Unfortunately this location may value the customer less than a tank of gas. This is my first time every giving a bad review, as I almost always give service industry workers the benefit of the doubt for a bad experience, assuming they may have just had a bad day. But this was just too concerning to avoid. My wife and I flew into Denver and got a car from Budget at the airport (paying a premium of 75 dollars per day). The time was past midnight and we were well on our way to our hotel downtown when we discovered we were given a car that was nearly empty on gas and the oil change light was on. We took a photo of the dash to include the mileage and gas level just in case. So the next day we called the Budget national line and were advised that the car was not safe to drive with the oil light on and that we should go to the nearest Budget location for an exchange. We took the car to the Budget on 1980 Broadway downtown Denver. We explained the situation and figured this would be a simple car exchange. Unfortunately and unexpectedly we were immediately confronted with an unwarranted defensive attitude and a refusal to trade the car, as he said "not my problem" and began to blame us for not looking at the gas level and oil light prior to leaving the rental facility. We showed the worker the photo and he said that there was no way to prove we did not doctor the photo...this is likely to be considered a ridiculous assertion by most customers. With an aggressive attitude, we were told we would have to either drive an hour back to the airport for an exchange or fill up the car before exchanging with him...as he did not want to lose 30 dollars. My wife was upset by the unwelcome attitude and blatant customer blaming, particularly as he boldly began to lecture her on how to be a good customer. We admittedly were upset by this confrontation, and likely our attitude in response did not help the situation. But unfortunately the confrontation was not necessary at all because there was a solution to the problem the entire time. After I tried to reason my way through his "I hate customers" cloud, I was able to understand his point of view that he was not affiliated with the airport budget (he was a franchise) and so did not want to take a loss from their (or our) mistake. Some businesses might disagree with this approach because, while he may lose 30 dollars, he will certainly lose future customers (worth more than 30 dollars). Regardless, the solution was simple and did not need to have a confrontation prior to reaching it. We simply called the Budget national line and got them to refund the price of filling up the tank for this particular franchise Budget location. Ultimately we payed him 30 dollars for a tank of gas, he traded our car, and the gas was refunded by the airport location...not sure that was so difficult that it warranted customer aggression. We really hope that this budget can learn from this experience. I understand that working with disgruntled customers can wear on you, and I hope that we just caught him in a rare bad mood and that other customers have had a better experience. If not, I might suggest that they respond to similar situations with kindness and empathy and offer to call the national Budget line himself to help figure this issue out for the customer. We go to Denver often, and we will not rent any cars from this location in the future...which is probably a bigger hit than a tank of gas. read more
