman. She said her company will work directly with Subaru to decide how much each company will pay of the $2,871.
"The bottom line is we're going to take [Hennessy] out of that and figure out where the responsibility lies," Martini said. "It's hard to figure out where things went wrong with this."
The spokeswoman said the rental company should not have waited a month to contact Hennessy after the one-day rental car was not returned May 24. Martini said documents show the car was towed late on May 23, so it was obvious Hennessy did not have the car for more than a day.
"We should have caught it sooner. We should have taken care of it sooner," Martini said. "We want to make our customers happy. That's the bottom line."
Monday morning, Rick Weissberg, president of Subaru of Schaumburg, called the Problem Solver and said he, too, felt bad about the situation. While he still thinks Hennessy parked the car in the tow zone next door to the dealership, he said he valued her as a customer—so he agreed to pay half the Enterprise bill.
"I think we'll do that," Weissberg said. "Just because she's a good customer." But Subaru issued no apology.
Hennessy was elated to get her money back but still upset that Subaru did not shoulder some of the blame.
"I am very happy about the money. I deserve the money. I did nothing wrong," she said. "I'm grateful to Enterprise for apologizing and doing the right thing. I think that Subaru should do the right thing. I feel they should take responsibility."
Hennessy said she never lost faith she would get her money back.
"You've heard of the fighting Irish?" Hennessy joked. "It took me a long time, but I did it. … It's not like me to ever give up."
