Keli Chick never expected a one-day rental from Enterprise Rent-A-Car to turn into a year-long battle over a damage claim for more than $5,500.
Her fight with the biggest car rental company in North America began when she rented a truck in Dawson Creek, B.C., on Dec. 29, 2020 and drove it to Red Deer, Alta., the next morning — a seven-hour trip.
The skies were blue and the sun was shining, so Chick says she was more than a little surprised when a letter from Enterprise’s damage recovery department arrived six weeks later, saying she was on the hook for $5,578, due to hail damage.
“I was pretty shocked,” said Chick. “I had to read it a few times just because it was so out there. I thought, ‘This cannot be possible.'”
Go Public has heard from about a dozen other Enterprise customers who say they, too, were told long after their rental period was over that they were responsible for various repairs costing thousands of dollars.
Chick took a photo of the horizon that included the hood of the truck she rented. A closeup reveals small dents, considered to be hail damage. (Submitted by Keli Chick)
A consumer advocate and lawyer, who is an expert on contract law, says car rental companies have to inform customers of damage in a timely manner — and can’t just tell them they have to foot the bill for repairs.
“The onus is on the rental car company to prove their allegations,” said Daniel Tsai, who teaches consumer and business law at Ryerson University in Toronto. “If they say that you’ve caused the damage, they actually have to provide some evidence.”
Enterprise turned Chick’s case over to the collection agency Credifax, which sent numerous letters and threatened to take her to court. (Colin Hall/CBC)
A picture is worth… nothing?
Before leaving the Enterprise location, Chick and an agent completed a walk-around inspection and noted a scratch on a door and a broken tail light. The truck’s roof and hood were covered in snow and ice, says Chick, but she assumed they were in good condition.
As she hit the highway the next morning, the sun melted the frozen white stuff off her rental vehicle. A photo Chick stopped to take of the horizon happened to include part of the hood and captured pock marks from what appeared to be hail.
When she arrived in Red Deer, the agent who signed off on the truck’s return told her not to worry about the obvious dents.
“He didn’t add the hail damage because clearly the weather was a beautiful day and no hail damage had occurred when it was in my possession,” said Chick.
It wasn’t until six weeks later that Chick received the Enterprise letter, telling her she’d received “significantly discounted repair rates” and that she was responsible to pay the cost.
Contract law expert Daniel Tsai says the onus to prove damage occurred during a rental period is on the rental companies, and that unhappy customers should fight damage claims in court. (Sue Goodspeed/CBC)
Chick thought she had insurance, because she’d paid with a credit card — most provide coverage. But she discovered that credit cards only cover car rentals, not trucks. On top of that, she says, filling out an insurance claim would have been fraudulent, because she wasn’t responsible for the damage.
She sent Enterprise the photo and a link to a local TV weather report that said there had been clear skies during her rental period. Ameteorologist at Environment and Climate Change Canada later confirmed that for Go Public.
“They told me that that didn’t matter,” she said. “They were very clear that this was my fault.”
Enterprise sent her case to the collection agency Credifax, which added interest to the repair bill — so it grew to over $6,200 — and threatened legal action.
“Every time I tried to reach them [Enterprise], they completely ignored me and just kind of gave me the runaround,” said Chick. “It’s a lot of time. A lot of energy. And just so frustrating that this has happened for a whole year.”
Enterprise told Pat Abbott three months after she returned a rental car that she owed more than $12,000 for a blown motor — a problem for which the car was under recall. (Submitted by Pat Abbott)
Can’t ‘conclusively determine’ fault
Enterprise spokesperson Lisa Martini told Go Public that the company’s terms and conditions spell out that customers are responsible for damage caused by an “act of God,” which includes hail. If they don’t have insurancethat cost becomes an out-of-pocket expense.
Similar clauses exist in agreements for the three companies that account for an estimated 95 per cent of all car rentals in Canada: Enterprise (which owns National and Alamo), Avis (which owns Budget) and Hertz (which owns Dollar and Thrifty).
After Go Public requested an interview with Enterprise, the company dropped its claim against Chick.
In a statement, Martini said the company was “unable to conclusively determine” when the truck was damaged so “the wrong renter was likely held responsible.”
But the rental company’s about-face doesn’t sit well with Tsai.
“You deny a claim you can’t even prove and make the customer go through a horrendous experience where they might even have to go to court?” he said. “That’s a major marketing fail.”
Enterprise eventually dropped both claims against Chick and Abbott. (Sam Nar/CBC)
Vehicle recalled
Likewise, Pat Abbott didn’t find out for three months that she was supposedly responsible for $12,322 in damages to the 2020 Elantra she’d driven for a month. Enterprise said the motor was shot.
“I said, ‘I’m not paying this. That car was in perfect condition,” Abbott, 71, said from her home in Abbotsford, B.C.
She then learned that that model of vehicle had been recalled due to motor issues.
“I was livid,” she said. “The motor was under recall, so why are they pinning the damage on me?”
WATCH | Woman charged more than $5,500 for hail damage on rented truck:
Rental company charges customer for hail damage | Go Public
12 hours ago
Duration 1:51
An Alberta woman says Enterprise charged her for thousands of dollars in hail damage to a truck she rented, even though it was sunny during her rental period. 1:51
Enterprise ended up dropping the claim — after it emerged that the vehicle’s odometer showed almost 1,300 kilometres more than when Abbott had returned it. Its letter to Abbott did not include an apology.
Taking months to hit a customer with a major repair bill is too long, says Tsai.
“There should definitely be a time limit if there’s any damage or any circumstance where the customer owes additional money,” he said. “That delay is totally unacceptable. And in fact, it makes it suspicious.”
Enterprise says a “miscommunication” caused the claim to be sent out while the cause of the engine failure was being determined.
It says fewer than 0.2 per cent of all rentals in Canada last year resulted in cases “where the customer had a concern with the way the claim was handled.”
When asked, Martini, the spokesperson, said she could not say what percentage of renters who had a concern about their claim weren’t satisfied with the outcome.
Nor is it clear what percentage of Enterprise’s total rentals for 2021 resulted in claims.
Martini also said in the statement it can take “several weeks” to inform customers of damage because it “is not always noticeable immediately” and that a bill isn’t sent out until repairs are complete.
Tsai says the car rental industry is “long overdue” for regulatory oversight.
“We should have a regulatory standard in place where car companies that make their claims have to prove it before they pursue them,” said Tsai.
“And have to provide some kind of mediation process to get these things dealt with fairly and quickly – to ensure that rental car companies are accountable to their customers.”
Keli Chick says she’s relieved the hail damage problem is over, but that she’ll be holding Enterprise accountable in a different way.
“I’m telling everybody I know not to use that company ever again,” she said. “I will never go back to them.”
Submit your story ideas
Go Public is an investigative news segment on CBC-TV, radio and the web.
We tell your stories, shed light on wrongdoing and hold the powers that be accountable.
If you have a story in the public interest, or if you’re an insider with information, contact GoPublic@cbc.ca with your name, contact information and a brief summary. All emails are confidential until you decide to Go Public.
Speaking from personal experience, a bad hire isn’t a good look. The last thing you want is to hear, “Who the hell hired Bob?” and have your hiring judgment questioned.
The job seeker who’s empathetic to the employer’s side of the hiring desk, which controls the hiring process, is rare.
One of the best things you can do to enhance your job search is to practice perspective-taking, which involves seeing things from a different perspective.
It’s natural for employers to find candidates who have empathy and an understanding of their challenges and pain points more attractive. Candidates like these are seen as potential allies rather than individuals only looking out for themselves. Since most job seekers approach employers with a ‘what’s in it for me’ mindset, practicing perspective-taking sets you apart.
“If there is any one secret of success, it lies in the ability to get the other person’s point of view and see things from that person’s angle as well as from your own.” – Henry Ford.
Perspective-taking makes you realize that from an employer’s POV hiring is fraught with risks employers want to avoid; thus, you consider what most job seekers don’t: How can I present myself as the least risky hiring option?
Here’s an exercise that’ll help you visualize the employer’s side of the hiring process.
Candidate A or B?
Imagine you’re the Director of Customer Service for a regional bank with 85 branches. You’re hiring a call centre manager who’ll work onsite at the bank’s head office, overseeing the bank’s 50-seat call centre. In addition to working with the call centre agents, the successful candidate will also interact with other departments, your boss, and members of the C-suite leadership team; in other words, they’ll be visible throughout the bank.
The job posting resulted in over 400 applications. The bank’s ATS and HR (phone interview vetting, skill assessment testing) selected five candidates, plus an employee referral, for you to interview. You aim to shortlist the six candidates to three, whom you’ll interview a second time, and then make a hiring decision. Before scheduling the interviews, which’ll take place between all your other ongoing responsibilities, you spend 5 – 10 minutes with each candidate’s resume and review their respective digital footprint and LinkedIn activity.
In your opinion, which candidate deserves a second interview?
Candidate A: Their resume provides quantitative numbers—evidence—of the results they’ve achieved. (Through enhanced agent training, reduced average handle time from 4:32 mins. to 2:43 minutes, which decreased the abandon rate from 4.6% to 2.2%.)
Candidate B: Their resume offers only opinions. (“I’m detail-oriented,” “I learn fast.”)
Candidate A: Looks you in the eye, has a firm handshake, smiles, and exudes confidence.
Candidate B: Doesn’t look you in the eye, has a weak handshake.
Candidate A: Referred by Ariya, who’s been with the bank for over 15 years and has a stellar record, having moved up from teller to credit analyst and is tracking to become a Managing Director.
Candidate B: Applied online. Based on your knowledge, they did nothing else to make their application more visible. (e.g., reached out to you or other bank employees)
Candidate A: Well educated, grew up as a digital native, eager and energetic. Currently manages a 35-seat call center for a mid-size credit union. They mention they called the bank’s call centre several times and suggest ways to improve the caller experience.
Candidate B: Has been working in banking for over 25 years, managing the call center at their last bank for 17 years before being laid off eight months ago. They definitely have the experience to run a call centre. However, you have a nagging gut feeling that they’re just looking for a place to park themselves until they can afford to retire.
Candidate A: Has a fully completed LinkedIn profile (picture, eye-catching banner) packed with quantifying numbers. It’s evident how they were of value to their employers. Recently, they engaged constructively with posts and comments and published a LinkedIn article on managing Generations Y and Z call centre agents. Their Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter/X accounts aren’t controversial, sharing between ‘Happy Birthday’ and ‘Congratulations’ messages, their love of fine dining, baseball, and gardening.
Candidate B: Their LinkedIn profile is incomplete. The last time they posted on LinkedIn was seven months ago, ranting about how the government’s latest interest rate hike will plunge the country into a deep recession. Conspiracy theories abound on their Facebook page.
Candidate A: Notices the golf calendar on your desk, the putter and golf balls in the corner, and a photograph of Phil Mickelson putting on the green jacket at the 2010 Masters hanging on your wall. While nodding towards the picture, they say, “Evidently, you golf. Not being a golfer myself, what made you take up golf, which I understand is a frustrating sport?”
Candidate B: Doesn’t proactively engage in small talk. Waits for you to start the interview.
Which of the above candidates presents the least hiring risk? Will likely succeed (read: achieve the results the employer needs)? Will show your boss, upper management, and employees you know how to hire for competence and fit?
Nick Kossovan, a well-seasoned veteran of the corporate landscape, offers “unsweetened” job search advice. You can send Nick your questions to artoffindingwork@gmail.com.
Though I have no empirical evidence to support my claim, I believe job search success can be achieved faster by using what I call “The Job Seekers’ Trinity” as your framework, the trinity being:
The power of focus
Managing your anger
Presenting evidence
Each component plays a critical role in sustaining motivation and strategically positioning yourself for job search success. Harnessing your focus, managing your anger, and presenting compelling evidence (read: quantitative numbers of achieved results) will transform your job search from a daunting endeavour into a structured, persuasive job search campaign that employers will notice.
The Power of Focus
Your job search success is mainly determined by what you’re focused on, namely:
What you focus on.
Your life is controlled by what you focus on; thus, focusing on the positives shapes your mindset for positive outcomes. Yes, layoffs, which the media loves to report to keep us addicted to the news, are a daily occurrence, but so is hiring. Don’t let all the doom and gloom talk overshadow this fact. Focus on where you want to go, not on what others and the media want you to fear.
Bonus of not focusing on negatives: You’ll be happier.
Focus on how you can provide measurable value to employers.
If you’re struggling with your job search, the likely reason is that you’re not showing, along with providing evidence, employers how you can add tangible value to an employer’s bottom line. Business is a numbers game, yet few job seekers speak about their numbers. If you don’t focus on and talk about your numbers, how do you expect employers to see the value in hiring you?
Managing Your Anger
Displaying anger in public is never a good look. Professionals are expected to control their emotions, so public displays of anger are viewed as unprofessional.
LinkedIn has become a platform heavily populated with job seekers posting angry rants—fueled mainly by a sense of entitlement—bashing and criticizing employers, recruiters, and the government, proving many job seekers think the public display of their anger won’t negatively affect their job search.
When you’re unemployed, it’s natural to be angry when your family, friends, and neighbours are employed. “Why me?” is a constant question in your head. Additionally, job searching is fraught with frustrations, such as not getting responses to your applications and being ghosted after interviews.
The key is acknowledging your anger and not letting it dictate your actions, such as adding to the angry rants on LinkedIn and other social media platforms, which employers will see.
Undoubtedly, rejection, which is inevitable when job hunting, causes the most anger. What works for me is to reframe rejections, be it through being ghosted, email, a call or text, as “Every ‘No’ brings me one step closer to a ‘Yes.'”
Additionally, I’ve significantly reduced triggering my anger by eliminating any sense of entitlement and keeping my expectations in check. Neither you nor I are owed anything, including a job, respect, empathy, understanding, agreement, or even love. A sense of entitlement and anger are intrinsically linked. The more rights you perceive you have, the more anger you need to defend them. Losing any sense of entitlement you may have will make you less angry, which has no place in a job search.
Presenting Evidence
As I stated earlier, business is a numbers game. Since all business decisions, including hiring, are based on numbers, presenting evidence in the form of quantitative numbers is crucial.
Which candidate would you contact to set up an interview if you were hiring a social media manager:
“Managed Fabian Publishing’s social media accounts, posting content daily.”
“Designed and executed Fabian Publishing’s global social media strategy across 8.7 million LinkedIn, X/Twitter, Instagram and Facebook followers. Through consistent engagement with customers, followers, and influencers, increased social media lead generation by 46% year-over-year, generating in 2023 $7.6 million in revenue.”
Numerical evidence, not generic statements or opinions, is how you prove your value to employers. Stating you’re a “team player” or “results-driven,” as opposed to “I’m part of an inside sales team that generated in 2023 $8.5 million in sales,” or “In 2023 I managed three company-wide software implementations, all of which came under budget,” is meaningless to an employer.
Despite all the job search advice offered, I still see resumes and LinkedIn profiles listing generic responsibilities rather than accomplishments backed by numbers. A statement such as “managed a team” doesn’t convey your management responsibilities or your team’s achievements under your leadership. “Led a team of five to increase sales by 20%, from $3.7 million to $4.44 million, within six months” shows the value of your management skills.
Throughout your job search, constantly think of all the numbers you can provide—revenue generated, number of new clients, cost savings, reduced workload, waste reduction—as evidence to employers why you’d be a great value-add to their business.
The Job Seekers’ Trinity—focusing on the positive, managing your anger and providing evidence—is a framework that’ll increase the effectiveness of your job search activities and make you stand out in today’s hyper-competitive job market, thus expediting your job search to a successful conclusion.
Nick Kossovan, a well-seasoned veteran of the corporate landscape, offers “unsweetened” job search advice. You can send Nick your questions to artoffindingwork@gmail.com.
TOKYO (AP) — Japanese technology group SoftBank swung back to profitability in the July-September quarter, boosted by positive results in its Vision Fund investments.
Tokyo-based SoftBank Group Corp. reported Tuesday a fiscal second quarter profit of nearly 1.18 trillion yen ($7.7 billion), compared with a 931 billion yen loss in the year-earlier period.
Quarterly sales edged up about 6% to nearly 1.77 trillion yen ($11.5 billion).
SoftBank credited income from royalties and licensing related to its holdings in Arm, a computer chip-designing company, whose business spans smartphones, data centers, networking equipment, automotive, consumer electronic devices, and AI applications.
The results were also helped by the absence of losses related to SoftBank’s investment in office-space sharing venture WeWork, which hit the previous fiscal year.
WeWork, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2023, emerged from Chapter 11 in June.
SoftBank has benefitted in recent months from rising share prices in some investment, such as U.S.-based e-commerce company Coupang, Chinese mobility provider DiDi Global and Bytedance, the Chinese developer of TikTok.
SoftBank’s financial results tend to swing wildly, partly because of its sprawling investment portfolio that includes search engine Yahoo, Chinese retailer Alibaba, and artificial intelligence company Nvidia.
SoftBank makes investments in a variety of companies that it groups together in a series of Vision Funds.
The company’s founder, Masayoshi Son, is a pioneer in technology investment in Japan. SoftBank Group does not give earnings forecasts.
