Sigh…..
Prom season. So cute.
The side business that my husband and I own in Denver is Altitude Dream Cars. We rent out exotic cars. As you can imagine, the rules are pretty strict about who can rent these cars. We run a MVR (Motor Vehicle Report) to make sure our renters are decent drivers, check insurance, and you must be at least 25 years of age.
So can only imagine the calls we are getting this time of year. Now mind you, I’ve had some adults try and get around some of rules in very clever ways. I recently had someone who I went back and forth with in emails for almost two weeks - she was wanting to rent the Lotus Elise for her husband’s birthday. She was really trying to work out the price and haggling back and forth with me trying different angles - to no avail. Our prices are our prices - if you can’t afford the car then move on. Don’t really want you behind the wheel anyway if you are that on the edge financially.
Well, she finally decided to go ahead and do it and gave me her husband’s insurance info. I call the insurance agents because I have to make sure the renter has our minimum requirements and that their insurance transfers over to a rental car. By the way - here’s a quick tip when renting a car. If you own a car with collision and comprehensive, it almost always transfers over to a rental car. And most credit cards also have some sort of rental car insurance if you use that card to rent. In other words, you rarely need to purchase the additional insurance when you rent a car.
Anyway, this renter’s husband did not have collision and comprehensive on any vehicle they owned, and did not have a vehicle they could even add it to temporarily for the rental period. She emailed me that she was instead going to have her brother-in-law drive the car since he had insurance and her husband would just “ride along”. Yeah, right. She is going to spend around $400 for 1 day with a car for her husband to ride along…..we turned that rental down.
But back to prom season. I can’t tell you how many calls I’m getting right now from kids and even parents who say they are going to “drive their kids to prom”. Right. Funny ones are when they must be doing their research at school and using the SCHOOL PHONE to call our business. How do I know you ask??? Well, when the caller id says “Public School” - seriously - I have a pretty good idea. And a voice that sounds about 15 years old.
I had one girl who called and after I mentioned to her the age requirement, she still was damn persistent. My god I could not get her to just realize there was no way this was going to happen. I threw out the high price, the fact there we required a $2,500 damage deposit - according to her, money was not an issue. She was interested in the Porsche or the Lotus. Finally said she would have her parent drive. I finally said to her, “Don’t you have a date?”. That sealed that conversation.
Why even give them the time of day you ask? Well, it’s kind of turned into a fun game to play around with them. They have such high hopes they can show up to prom in a really cool car. Let them keep that dream alive, even if it’s for 30 seconds before I crush the dream.
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