Enterprise advertised prices its fees pushed up to 48% — Canada fined $1M

Enterprise Rent-A-Car Canada advertised rental prices online, in its mobile app and in emails — and none of them was a price a customer could pay. Mandatory fees added at the counter raised the advertised number by 6% to 48%. The Bureau concluded the advertised prices were unattainable, and therefore false or misleading representations under the Competition Act.

On 22 February 2018 Enterprise signed a consent agreement: a $1 million penalty and a review of its practices so that advertisements comply with the law. It was the third consent agreement in the Bureau's car-rental sweep — Avis and Budget had paid $3 million in June 2016, Hertz and Dollar Thrifty $1.25 million in April 2017 — and both earlier cases had found the same fees dressed as government taxes and surcharges.

Commissioner John Pecman commended the collaboration, but the standard he stated was the point: consumers must be able to trust that the price they see advertised is the one they pay, without surprise fees at the counter. The sweep made Canada's rental counters the cleanest drip-pricing dataset the Bureau has ever built.