TULSA, Okla. -- In an effort to prevent credit card fraud and vehicle theft, Dollar Rent a Car in late October launched a pilot program that requires customers to leave their thumbprint on the rental agreement. The thumbprint, taken from an inkless pad, is kept on file for seven years, the standard period for all Dollar rental agreements. The test period was scheduled to end Nov. 30, 2001, but has been extended to gather additional data. A decision on whether to fully implement the program is expected at the end of January or the beginning of February.

Jim Senese, vice president of quality assurance at Dollar Rent a Car, said the program was being tested to help reduce vehicle theft and increase the chances of recovering stolen vehicles.

"Police departments might be more willing to take missing vehicle reports, and might be more successful, if we were able to offer something that would be able to give positive identification," Senese said.

A total of 14 locations have participated in the pilot program, including Reagan National, Baltimore-Washington International and Atlanta Hartsfield International. The thumbprinting program, already in development before the events of Sept. 11, was nonetheless affected by the tragedy.

"The car rental companies started suffering immediately following [Sept. 11] to the point that in order to try to salvage our margins, we needed to do everything we could to control costs," Senese said.

Overall, customer reaction has been favorable. But two customers requested their thumbprints back after returning the cars, and Dollar accommodated the request. During the test period, customers refusing to submit a thumbprint were referred to other rental companies.

The thumbprints and rental agreements are stored at the company’s Tulsa headquarters. "I think some of our customers originally felt that there’s a big database of thumbprints and these are electronically scanned," said Senese. "That’s not the case."