Have any of you ever received a parking ticket on a rental car that wasn't your car you were driving?

John received a "notice of outstanding parking violation" in the mail Saturday from NYC. This ticket was dated 9/22/03. We had a rental car during the HL Long Island regional event from 9/18-9/24/03.

The weird part of all this is that we were never in Manhattan the entire trip where the ticket was issued. The other weird thing is that the license plate number on the ticket is the same number as the one on the car we rented.

The Sunday after the regional event was over we took the car ferry to CT and stayed in Mystic for two nights. The day of the supposed ticket was on Monday when we were on Block Island.

I called the New York City Dept. of Finance this morning and they said to write a denial of location letter and they would talk with the rental car agency.

What do you think?

Makes one wonder if the rental car company is pulling a fast one with the tags? Did you rent from a major player? You were driving a SUV as I recall - was the ticket issued to the same make/model/color of car?

I wasn't going to mention it, but I did notice Roy approaching your car with a screwdriver at Fire Island . . . .

The car was rented from Enterprise at JFK. The ticket doesn't list the make or model, just the tag number.

I asked the lady at the NYC Dept. of Finance what kind of car it shows on the ticket and she said it was a grey Ford sedan. We rented a silver Ford Escape SUV. Go figure.

In New York the registration certificate which goes on the windshield is issued yearly and the plates hang around for 10 years or so. It is possible that the wrong registration sticker was put on the car and nobody noticed. The tickets are now scanned from the registration sticker's barcode and printed by a mini-computer. I am sure that the meter person paid no attention to the details as he slapped that ticket under the wiper

New York will do anything to try to get a few more bucks in the coffers!

Well...I'm still waiting to hear something back from NY. I've faxed copies of my hotel bill to show I was staying in Mystic, CT.

The ticket was issued in Mid-town Manhattan at 2:31pm. I faxed copies of receipts for the Hi-speed ferry to Block Island dated Sept.22, 2003. I also included a receipt from a cafe where we had lunch on Block Island dated Sept. 22 with a time of 3:45pm.

You would think it would obviously be impossible to have been in Manhattan at 2:31pm and on Block Island at 3:45pm. :rolleyes:

Another weird scenerio is that the rental car company claims the VIN number on the car matches the same VIN number on the car ticketed. The only thing that I can conclude is that the ticket had to be dated wrong.

It's amazing what you'll go through to attend a HL regional event.

We rented a car in Orlando Fla. a few years back and got stopped by a state trooper for expired tags. We had to take the car back to the rental place at the Orlando airport and get another car which had correct tags whick took about 4 hours of our limited time in Fla. They gave us a free day off our 3 day rental for our trouble. So you never know what can happen with a rented car. Hal

Rental companies are not always up to date and accurate with their paperwork and documentation. They are quick to put a "stolen car" report out on overdue rentals. It can be down right embarassing for the renter if he or she doesn't bring the car back in time.

:rolleyes: Bob :rolleyes:

I'm impressed that you saved all those receipts, Lorie.

When all is said and done, you should file a written complaint with Enterprise. A bit of a sob story on how much time you had to spend to straighten out the 'impossible' ticket plus the phone calls and faxes.

If they made a mistake in registering the vehilce or if it was all with the NYPD, you should ask for a substantial discount off the next rental with them IF they expect you to continue to be a customer. Especially if you are a regular Enterprise renter. And none of these one day free with a weekly rental giveaways that everyone can get. I'd say a week's free rental would about do it.

Hal, I can top your license plate mess up. Back in the days when I was commuting to New Orleans, one of the rental car companies assigned me a car. When I went out to get the car and check things over, there was NO license plate or temp plate. When I went back in to the office, they said "that's OK, we'll pay for any ticket you get". Took me a while to get thru to them that I had no intention of driving in N.O. (probably the most inept and corrupt pollice department in the country) and try to get onto the Naval Station with a car with no tags.

Kind of scary that companies with so much capital tied up in its inventory would have such lax control systems in place to allow things such as this to happen.

The only problem I've had with a rental car was a year ago last April when Linda and I went to Martha's Vineyard. When we went to pick up the car the agent said he was sorry, that they had overbooked and had no cars. Fortunately for us we found a car (at a higher price) at another agency as it would have been kind of tough getting to the lighthouses without one.

After I got home I called the original rental car company to complain and they refunded the additional money I had to pay, plus a bit extra.

Well...after 6 different phone calls to NYC Dept. of Finance, Enterprise at JFK, Enterprise loss control in Queens, and Enterprise violations office in NJ, plus 2 faxes with documents sent to Enterprise to show I wasn't in Manhattan at the time of the ticket; I finally received a call today from the NJ office to say they would take care of the ticket.

The lady explained that they somehow must have attached the wrong plate to the vehicle we were driving.

For a $65 ticket, I probably spent $10 on phone calls and faxes. I asked if they were going to do anything to compensate me for the time and costs I incurred trying to clean up their problem and was told there was nothing their department could do. In other words...pass the buck to someone else.

That's good to hear. I will say, I was wondering how you could get a sedan mixed up with an SUV... :rolleyes: Grey and silver I can somewhat understand, but not body types.

Nice to know that it all worked out!