Posted on 11/22/2015 8:21:18 AM PST by Nachum
On Saturday evening, Dov Bergwerk arrived at the Avis branch on West 76th Street and Broadway. Accompanied by his wife Ruth, the Bergwerks were planning to join friends for dinner in Westchester. Mr. Bergwerk, a senior vice president and general corporate counsel at the Israeli pharmaceutical giant Teva, got out his driver’s license, reservation number and “Wizard†loyalty card – he’s rented from Avis dozens of times before – and anticipated the usual smooth transition into a nondescript mid-sized sedan.
That’s when the trouble started.
A reservation agent named Angelline declined to honor Mr. Bergwerk’s reservation, saying that it was company policy not to recognize Israeli documents. Stunned, Mr. Bergwerk explained that he had rented from Avis many times, including a car from that very same office on Thursday, November 19 – only two days earlier.
Mr. Bergwerk asked Angelline to access the profile attached to his Wizard card, which shows that he is an executive at a giant multinational company who has no regulatory issues and has rented from Avis, including at that very branch, many times without incident. She refused. They argued.
Eventually, a manager was called. Shamoura took the side of her reservation agent, also refusing to honor Mr. Bergwerk’s reservation or recognize his documents. Stunned and stranded on a Saturday night in New York, Mr. Bergwerk called the Avis main number and got through to customer service. The representative confirmed to him that the Israeli license was an acceptable form of ID and also mentioned that he could show his passport to ameliorate any ID concerns the on-site employees had. Mr. Bergwerk put the customer service representative on the phone with Shamoura, the branch manager, and at this point the story evolved. She now claimed that she was declining to rent the Bergwerks a car
(Excerpt) Read more at observer.com ...
Maybe they are trying Odungo’s famous “head in the sand” strategy. Let’s see how that works out.
This kind of bull**** is getting out of hand in this country. Fire the hos!
No response from Avis on their Facebook page yet? This will be out of control before they realize that it is well past time for them to pull their heads out of their hindquarters...
No doubt.
Thanks, I just emailed him.
Yep. There should be some type of social media response.
Ok, folks - time for a huge boycott of Avis.......pass the word to non-Freepers........
Earlier this year, I had a long term corporate rental from Enterprise. They are very picky about scratches on their cars. One day, I put a very small scratch in the door and was stressing about it. About three weeks later, a semi made a right turn from the left lane, tearing up the whole side of the car. No issues with the scratch anymore.
Enterprise was great about the whole thing. It was a hit and run too.
Yes, I always use Enterprise. They have locations everywhere I need them, they pick you up to take you to their location to pick out a car, and they have been unfailingly polite to me. I also get outrageous discounts from them via my BJ Warehouse card and/or teacher discounts.
This apparently just happened yesterday. They will have to take a few days to verify all the versions of what happened before firing anyone. Assuming what we’ve read is accurate, both she and Angelline should be former Avis employees by the middle of the week.
Do other rental car companies not recognize an Israeli driver’s license?
The agent’s supervisor agreed with the agent, so why beat up on the agent.
Why didn’t Mr. Bergwerk just use his passport and get on with his journey?
I’m not disagreeing with the consensus of this board, but there are unanswered questions.
If the company he works for, Teva, is as big as the article indicates, the company should ask its employees to not do business with Avis and if the company has any accounts with the company, it should cancel them. Having stupid employees is one thing, but for the customer service rep to not direct the employees to rent him a can and for Avis to not respond quickly is not acceptable.
I’m sure the DOJ will get on this immediately. Can’t have any business discriminating against anyone for any reason, right? Oh wait...that only applies to Christians. Never mind.
It’s a big generic drug company. For example,they purchased one company for 40 billion
As a long-time Avis customer, I’ll be watching carefully for some action by the corporation. If not, let Hertz put you in the driver’s seat.
Gen 12:3 And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.
She is only committing the same sin she probably complains was committed against her.
So did I!! I use them (and Budget) for business travel. I gave them an earful by demanding the termination of these two twits.
If you’d like to be on or off, please FR mail me.
..................
No shocker.
You could be giving them too much credit. If they perchance know that Israel is in the Middle East, I’m betting they couldn’t locate the Middle East on a map.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.