I have never had a worse experience in my entire life.
I placed my reservation online for a 15 passenger van to rent for a race.I now have 8 other people (and their investments) relying on this van for Race day.
Thrifty called 3 days after the reservation was placed and 2 days before scheduled pick up to receive a$200 deposit normally filled out with paperwork when you rent a car or online through a secure process
when I asked for a receipt they told me "We don't really do that.There's no way, unless we can fax it"
Who owns a fax machine anymore?
The place opened at 7:30 but online it was labeled that it opened at 8.I arrived at 7:50 to pick up the Van and waited 15 minutes until I got any form of life from inside. The agent inside wasn't dressed professionally and didn't look as though she even worked there. I filled out the remaining paperwork, signed and was ready to get my van and pick up my team.
The agent and my girlfriend and I all walked outside to get ready to drive the van off the lot for our weekend race.The agent had another vehicle to move out from in front of the van I was renting. My girlfriend and I were gathering our things from our personal vehicle to put into the van before we left.The rental agent begins to pull the15 passenger van forward and scrapes the passenger quarter panel on the adjacent light post. This scares her and she jams on what she thought was the break pedal. Not the case - and she shoots across the parking lot and crashes through the wall of the building and into the lobby, very good thing there weren't any other customers there or they would have been at LEAST very seriously injured as I estimate the van was traveling at 30 mph before going through the wall.
http://instagram.com/p/Y-RNxFK3Fh/
My girlfriend and I ran from where we were outside to make sure that no one was injured. As I carefully made my way across the broken glass and debris I could see that the driver was visibly uninjured except for some burns from the airbags.I escorted her out through the side door way of the building so she wouldn't become further injured from the broken glass.The other employee, who was in the back of the building when this happened,began to cry when I asked if he was alright,and was totally useless.As I began to dial 911, my girlfriend already had them on the phone and had emergency personnel on the way.
Now, I understand as stated above that someone could have been seriously hurt. No one was,even though there was a large expensive hole in the side of the building. Thankfully no serious injuries. I now had a limited time frame as I now had to find another van and drive 2 hours to the start of the race by 11:00 am and it was growing shorter by delay in the police arriving. During our wait for police officers, my girlfriend and I asked if there was anyone we needed to contact for the agent and the other employee (siblings), or if there was anything we could do for them.We assured them that even though this was an awful experience, at least everyone was ok and that was the most important thing.We stayed with both employees until emergency personnel arrived on the scene. My girlfriend and I gave the officer our statement, address,and phone number to be contacted in the future. Before leaving we made sure one more that time that the operator of the vehicle was ok before we left the scene.
There were no steps taken in the time that van crashed through the wall until I called the business on Monday afternoon to discuss the money that I had left with them over the weekend. None of upper management showed up on the scene in the hour after the incident and there was no mention of contacting us to let us know that we would be refunded the money for the van as soon as possible. Saturday and Sunday went by, and most of Monday went by without any contact either email or phone call from the business to inform me that they had refunded the money.
When I called them on Monday and spoke to them on the phone I was rudely asked what I wanted from them and that I would receive a call back on Wednesday from the owner. First, I wanted to know what they were going to do about the reservation and the money that I had paid for the van.I received verbal assurance that the money had been released and I would see it in3-5 business days. I was unable to get a receipt emailed to me or an sort of hard copy that I was being taken care of as a customer.
I didn't get a call Wednesday or Thursday.Friday I called back and asked if they could please cover the difference between the cost of Thrifty rental and the other van I managed to rent last minute at a different dealer, as Thrifty had greatly inconvenienced 9 customers in one fell swoop.I was HUNG UP ON,to which I promptly called back and I was then told that I was IGNORANT and care about no one but my self and was only concerned with money and not the well being of the agent that drove the van through the wall and hung up again.
It took 7 days for refund read more
