Complaint Review: Budget Rent A Car - Sterling Virginia

First off, just let me state that I am an ex-employee of a Budget Rent A Car licensee in Texas. This means that licensees have similar, but at times, different policies and procedures than corporate owned locations. I was in administrative management with this company for over 5 years and seen a lot happen to customers over those years (both good and bad). I am not writing to defend them but when I read this, I was thinking of what experience I had with each point you made. I thought that maybe if someone whom had a little bit of knowledge of the behind the counter information and could let you know the probable reasoning behind each of these actions, this would help you in the future in being able to make informed decisions about car rentals. But please remember, the information I am giving is only based upon a licensees existing knowledge of how a licensee is run and what knowledge of corporate procedures I have learned while dealing with them. > 1)Budget charged us more when we were actually at the counter picking up the car. > Even though I gave them my confirmation/reservation number on each occasion, they > would claim that they don't have access to the online quote I was given. They would > then ask me for a printout of the estimate, which is absurd since they are the ones who > are suppose to have the information in their computer system. Even without the printout or confirmation number, there is no reason why they could not call their corporate reservation center, give your name, rental location and rental time and be told what your rental rate was. I know from experience that this can be done and have done it myself when I was assisting at a location in which the computer systems were completely down. All it took was a quick phone call, a handwritten contract and a set of keys to help the customer and get them on the road quickly. > 2)Budget, as I found out, keeps its rates competitive with other companies by NOT > telling you about hidden charges, such as concession fees you pay at the airport. And > this despite the fact that the company knows plain well who is renting from an airport > location. Okay this one can be answered a couple of ways depending on how the rates were given to the customer. By phone with the corporate reservation center - the quote given is usually the complete estimate for the whole rental. But remember, they can only associate whatever fees are needed to the quote if the actual rental location notified the Budget Updates Department that the fee needed to be added to each rental quote. If that location gave no notification of an additional fee, then the reservation center doesn't know to add it to the quote. By phone with your local rental counter the quote given is usually on the daily rental rate for the vehicle itself. This does not include fees and taxes. If I was answering a phone line because the front desk was busy with customers, this is what I would quote to customers. But I would make a point of notifying that that the quote was only for the rental rate and that other fees and taxes would apply. Usually the customer would ask what fees and taxes, so I would explain each one and grab my calculator to give them an estimate. Online when you first pull up the rental rates for the vehicles, usually the price shown is only the daily rental rate with no fees or taxes added to it yet. Depending on what website you are getting the quote from, there should be a link or button somewhere on that same page that you can click on to read the Budget policies which should include what extra fees there are. But if you completed the reservation and received a confirmation number, the final page of the reservation (usually where you see the confirmation number) should give you the whole and complete estimated rental amount. > 3)On the most recent rental from Budget, I returned the car a full day earlier than the > return date on my reservation, BUT actually paid MORE than the online quote I was > given. Okay the response to this one may not make much sense and I don't personally agree with it, but here it is say you reserved a vehicle for 4 days. You signed a contract to keep that vehicle for a full 4 days. Something happens, and you return the vehicle on the third day. Now the rental counter has the vehicle back and 95% of the time, the vehicle reservations allowed are based on the reservations before and after it Example - car is reserved for 4 days to customer #1 - customer #2 can not reserve the car any sooner than after the existing reservation from customer #1 - customer #1 returned car a day early - so now the car must sit in the rental lot and wait for customer #2 The rental counter is now sitting on a vehicle they can't use for that day because the customer (in the eyes of Budget) broke their contract. They actually lost a days rental from you turning it in a day early and they lost a days rental from the probable other customer whom could have reserved and rented that same car if it was know the car would be back on that day. Best thing to do is to ask at the time of rental what the penalties are and have the counter write it there on the contract what they are. Then you BOTH (customer and employee) either sign or initial right next to the writing. You would not believe how many times a customer can dispute certain rental charges on a contract with their credit card company, even though it is signed at the bottom. 4 out of 5 times, even if the rental company returns all the correct requested paperwork along with photocopies of the signed contract to the credit card company validating the charges, unless each individual charge is initialed with the customers agreement, the credit card company with side with the customer. > 4)When I contacted Budget about the matter, I was a) told there was a change in the > online system that MAY have affected the quote (even though this has been happening > now for at least a couple of years), b) given a $25 voucher on a future Budget rental, > c)informed me that it was my fault for not understanding the contract (absurdly, even > after the rep Elle Wood admitted there was a supposed "glitch" in the reservation > system, and issued the voucher), and d) given dishonest replies about the correctness of > the amount I paid BASED ON MORE WRONG FIGURES. a) that was a bogus response to the problem really means they didn't know what happened but they weren't going to take responsibility for it b) that voucher will probably only get you 1 days worth of rental on the weekend (where rates are usually cheaper, but only if you reserve 2-4 days). Personally, next time, give the voucher back and demand a coupon for free rental days. They are usually good for any day of the week. Make sure that after they give it to you, read all the fine print on both sides of the voucher or coupon. Usually the extra fees and taxes are not associated with it. c) Make the counter person explain everything that is written there and make them sign and write their name on the contract for future reference. d) Nothing good to say about this one again seems like more finger pointing by the employees. > 5)Finally, I was told by a customer care supervisor, Mr Gregory Stevenson, "Due to > numerous surcharges, airport fees etc. we unfortunately are limited to how much detail > we can provide in our quote." This is simply an EXCUSE for baiting customers with > the wrong information and the wrong quote. It is a DISHONEST way to do business > and it should be stopped. Mr. Stevenson's response is completely not true. At the time of reservation, the reservationist may get around having to give the customer the whole list of charges by stating that additional or other fees and taxes may apply. But if the customer asks what they are, they must list them all. Online quotes with confirmed reservations must list all charges, even if they are all lumped together into one figure on the page label Misc or similar. To me, if they don't, that is false advertisement and misrepresentation. > 6) A final note: on numerous occasions I have found customer service at the Budget > counter to be slow, unprofessional, and even discriminatory. Recourse to Budget's > customer service support has been anything but satisfactory and helpful. Sorry can't be much help here as a licensee, we had to deal with Budget Customer Service reps a lot and they didn't treat us much better. As I stated in the beginning I am not defending any of their actions, but giving probable reasons as to reason why these things happened. As another response by Cory in San Antonio stated, it's a great idea to take copies of everything you have in reference to the reservation with you to the counter to help avoid possible problems from occurring.

Rented from Dollar 3 weeks ago on line and received a complete to the penney invoice of all charges on my confirmation receipt. Had it in hand when I arrived in N.M. just to keep them from "changing" things. Enterprise tried that a while back on me until I whipped out my sheet. Enterprise tried to jack up my rates 20%, without it. Have your itemized confirmation sheet in hand as a back up just in case.