Alamo Rent A Car
Reviews and Complaints

MY cab was supposed to pick me up at 7am on February 17, 2011 but did not show up until 7:33 at the fault of the dispatcher. When I called the dispatcher to inquire as to why my cab was late, she was very rude and immediately put me on hold but did not ever return to the line. I continued to call back but she would not pick up the line. I finally got through when a new employee answered. I explained to him what happened and he assured me that something would be done. I called back on Monday the 21st of February to follow-up on my complaint and the same employee that assured me something would be done, basically assured me that nothing would be done. He said that because the rude employee contacted another cab company to pick me up, they werent able to give me a refund. My complaint is that I called Alamo cab company to pick me up and because of a mistake on their part, they had to out source to another company but I was not informed of the mistake or what was being done to fix it until the very last minute. Aside from that, the dispatcher had the audacity to be nasty to me when she was at fault. I want a full refund for all of my trouble.

Never rent from Alamo at their Lihue, Kauai location. They deliberately deceive you to pad the pre-arranged package deal from Costco. I entered all information online so I could use a Self-Service Kiosk to save time at pickup. None was available so my husband and son, our drivers, waited in line. My Costco deal was for a standard 5 passenger, 4 door Pontiac G6 type car.

We had been awake and/or traveling for about 30 hours by the time my husband reached the agent. He was told that I rented a 2 door and it would not fit 5 people but she would upgrade him to a full size for $1 a day. Sounded like $6 extra for the 6 day rental so he said yes and told her we do not want the additional insurance. My son verified that he heard the same information. The lot attendant said they do not even have any 2 door cars there, proving her lie. Also, we were never given any paperwork to note pre-existing damage to the car, which my husband checked, it was clean so we did not say anything.

The next morning I asked my husband for the rental agreement to put in a safe place and saw that my pre-arranged 6 day $340 rental was now $557! I called the Lihue manager and told him that we had declined the insurance and had a perfectly acceptable 5 passenger car on reserve. The agent had circled the choices for my husband to initial to decline insurance. In his exhaustion he did not realize she circled that he wanted insurance, an extra $56.56, and she charged $11 x 6 days for the full size upgrade, not $1 a day. He did pre-pay for gas for $56.56 making the correct total $404 without the upgrade and insurance. This overcharge of $153 sure added stress to our first day of vacation and cost my husband over an hour to get back to the airport to straighten this out. The desk agent said he was out of luck but he asked for the manager, who had talked to me already. We ended up getting the correct price and keeping the full size car, which was not at all fuel efficient, but we did not want any more trouble.

Later I did an online search for Alamo Lihue and read identical stories of deception, two specifically mentioning a Costco reservation. Apparently they are signing everyone up for insurance whether they decline or not. As we were returning our rental two people, outside the door to the Alamo counter, were discussing that their receipt said they asked for insurance and they had not. We quickly told them our experience and what I learned online. From now on I am going to look up any rental car agency for complaints before making a reservation. I have never had a problem with Enterprise but thought that this time Alamo was a better deal (wrong)!

We rented a car for the day while our ship was in port in Cozumel, Mexico. We rented what they call a chevy open. We declined the 11.95 insurance (coverage from State Farm and Visa). The car had over 69, 000 miles on it with many scratches and dents. When we returned the car they accused us of damage to the front bumper. There were two spots of paint missing. We did not do this damage to the car and even walked around the car with the attendant before leaving the lot. He did not mark anything down - just nodded his head. The clerk called in the store manager who announced that we owed him 3000 pesos for the repair. He just made the number up while standing there with us. We disagreed and refused to pay the fee. As we walked away he reminded us we were in Mexico - which felt very threatening. The company charged our credit card for the alleged damage. We are currently disputing the claim - but needless to say it put a damper on our vacation. We have not had a bad experience in the past with car rental - and we have rented many cars. We are hopeful that Alamo will make this right.

I rented a car from Alamo from July 9-12, in Billings, MT. A week later I received a call from Amy Davis stating the windshield was cracked when the car was returned.

Both my passenger and I can attest to the fact that there was no damage to the car. We filled the car up and washed the windshield one mile from the airport we returned the car to.

I wrote and asked for picture varification, and a bill from the company that did the repairs. Also the reason I was charged two days down time while the repair was done.

The only "proof" I was sent was a black/white drawing of a car with one of six boxes at the bottom marked.

After check the internet under Alamo complaints, this scam seems to be wide-spread world wide.

PurCo Fleet Services has a c- rating from the Utah BBB for similar complaints.

I was recently in NYC for a holiday and used Alamo Rental Cars. Although the car was fine (I think it was a Toyota Corrola) whne I went to return it, I was charged for a scratch on the right door. It looks like someone 'keyed' it. Here is where they get you - because I did not elect to get extra insurance on it, I am now responsible for the damage even though I had nothing to do with it. I didn't get the extra insurance because I thought I would be covered under my normal insurance and the extra cost would have been an additional $300 for the week! They certainly didn't let me know about this extra cost when I confimred my order. Hidden costs!

We traveled to Tulsa OK the weekend of May 7th - 10th and rented a car from Alamo as we had a coupon for a "good deal". When we arrived at the airport, the attendant attempted to rent us a silver Dodge Avenger with damage to the back bumper and side panels. We insisted the attendant document all of the damage before we would accept the car but she didn't want to do it as the damage was pretty widespread. Instead, the black Dodge Avenger parked right next to it was in perfect shape so she rented it to us instead. On Monday we dropped off the car with a full tank of gas, the attendant inspected it and said everything was fine.

A month later we get a bill from Alamo for $500 for damage to the Silver Dodge Avenger. The customer service is almost impossible to contact. In the many attempts my husband has made to call them he has actually spoken to someone once. She said she made a note that we never accepted the silver Avenger however, the bills for the $500 continue to arrive at our house. There are no responses to email and calls are deferred to voice mail which is apparently full as you then get hung up on.

This could all be settled quickly if the right person would look at the rental agreement. We were sent the repair bill for the black Avenger and it had the mileage on it. Could they check to see how many miles accumulated on that car the weekend we were in Tulsa? That would be another way to show that we didn't rent the car.

If their rental contracts are as messed up as their customer service this may never get resolved. Let this be a warning to others thinking Alamo is providing a good deal. You may have to fight with them for a long time over something obvious like this as they pay absolutely no attention to any information right in front of them.

i rented a car in Tuxtla Gutierrez, Chiapas airport. The first car they gave me, the air conditioning didn't work, i reported to them and they gave another one, it wast worse, when I try to see how fast I was going, i realiced that the speedometer didn work, then the brakes were not in the optimus conditions, and the air conditionign worked one day, the next day did not. I reported all these bad conditions, and they were aware of it, but they couldn´t do anything.
So, how dare to rent cars in poor conditions? if they were aware of it, why they didn´t notifed me?

I rented a car from Alamo FLL, a 2009 Mazda 5 Grand Touring and picked it up at Fort Lauderdale International Airport, on February 8 to head for the state of Maryland. We(myself, my wife and son) reached North Carolina without any precipitation. Thereafter, for four hours straight, we traveled under heavy rain until a forced stop at a hotel in Fredericksburg, VA, because the car was starting to twist. In one situation we almost hit a truck that was passing next to us on the same direction, making my wife and my child on the back seat to scream desperately. We were all frightened to death.

.

Due to the hurry to get to our hotel room the night before, I left the car steering turned all the way to the left allowing the tires well exposed. And to our surprise and indignation we noticed that they were completely bald. As we found out later, part of the tire was already showing some steel mesh. At that very moment we realized how much risk our lives had been exposed to, after driving for so long. A tremendous disappointment crossed our minds, for the enormous irresponsibility from Alamo. We immediately started using our movie and photo camera to make a complete report of the situation.

I called Alamo toll-free and the attendant on the other side could not send another car because there was no office of Alamo close to where we were. Then she asked me to head to a tire store, which Alamo holds an agreement with, to exchange for new ones, just about a mile away. Later my GPS proved that it was 5 miles from the hotel. The fear of driving in the melting snow and ice with bald tires still hung over our heads. Since they would not come to us as in my understanding they should, we were forced to venture to the workshop indicated.

The situation turned into a great paradox, because the rep person from Alamo had warned me that if the tire store to which we were about to go found out that the vehicle was not able to traffic, they, the people from the store, would not allow us to drive out of there. It was like if someone asked me to walk from the top of one building to another on a tightrope, and then on the other side someone was waiting to consider whether the situation might be actually risky. If so he would not let me go back the same way I came. Because of the ice and snow the night before the streets were very dangerous even for a car with new tires. We could see some cars hanging along the road sides as the result of twists.

We talked with Marcus, the consultant of Firestone Complete Auto Care, who was waiting for us, already advised of the situation. We were extremely stressed. Bureaucracy and paper work took 3 hours before the official authorization from Alamo to change the tires, because a simple report from the workshop was not enough.

Tired of waiting, because we could not leave the store without a solution, the news finally came through the consultant, falling like a bomb on our heads. Needed to return the next day because they did not have the model and size of tires that the car used and needed to order them from another branch. Marcus settled up with us for 9 o'clock the next day, promising that the tires would be waiting for us by then. The store opens at 7 and would give them time to pick them from the other store, about 20 minutes away. There was another overnight stay in the hotel, meals, more stress, frustration and uncertainty.

The situation forced me to prove that the Alamo attendant was wrong. I drove the same car with the showing-mash-of-steel tires back to the hotel and from the hotel back to the store the next day.

Although arriving at 9 as marked by Marcus, we only left the store with the new tires at 12:35.

I'm asking for refund of my expenses and three air tickets Rio/Washington DC/Rio to give us the chance to accomplish what was not fulfilled at the time of the rental due to the setback provoked by the situation

I had the exact same problem with National car hire in three different countries. National car hire just doesn’t care any bit about the service they provide. At Toronto int. I booked a mid size car at the counter. Paid for it, wand the $200 deposit. I went to the midsize car section, only to find that there is none available. Now I ask you, how the hell do they make you pay for something that they don’t have? Got back to the counter and ask them how do they work. The Indian guy who was helping me said, Sorry, but I don’t know what is available. Would you prefer something else? I’m to afraid to ask what you have available. After a long fight with them to refund me they said the Manager is not available to sign for the refund. WTF! You make me pay for some thing you don’t have, then you tell me you don’t know what there is, then you can’t refund me till the next day. What’s next? Luckily Avis’s Manager overheard everything that was conspiring at the desk. Because of the situation with the refund, Avis arranged a car for me for one day free of charge. The following morning I eventually got my money back. National even had the audacity to ask me if I still want to rent the car from them. WHAT? ARE YOU F****** INSANE?! I went back to Avis and booked the car for the rest of the week. About a month later I returned to Ontario for a project. I was so thank full with the great service I got from Avis that we decided to book 35 cars for 6 weeks in Ontario. It doesn’t matter where in the world you are, National car hire’s service is up to ###! Especially in South Africa! I advice people traveling to South Africa for the 2010 Fifa World Cup to make sure that they book with Avis or First car rental. You will have no problems what so ever. Friendly and fast service.

Hi.
Booked a car rental from a website called arguscarhire which coated me some £85 for 3 days including insurance. After the hire period I received a invoice which showed me only 1 day + 54 ltr of petrol. and charged me £99.76.
I called Alamo car rental and they told me they have charged me by mistake and they will arange a refund. After 2-3 days I received one more invoice for £69.64 and that was also taken from my credit card.
Calling back Alamo they told me that I am charged correctly and if I have any issues I should send an e-mail to europcar customer care. I have sent a e-mail to Europcar customer care it's been almost 1 week but not even a single reply.
Every time I call them it is a 087 number which costs me, I have lost a lot of money by calling these people and still my issue is not resolved.

Please don't book your car rentals from europcar / Alamo car rentals . I will never ever book from these people in my life. waste of money and a lot of stress

we rented a car through Alamo in Aug 09 and paid for it in advance and declined the insurance already as we booked it.
At the airport we arrived tired, 2 kids, long line. The employee asked if we want insurance we DECLINED it then he kept talking with me about upgrading the car as he marked the places to sign to decline stuff (like in 4 places).
I signed fully trusting his marks and thinking that I can look it up later, just in case, but the copy that I got was just a printout not including my signatures. On the printout there is a lot of stuff: no way to know later where did you sign.

Anyway I didn't think much at that time, not even as I returned the car and got he receipt (there was the aprox. the same amount I paid for the car and a balance of $0.0, so I thought this is the rental fee that I have already had paid. As l I got home I saw that amount charged on my card. I thought that might be a double booking but no, it seemed that I was misleading to sign an insurance of $20 a day (that I already have and never needed and declined more than one time) So I ended up paying $60 a day for a compact rental: nice way to make profit scamming your customers.

It turns out some other people complained about it and that this behaviour has method. They were very rude to my complaints and stated that I should read carefully what I sign (true, but with a long line in your back you kind of trust them to put the x-es on the right place or at least not to talk to you like a waterfall as you sign). So if you book Alamo expect huge lines in the future!

They gladly take your money and do not cooperate and if you want to see your signatures on the damn contract you have to request it in written and wait 4 weeks :)) I am still not sure I signed there actually but they say I did, I assume they are right otherwise the scam is a huge fraud actually. Why not fax a copy over right away to clear the doubt?

Why would you print out anyway a form with multiple options if the customer denied it verbally already?
And why do not provide him with a signed copy of your contract so you can see your wrongdoing 5 min later as you get settled in the car?
(We have computers now and you print it out especially for your customer anyway, why then all the listed options) Yep, this has method and it is intentionally set like this!

I have serious doubts of the validity of a contract with multiple options where I cannot see exactly what I sign! I will probably cntact a lawywer on this because it seems like organized scam and from a big US company like Alamo I wouldn't expect this at all.

It makes me mad and sad that a US company will go so far just to make profits; we as consumers have to stop this or we'll all have a lot of bad days in the future.

On August 2009, we book our compact car by the Internet at Sanford int, Airport. When we showed up at the counter, the clerk ask us if we wanted to have a convertible for 3$ more a day. I ask the clerk 3 times if it was realy 3$ a day and he told me yes and It would be only 30$ for 10 days plus taxes.

So I decided to take the convertible since the clerk told me nobody wants to have convertible in Florida in the summer time and that was why it was so cheap. When we came back from our trip I saw on my credit Statement that Alamo took 265$ + 310$ for the convertible. So I paid 575$ when I was supposed to pay 295$. I called the customer service and the gave me 100$ credit and they told me as a courtesy. I forgot to read the review before booking my car and that is my mistake... I never gonna book any car with Alamo after that... The customer service is very bad and I strongly suggest you to read all the review before taking any reservation with this company. I feel very angry being ripped off by a company who don't care for their customer... I am telling you read the review carefully or you will pay...

Alamo has a very strict and poorly advertised policy of exorbitant late charge fee's. I had a weekend rental for 3 days, taken on Saturday at noon, returned Tuesday 4AM. They charged my credit card and extra $450 claiming that I had returned the car after the designated drop off time. Even though the website indicates 1 day = 24 hours, they claimed the weekend rate expires at the designated time. Read around and you will find lots of problems with Alamo. Do not rent from them.

Recently I booked a car on Priceline for Baltimore. The contract was accepted by Alamo. I paid for the rental with my credit card and listed my daughter as the driver. Everything was fine until we were leaving the parking lot. The Alamo security lady said that the name on the credit card and driver's license were different so they sent me back to the counter. There the Alamo attendant told me I would have to add my daughter as an additional driver. I showed them my contract which stated she was the only driver. I had an eye problem and was not going to drive. They still charged me for the additional driver. I contacted Priceline and was told Alamo should not have charged me as it violated the contract Priceline has with Alamo, but they could not do anything, I would need to deal directly with Alamo. When I called Alamo, they said their policy was to charge for the extra driver, even though she was the only driver and that Priceline could not tell them to do different. I recontacted Priceline and they were unwilling to do anything else as it was Alamo that charged my account. So, beware, only the person with the credit card used to rent the car can be the primary driver. I am really annoyed at both parties for not telling us this beforehand. It is an underhanded way to get more money.

I had a email that showed I could rent SUV for 194 a week. After I put in my dates it went up to almost $500. So I called the company and the nice young lady said well the cars were available when I received the email, but now they are no longer available. So then the both of us went to the website. There was a advertisement for last minute specials. Wouldn't you know it, there it was again. One week for $194. Of course when I put in the actual dates it too went up to $5oo. She apologized and said others had been complaining. And of course National, which is affiliated with Alamo, does the same thing. Deceptive, unethical advertising. Stay away. I'll never rent from them again.

Alamo: Why Charge me a hidden Fee?

Between May 10th and may 24th, 2009, I rented a Ford Focus through a travel agency in Costa Rica, from where I come from (turhokeanos.co.cr) with ALL INCLUSIVE in Orlando Florida.
Every thing was fine, until they charge an extra $123.53 "Carefree Personal Protection" (CPP) which I NEVER order.
Seems to be that the rental agent at the Orlando International Airport decided that I needed such insurance, but she never ask me for that, the only thing she said was: do you need a GPS in Spanish? I answered: I don’t need a GPS in Spanish. And she printed the receipt and made me sign with my initials.
If I bought an ALL INCLUSIVE PACAGE to the travel agency, why I will need an additional CPP? And I told her: give me only what is included in my reservation.

What I think is, she is getting a great commission, selling "extras" that customers don't order, don't need and don't know are paying.

Let me ask you: Will be the First and last time, I ever rent a car with ALAMO?
Alamo: don’t take advantage of honest and hard working people, give my money back.

Carlos Calderon; from San José, Costa Rica.
RA# [protected] RES#[protected] Contract ID S00208NK

I made a reservation through Hotwire.com for a car rental days in advance. I was transferred to the Alamo Car Rental location at the Tucson International Airport. They gave me the vehicle information and they took down my information and the reservation was completed for the pick up date. Hotwire charged and confirmed my payment. when I went to pick up the vehicle on the set date my card was not accepted at the Alamo Car Rental place...

Now Hotwire refuses to refund me the money charged for the car rental which was for a total of Five (5) days. Yet I had no problem what-so-ever renting from ENTERPRISE and at the last minute even... I even had ALAMO give me in writing on their letterhead that they refused my card (not for the lack of money).

Why is it that my money (card) was good with Hotwire to scam me out of cash yet not good enough for the ALAMO CAR RENTAL? If HOTWIRE is going to support or sponsor or be affiliated with such companies and they do the process to charge and they get their money a car rental should not refuse the card that has the MasterCard or Visa logo...A card from the bank is used as a CREDIT CARD and/or DEBIT...

NEVER USING HOTWIRE ever again...and for those of you who will think of using them...BE AWARE of the scam they do...Nowhere in their Terms does it state that you money will not be refunded regardless if the affiliated company refused you...

I rented a Hybrid car from Alamo to drive from Raleigh, NC to Ft. Lauderdale, FL. I originally was supposed to rent a mid-size car, but took the advice of the sales rep and went with the hybrid to save on gas. Anyway, I drove down and returned the car as expected. I did not have any trouble with the car during my rental aside from the fact that I returned it an hour late since we ran into traffic on the way to return it.

However, I received a letter from the Loss Damage department saying there was damage to the car and they were investigating the claim. The odd thing about the situation is that they sent the letter to my parent's house in Chicago. I have not lived with my parents in over 5 years! I moved from that address when I went away to school and have had an apartment in MD since 2004. I also did not give them that address when I rented the car and it is not on any of my documents.

In addition, I have never rented a car before this time as I was always under age and did not want to pay the underage fee. Thank goodness my parents still live there or I would have never gotten the letter. I don't understand why they would send the letter there and not to the address I gave them. How do they expect me to get the information and act accordingly if they do not send the letter to the address where I reside?

So, I called the Loss Damage department with the information my mother was able to give me to see what damage they are investigating, but the representative was not much help. She could not tell me what damage they are investigating or when she would know. So, I have no idea what they are talking about. Also, when the car was returned, there was no damage noted on my return paperwork. I will never rent from Alamo again because this is absurd!

In Feb. 2009 I had paid over $500. through the Priceline bid process for a full sized vehicle. If I did not show, they kept the money. When I arrived, there were no full sized vehicles at LAS: three Chrysler Sebring converts. and some minivans. I had to drive to LA so took the less that full size Sebring. Since it is a convertible, Alamo considers it an equal replacement for a full size vehicle. After renting over a hundred vehicles in several different countries since 1963, I had to file for the first time an incident report with my insurance company! Having never driven a convertible, with that driverside rear view constriction, I grazed a tree while backing out of a friend's driveway for the first time. $1071.89. This amount was collected by a third party. Alamo had the name of my insurance company, and my policy number, but they go through some collection agent who called me at home in the evening. If Alamo had honored the contract I made with them that they would have a full size vehicle, without that restricted vision which all covertibles seem to have, I say that this inident would not have happened. Last year, Jan 2008, I had reserved a midsize vehicle with Alamo at the same location. Upon arrival, all they had were several SUVs, a Chevy Yukon! It was almost midnight, what was my choice? Next day I returned it and got a Huyndai. My loss was a cell phone charger left in the Yukon, which Alamo lost and found, never did find. Can they not do anything at some acceptable level of common decent responsibility?
In the future, no more Alamo/National anywhere. National, guess where one customer's Emerald Club Card is going {Actually, it just went} Goodbye rubbish.