(If I could give zero stars, I absolutely would!)This nightmare of an experience happened today,…read moreSaturday morning, and completely ruined our final hours with family visiting from out of state.
My aunt accidentally left her cell phone in a rental car right before her flight back to Florida. She realized it immediately and went straight to the front desk. The front desk agent lied and said the car had already been re-rented, but walked her back to it anyway. They "couldn't find it." However, because of Life360, we could see the phone was still in the vehicle. It wasn't until they actually called the phone that they traced the ringing to the cleaning bay, where the phone was found hidden underneath a detailer's backpack.
An entire hour was wasted just trying to get a cell phone back. My aunt returned to our house incredibly stressed. Then, as we were packing them into another vehicle to head to the airport, my uncle received a phone call from Budget. Instead of apologizing, the caller was incredibly rude and defensively snapped, "We don't have any thieves working here."
That condescending call ticked everyone off. Not only did Budget rob us of our final hour of quality time with our family, but now they were actively doubling down on their rudeness.
We drove back to the office to speak to a manager or whoever called us. When we walked in, the desk agent, Ali, was on the phone. We waited patiently for him to finish and asked for his name and the name of the detailer. He identified the detailer as Ixel (or Exel). When we explained that we wanted to escalate the incident regarding the cell phone being hidden under a backpack, Ali became loud, belligerent, and utterly unhelpful.
Ali claimed that the detailer's backpack area is just his "desk" where he puts lost items until the end of the day, unless the item is "important." How a modern cell phone belonging to an out-of-state traveler isn't considered "important" is beyond comprehension. Ali then started yelling over us, repeating, "WE ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ITEMS LEFT IN CARS."
Four of us were standing there, all of whom work in customer service ourselves, appalled by his behavior. I told him that simply communicating effectively with my aunt from the beginning could have avoided this entire misunderstanding. I then asked him for the corporate customer service number he had offered just moments prior. Ali's response? "Google it."
So, here I am on Google, giving Ali exactly what he asked for.
To top it all off, the location allows random third parties to loiter and lounge around the waiting room; a random bystander actually started throwing in his two cents about the situation. Furthermore, Ali noted that Ixel barely speaks English, which contributed to the massive breakdown in communication and my aunt having to resort to hand gestures to get her property back.
As soon as my family lands in Florida, I will be gathering their reservation information to launch a formal corporate complaint. Someone at Budget needs to seriously retrain Ali on basic human decency, and management needs to address the communication barriers and loitering at this facility.
An absolutely terrible, stressful experience. We will NEVER use Budget again.