Either when paying a rental bill, depositing a hold with your debit card, or clearing an insurance debt on Enterprise, you’ll be required to provide your credit or debit card, depending on the one used.
Now, does this place a risk to your account? Could Enterprise take advantage of this to charge you without your permission and how possible is it? By the end of the article, you should know the answer to the question.
Can enterprise charge my card without permission?
Enterprise can charge your card without your permission. They could do this through the authorization they get from your card at the first instance of making a transaction with them.
Maybe you wanted to rent a car from Enterprise, and you were told the only payment methods accepted are credit or debit cards.
If you’re like most people, you might want to question this. and how safe it is, putting your credit card in there.
However, this is the same for all car rentals company, as we said in our article on car rentals that allow paypal payments.
But does putting your card on Enterprise put your credit card in risk?
Well, it depends.
Yes. Enterprise could charge your credit card, even without your permission. However, they’ll only do this when it’s legal. And in most case, you’ll be notified.
But how is this possible?
Before a payment system like the one on Enterprise gains access to make payment from your credit card, it needs authorization from you, the account owner.
Normally, this is only possible, when you make the authorization yourself.
However, it’s a standard practice in the car rental and Hotel industry, for companies in the system to take authorization from customers’ cards to cover pocket expenses that could come up in the future.
With this authorization, they could have access to withdraw a few zero to hundred dollars within some time.
Note that this is only for a limited time.
While we’ve seen several complaints on the internet in the past, about how people have gotten charged by Enterprise without proper permission, there are answers to why this could have happened. (Which we would document in the subsequent paragraphs).
However, in general, Enterprise would never charge you, illegally.
And for any charge they make, you would be aware.
This can be done either through the receipt you receive after your rental period or through an email or any other contact information you submitted when renting the car.
Why did Enterprise charge your card? (and What to do)
If Enterprise charged your card without your permission, it’s either because the company is having a payment error, or were charged with a hidden fee.
Below is a detailed explanation of this:
Enterprise had a payment error
Unfortunately, even in this 21st century, payment errors are still common.
It could be possible that the reason for the debit on your card from Enterprise was due to a payment error from their system.
This could be the case, especially when you find a double charge for a fee you’ve paid before.
What to do:
As a general rule, you should wait for a maximum of 3 days, to see if the debit would be reverted and if it is actually a payment issue.
If you don’t get the payment reverted, contact Enterprise through their contact us page and explain to them everything that happened.
If it were a payment error, they’ll apologize to you and refund the payments.
The Charge was a result of a hidden fee
One reason why you could receive a charge from Enterprise out of the blue would be in a case where you had rental car damage, left the car untidy, stole things from the car, etc.
These are all hidden fees.
You might want to check our guide on hidden fees from companies like Budget, Dollar, and Thrifty car rental.
Normally, most hidden fees, e.g car rental damage, if found, are to be resorted and added to the respective rental bills.
It is however still possible that a hidden fee offense could be overlooked and not seen, not until a few months later.
A typical example is a car rental damage.
Following our article on the possibilities of damaging rental car without paying, if after a while, a car rental company you booked detects a car rental damage from you, they could still get paid for the damage you caused.
They do this by contacting you. And if you fail to respond on time, you’ll be charged.
What to do:
You’d want to contact the rental company to know what might have led to the charge. If there is no proper explanation or decision to refund back, you could then contact your credit card company.
Now, it’d be left for the credit card to decide whether to make a chargeback or not.
Depending on how long, from your rental period, you got the charge, you could get your money back. This is because the car rental company who would have little evidence
Of course, if it had been a long time since you last used the rental company before the incident, they must have made use of the car severally. So, there’s no possible way of putting the claim on you.
Final Thoughts
Even though Enterprise can charge your card, they won’t do it illegally. You have nothing to worry.
Generally, if you were charged by Enterprise without your permission, the first step to take is to wait for a maximum of 3 days, to see if the transaction would be reverted. It could just be a payment error!
