Our experience at Budget Car & Truck was initially off on the wrong foot when they gave us a pretty high quote of $225 for a 2 day rental of the cheapest car. We were able to negotiate that down to a final price of $175. Still being a fairly high price, we were anxious to reach our destination, we did the inspection, didn't find any noticeable damage and were on our way.
The first thing we noticed was that the car did not have a full tank of gas, and there was no air conditioner in the car. We weren't aware of these issues and just continued on to our destination. Aside from the AC problem and the issue with having to later fill the tank that wasn't even full when we got it, we had a good couple days. We probably put no more than 80 miles or so on the car, 95% of which was highway driving.
When we went to return the car, we noticed the person inspecting the car was really going over with a fine tooth comb. In my experience of renting cars I'd never seen someone examine a car so closely, and the last time I rented I had a car with 35 miles on it (this one had around 10, 000).
The inspector says he found damage on the car and instructed us to go inside and pay the bill etc. This "damage" was a half inch scratch towards the bottom of the rear bumper. He asked if we were aware of that, and we said we had not seen that and it must have been there when we rented the car. Being such a small scratch I'm certain it must have been overlooked.
We proceeded to go inside, pay the bill, and be on our way. First of all, the amount was now $190, despite the fact that we were quoted $175 with tax. She insisted there was no way that our price could possibly be $175 and that the correct price is $190. We argued about this for a bit but she basically didn't care and didn't listen to us.. Then she handed us this paper that said "Incident report". We were both taken back, because there was no such incident. We argued with her some more and she was like "oh this is standard procedure, just fill it out and explain what happened and we will check the damage history for the car and see if anything comes up". Because nothing did happen, this is what we wrote. She insisted we would not be charged until a final decision had been made.
We continued to argue with the woman (in a friendly manner of course) and she walked away in the middle of a sentence. After waiting at the counter for several minutes we realized that she basically walked out on us -- I have never in my life had customer service this bad, and her behavior is quite the opposite of anyone we met during our stay in BC.
This is the only bitter incident of our trip. So we returned home a couple of days ago to see today on my credit card statement a charge for just over $300 saying it was for damage to the car. Again, we did not cause any damage to the car, and I was told the supposed "incident" would be under investigation before the card was charged- but the charge for the car rental and the charge for the damage were on the same day.
Therefore, I contacted my credit card company and had this charge reversed. This is where things stand at the moment. I will never again rent from Budget and I warn everyone to not rent from them either. Also, although this is like the 20th time I've rented a car, I am going to get quotes in writing and bring a camera with me to try and avoid hassles like this.
0 comments