Preying on the Elderly.

My husband manages two car rental franchises. He has been doing so for quite a while. The other day he got the best phone call he has ever received at work. I thought it was quite an interesting story and am quite proud of him. I am also grateful for the little old lady that called him. I thought you might enjoy this story.

In order to rent a car you must have a credit card. You can not decide nothing bad will happen while you have the car, things just happen sometimes. They need security to pay for any thing that goes wrong. If you don't have a credit card you MAY be able to rent on a debit card, though that is much much harder and MUST be tied to a bank account.

He receives a phone call a little over a week ago with a woman who tells him this, " I know I don't have good credit. I don't have a credit card or a debit card."She does claim to have a prepaid debit card.

If you haven't thought it through previously- you can NOT rent a car with a gift card. It is not a good idea to let someone drive off with $16,000 vehicle and only have a $200 gift card for collateral. Some people just don't come back.

So she informs him that she desperately needs to get to Wheeling W.V. (if you are unaware it is a going to a gambling town. Someone with admitedly bad credit should not be headed there.) She must get to a fancy restaurant. Ethan tells her if she wants to have the car she must get someone else to rent the car for her. She immediately responds that she will go call her mother-in-law. She is then informed that her mother-in-law MUST call Ethan first and then he will explain everything to her. Ethan has done enough of these rentals. They always go wrong. He doesn't want to deal with this woman. Advice for life- do not rent cars on anyone else's behalf. You will be held responsible. It never ends well.

So this elderly woman calls him. Ethan is doing everything he possibly can, with out actually telling her that he won't do the rental, to convince her it is a bad idea. Mom says "That's not how she explained it." So she goes to go talk to the daughter-in-law. Mother-in-law calls back because daughter-in-law is telling her contrary to what Ethan has told her. Finally Ethan says to her,"Ma'am, I have been in this business for nearly 10 years. I have seen a lot of these kinds of rentals and they always end badly. This does not feel right. " She says thank you and hangs up. Daughter calls back rather ticked off because mom has decided not to help her out. She is frantically trying to convince Ethan to call her mother-in-law back and sugar coat it so she will help her out. Ethan says, "I have told her what she needs to know and I will not call her." That is the end of the conversation.

A week goes by. He gets a phone call from a little old lady. It turns out to be the mother-in-law. She says, "I just wanted to thank you for not allowing me to rent that car." Her daughter-in-law is now in jail. They think she wanted to rent a car for a get away vehicle after she broke into someone's house. Her parting comment was, "If there were more people like you in this world, it would be much safer for us senior citizens."

I was so proud. He is such a good man. I am glad I have him and that he will stand up when he thinks something is wrong.