DALLAS — This past January, Bob Gremillion made what he thought was an uneventful trip from his home in Asheville, North Carolina to New Orleans to see his 92-year-old mother.
He rented a 2023 Ford Edge from National Car Rental. He stayed three nights and drove 58 miles. He paid $20 a night for covered hotel parking.
“When I brought the car back, some attendant walked around it and told me tata, I can go now,” he said.
Then came the letter dated July 1 from National’s Damage Recovery Unit.
“Our review indicates that you are responsible for the damages to our vehicle,” the letter said.
It included an estimate from an Arlington repair shop. It said he owed $4,379.81.
“I had no idea what they were talking about,” Gremillion said. “And why the hell was it six months later that this was coming in?”
That letter would lead to a weeks-long battle with National Car Rental, which is owned by Enterprise Mobility, the nation’s largest rental car company. The company also owns Enterprise Rent-A-Car and Alamo Rent a Car.
The company ultimately agreed Gremillion did not cause the damage, but it came after the company initially rejected Gremillion’s dispute, and his wife emailed high-ranking officials and complained to state regulators.
In a statement to WFAA, the company said it takes “seriously any concerns brought to us by customers and investigate them thoroughly.”
“Our local team reached out to the renter to further discuss this matter and was able to determine we had made an error in attributing this damage claim to Mr. Gremillion,” the statement said. “Because of this, we are dropping this claim. The damage claim was specific to a different rental cycle, and we are looking into how this miscommunication happened.”
After the letter earlier this month notifying them of the damage, Gremillion immediately filed a dispute with National. The company responded with a July 8 letter stating they had received their complaint and would investigate.
A letter dated July 11 stated the damage recovery unit had contacted the rental location “and based upon our investigation, we continue to hold you contractually liable for this loss in accordance to the terms and conditions of your rental agreement.”
“The dispute, quote, investigation, unquote, lasted all of three days, if that,” Kestin said. “He signed a rental agreement and that was it.”
Kestin said their insurance company told them they needed to settle the claim. If they didn’t allow the insurance company to pay, they could end up being personally liable.
It wasn’t going to cost the couple anything out of pocket. But Kestin couldn’t let the matter drop if for no other than reasonable professional sensibilities. Kestin is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter and co-founded the Asheville Watchdog.
Putting her investigative reporting skills to work, she contacted the National Weather Service. She confirmed it didn’t hail during his trip to New Orleans.
She dug up all his receipts, including the one that showed he had used covered parking at the hotel. She located his rental return receipt showing he had a zero balance when he returned the SUV.
She found similar stories involving other rental car customers who claimed to have been hit with false hail damage claims.
“It appeared to me that there was a pattern here,” Kestin said.
Kestin filed a complaint with the Louisiana Department of Insurance. She located the email addresses of high-ranking company officials and sent emails.
On July 24, she received a call from National’s group rental manager in Louisiana. Kestin recorded the call, which she provided to WFAA.
The manager explained that Kestin’s email had been sent to her and she had looked into it.
"You’re not going to be responsible for anything,” the manager told her. “It was really clear to me as I did the research that this did not happen while your husband had the rental car.”
Kestin explained to the manager that no one at the rental location had mentioned anything about damage when her husband returned the car.
The manager told Kestin that she had found that a prior claim for hail damage. She could not explain how Kestin’s husband had been charged for the damage.
“It was just really clear when I took a look at it that this was pre-existing damage,” the manager said, according to the audio recording. She also added that if someone had looked into it, they would have “quickly figured out this was done in error.”
“I’m trying to get to the bottom of it, talk to the people who were involved in this and try and save this from happening again,” Forlano said.
Kestin told the manager that their dispute had been rejected without “explanation.”
“How did that happen?” Kestin asked the manager.
“I don’t have an answer to that,” the manager responded.
The manager told Kestin she contacted her local risk manager asking, “Hey, was this disputed?’ and he said, ‘No, this is the first we’re hearing about it.’”
As the conversation ended, the manager apologized on behalf of the company for “the way it went.” Later that day, the manager sent her an email that stated the claim “will be dropped and not pursued.”
Kestin’s left with many questions: Why was the estimate dated May 30 when the damage allegedly happened months earlier? Why was it an estimate and not a bill for the actual work? If the manager could so easily determine that her husband didn’t do the damage, why couldn’t the damage recovery unit do the same thing?
The lesson from all of this - keep your records when renting a car. Take pictures and videos when you pick and return a rental car.
This past weekend, Gremillion returned to New Orleans to see his mother. He rented from Hertz, and he made sure to document the condition of the rental car.
A state regulator emailed Kestin this week letting her know that there is an “open fraud investigation.”
“Very few people are going to go to the lengths that I went to, to fight something like this, especially when their insurance companies saying, you know, we'll pay it,” Kestin said. “That also makes me wonder how often this happens.”