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 driverâs license, reservation number and âWizardâ loyalty card â heâs rented from Avis dozens of times before â and anticipated the usual smooth transition into a nondescript mid-sized sedan.
Thatâs when the trouble started.
A reservation agent named Angelline declined to honor Mr. Bergwerkâs 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 â 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. Bergwerkâs 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 ...
“Why didnât Mr. Bergwerk just use his passport and get on with his journey?”
At that point, according to the story, the agent switched her reason for refusing service from his drivers license to his attitude. She simply was NOT going to rent him a car, period!
I have never had a complaint about Enterprise. They are on the top of my list.
aka, sheboon
Managers and executives are responsible for who they hire and their conduct. You fire the managers as well. Business 101. This, “I didn’t know”, crap has got to stop. Managers and executives are paid to know and must be held accountable. Otherwise, they always claim they didn’t know.
Wow. So according to Yelp, this particular Avis location has had horrible service to a lot of people. An Argentine guy even posted that no one with a foreign passport should use this place. Seems a local demonstration would be in line.
Seems like Avis hires AA hires as they are dumb as rocks.
First, I wonder if I could get away with that if I don't like the attitude of the first black person who comes to see me in my office ...
Second, if they did this to me, they're REALLY not going to appreciate my attitude ...
Good for you. We have tried Enterprise during our last few rentals and really pleased with their level of service. Had something of a disagreement with Avis in Denver on two occasions over ticky tacky issues and decided we really needed to look elsewhere. This just added another reason to shred our cards and send them back to Avis.
She sounds like a royal bitch. Avis really needs to fire her.
Mark
bfl
I hate black New York nazis.
They do recognize Israeli driver's license and so does AVIS. The agent was lying through her teeth.
The agent's supervisor agreed with the agent, so why beat up on the agent.
Because the agent and supervisor were wrong.
Why didn't Mr. Bergwerk just use his passport and get on with his journey?
He produced his passport. They still refused to rent or even acknowledge that his reservation. What was he suppose to do? Steal a car?
I'm not disagreeing with the consensus of this board, but there are unanswered questions.
Now there are not.
THX
I carry a Hertz Golden something or other but the boss always wanted us to use AVIS - but will have a chat with him on Monday about my using Hertz.
Spin, spin, spin. Corporate crapweasels singing Din Do Nuffin. Clueless executive crapweasels don’t care if they lose corporate accounts, don’t care if their own company goes under. If that is their “corporate culture” (I hate that term!), then Avis needs to die by marketplace forces, or go through some tough sledding.
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.