I booked a rental vehicle two weeks prior to the date I needed to pick it up. I checked the confirmation email that was sent to me to see if I need to arrange in advance to have someone pick me up to go get the rental and there was no mention of this. Fast forward to the day I have reserved for the vehicle, I check the reminder email again to see if it mentions anything about a pick up service and it did not. I called the location and the manager told me that they are not picking anyone up today because they did not schedule enough people, that I needed to walk or get a Uber ride (for which no reimbursement would be given), and that it was my fault for not calling when I made the reservation to arrange for this. When asked how this was communicated to me, he basically said that it wasn't but it isn't his fault so I am out of luck.
Pardon me? I rent vehicles for work constantly, usually from Enterprise, but chose Budget for a personal rental since it was a bit cheaper. Even renting for work I have had issues with this Budget location the few times I have tried to use this company. Sometimes it is difficult to get a pick up due to the volume of customers at a given time, but at least Enterprise offers to reimburse you for an Uber if it comes to that. The manager at this location put me on hold when I was asking how we could work something out, such as waiting a little longer for other staff to come in, but I was on hold so long that it switched to an answering service that was not able to take messages.
When I spoke to Budget's customer service line, I was then told that I should have called this location on the day I made the reservation to arrange for a pick up. When I asked how this was communicated to me as a requirement, I was told it was on their website in their Terms and Conditions. I navigated to the website, then to the specific location's page, and there is not a quick reference for their "Curbside Pick Up" program (it was supposed to be clearly spelled out, apparently). At that, the customer service rep was aggressive in telling me that they cannot help, that it is too bad that they didn't provide the information on their emails when I made the reservation, and ultimately I should have called the location days in advance to let them know about needing a ride so that they could have scheduled more people. I have a hard time understanding why it is my job to make sure that they have enough people scheduled when they can look up the number of reservations and see that it may be a busy day. I also do not understand why, in previous dealings with almost every national rental car company, I have never been told that I need to arrange for a pick up days in advance but this instance with this location that is a requirement that is not spelled out for a rental that was paid for in advance. I was quite angry at this point, and stated as such, but I was also trying to explain that this information was not readily available nor clearly communicated while making the initial reservation, on the confirmation email, nor on the reminder email that was sent to me. Instead of being willing to work on some solution or even give the standard robo-language of how they will look into more clearly communicating this to customers, it seems like the representative's stance was to speak louder and more aggressively to make the "problem" get off the phone.
I realize it is right before Thanksgiving. I can also understand having some difficulty due to a high volume of customers. What I do not understand is the lack of planning that has occurred since the manager was apparently the only one working and the unwillingness to say, "Hey, this is a problem in one way or another."
Obviously customer service is lacking and I'm done dealing with this location and this rental company in general. Luckily, Enterprise across the street had a vehicle and was at my house within 15 minutes. read more
