When Companies Underestimate Their Customers

Ehsan Khaleel wishes he hadn't rented the car.

The vehicle, which he reserved for on a Holiday trip to Lahore, was absolutely fine. It's what happened afterwards that makes my blood boil.

Ehsan picked up the vehicle at Islamabad International Airport. He drove it to Lahore. The next day, he returned it to the airport without a scratch.

"Four months later I received a bill for 120,000 Rs for an accident and damage to the car I had rented," he says.

Say what?

Yep, 1 Lac 20k for a rental car returned undamaged. I recently wondered how careful you have to be in order to not get scammed as a consumer.

But there's another side to this issue: How careful do businesses think we are?

For the record, Ehsan is no dummy. He's a Telecom Engineer who works for a prestigious Organisation, and he knew that he hadn't caused 120,000 Rs  worth of damage to his car, and he also knew he had certain rights.

You'd be surprised at how many customers just roll over when they're faced with a 120,000 Rs bill, or more precisely, how fast their insurance companies play dead.

As I reviewed correspondence, it seemed they just mixed up the cars and sent him the wrong bill. When I checked with the rental company, it said it no longer had the records of the incident, because the car rental company in question was under new ownership. How convenient.

How dumb do they think we are?

Underestimating your customer — that seems to be a time-honored tradition in business, and particularly in the travel industry.

It's hardly the only time the travel industry underestimates us. Consider this: The price of a roundtrip flight from my home airport, Islamabad, to Lahore, is about 8,000 Rs in economy class. If you'd rather fly in first class, it's 12,000 Rs. Now, no one likes to be stuck in the back of the plane, where there's virtually no legroom, service is practically nonexistent, and the other passengers sometimes behave like Barbarians.

But 120,000 Rs? Do they think we'll miss that decimal point?

Similarly, loyalty programs often cater to the intellectually-challenged. Sure, it's nice to be treated like the average economy class passenger in 1999, with ample legroom and reasonably good service — but in exchange for what? Pledging our undying fealty to a too-big-to-fail airline? Playing their little frequent flier game with points that consistently lose value and don't even belong to you?

Do they think we won't notice what's happening here?

We're getting played.

Revenge fantasies

I'm heartened when travelers outsmart the companies who underestimated them. When I see folks gaining the upper hand by using unsanctioned strategies, it can be gratifying. Not always, but sometimes. Even though we all know that loyalty programs are harmful to the travel industry — particularly to the average air traveler — we can get some small satisfaction when a clever blogger figures out a way to game the system so that passengers, and not the company, come out on top.

That includes me.

My story has a happy ending. I phoned the car rental company and asked the company if someone else had rented the car after I'd returned it. Yes, a representative said.

"How many miles are now on the odometer?" I inquired.

"11,680 miles," said the employee.

When I returned it, I noted 4,000 miles on the car.

"Has the car been in an accident?" I asked innocently.

Yes, said the representative. Who? The representative gave him a name. It wasn't Ehsan'.

"It turns out that a subsequent driver crashed the car long after I'd rented it," he says. "But I was being charged for the repairs."

He says he asked the car rental company to drop the claim, and it did.