I called customer service to rent a car from 10/23-10/27 in Pasadena. I know pretty much every company requires that you pay when you pick up the car, and that they have to swipe your card for the order to be finalized. The magnetic strip on my card is not readable, and I expressed to the rep over the phone that I needed to pre-pay and that the location would not be able to swipe my card. The phone rep advised over and over that this would be fine, and proceeded to charge my card $145.00 for the rental.
When I got to the location, they told me I could not pick up the car because my card was not readable, even though I had already paid for the entire service the day before (the charge had gone through and was no longer on hold). I did not have another card I could use, and was turned away even though I had already paid for the service. Mind you, I walked an hour from orth El Molino to North Lake Avenue just to receive awful service, and no car. I ended up walking halfway back to my apartment before I took an Uber cab the rest of the way home,
When I called customer service for a refund, they originally wanted to charge me $50 for the cancellation. I told them my story and they eventually said they would waive the cancellation fee, but it would take 7 business days (2 calendar weeks) for the refund to process on my card. Because of their lack of knowledge of their own policies (it is not my responsibility to know every detail, hence why I repeatedly asked the rep if it would be ok to manually enter the card, since most places don't allow it), I now am unable to use the $145.00 for anything else during the rest of my stay in California. I am only here until November 2nd, and it will take longer than that to process my refund, so now I am unable to use that card for another rental, or if I need the money on it for a cab, I can't use it for that either. It would be nice if they could at least force post the refund to my card, but even after talking to a supervisor they denied my request. Extremely disappointed and will never attempt to use them again. read more