National Car Rental Responds To Harassment And Threats Story Of Sarah Vestal
Filed by: Pam Spaulding
April 14, 2009 6:00 PM
One of my co-bloggers, Autumn, received a response from the national office of National Car Rental regarding the post "National Car Rental Employee To Trans Customer: "Screwed-Up Man Faggot"."
by Autumn Sandeen, Pam's House Blend
I received an update from National Car Rental with a return call today. My call to them Saturday was the first their public relations people heard of it -- which really isn't surprising as the facility at the Little Rock, Arkansas, is a franchise.
But, spokesperson Christie Conrad added this:
We're going to look into this; this kind of behavior is not tolerated.
It was very clear to me that National Car Rental's national office was not pleased to hear this story at all, and the way Ms. Conrad said -- and repeated multiple times -- the "is not tolerated" statement in the phone call sounded like National Car Rental meant that in all capital letters, with three exclamation points to boot.
If -- or really "when" -- National Car Rental verifies the veracity of Sarah Vestal being harassed and threatened, It'll be interesting to see what happens to this franchise.
But for a first response, the "is not tolerated" statement was expressed strongly, clearly, and apparently very sincerely -- kudos to National Car Rental's national office on this first response.
***
Note: Sgt. Byron McWhirter of the Little Rock PD, who first spoke with Sarah on Friday, says another officer has been assigned to investigate the incident, but are having difficulty identifying who the person is that threatened to assault her, and deal with the officer who Sarah said when she approached him about the incident "he could not do anything since the man did not physically hit me."
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Do they even have the name of the specified agent who made those remarks to her? Without that you know whoever did it will deny it, and probably will deny it anyway. If the so called police office had taken down the THREAT like he should have then the persons name and his actions would be on record with no way to lie his way out of it. Plus since it was a franchise, they might not fire him anyway. I've dealt with franchises before and they don't always follow corporate rules, they think, WELL i own it so no ones going to tell me how I can run my business. At least SOME franchises think this way.
christophe | April 15, 2009 7:46 AM
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I'm sorry but... identifying who did this to her isn't that difficult. What time was she there? She stated there were two people on staff at the time. Look at the staff schedule, or the clock in/clock out logs for that branch. Plus, like stated before, this is at an airport, there's security cameras everywhere. And also the eyewitness mentioned in the previous article, that worked for the airline counter? Doesn't her receipt from returning the vehicle have the employees name on it? When I worked for U-haul, our names were on all rental documents.
This sounds really funny that it's that difficult to figure out who this guy is.
Boi Polloi | April 15, 2009 1:59 PM
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There wouldn't be anything difficult about finding the identity of the National employee who did this. Time cards/records are held by every business. Work schedules are also kept. The manager can be forced to give these up.
Yes, it's a franchise, but National's not off the hook as far as I'm concerned. Let's see if they force the franchisee to fire the GM and employee involved. If not, never rent there again. I know I just made a reservation for a car rental - and it was definitely not with National, Enterprise, or Alamo.
Does Little Rock have a GLBT rights law? A complaint should be filed against National with the local Human Rights Commission.
Polar | April 16, 2009 2:13 AM
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We'll see...
Alex Blaze | April 16, 2009 7:43 AM
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Actually, the employee who assaulted her should be named on the receipt he printed out for her return.
Friday Jones | September 25, 2009 9:59 PM
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