Budget Rent A Car
Reviews and Complaints

I reserved a truck two weeks before the date I needed to rent it. I reserved it from
Crystal clean truck rental
1006 e north 1st st
Seneca, sc 29678
[protected]
when my fiance got there to pick up the truck he was told the truck we reserved wasn't there so he had to rent a bigger truck that was $10.00 more than the one we had reserved and was guaranteed two weeks prior. he was told to do that or have nothing at all. so, we had no choice but to go with that. I was given a special mileage rate online of.69 a mile and was actually charged.79 a mile. the estimated quote I was given online was $64.79 and I was charge $133.75! when I called crystal clean truck rental to ask about it the man was rude and told me there was nothing he could do about it. when I asked for the number to budget truck rental he started yelling at me so I hung up the phone to look up the budget truck rental info online. I am also contacting the better business bureau about this, posting blogs, and getting the word out as much as possible to never rent a budget truck because you will not be given the truck nor the price you are guaranteed. and the service is rude and they give you absolutely no choice but to go with what they tell you to when it's too late to change to anything else.

Budget car rental aka Avis car rental is the worst car rental company in existence. The employees took over the company a few years ago and they overcharge you to benefit their bank accounts. I rented a car for 5 days in Tampa Fl recently. I got a quote beforehand through their website for $253.00. I thought this was reasonable. When I got to the counter at the airport the woman who was waiting on me said "do you want an upgrade so you will have more room"? I said "no" it's only me and my daughter and we will be fine in the one I ordered. She asked again and again I declined. Then she asked me if I wanted bumper to bumper insurance. I said "no I don't, I have my own insurance" I then showed her my Geico card. So she told me the total was going to be $305.00 for taxes etc. and said to initial where it had $305.00 on the paper which I did. She then told me to initial in the other boxes to decline the extras which I did. The font was conveniently not showing the tops of the numbers so I couldn't see what I was initialing but I assumed the woman was honest and I trusted her. Well don't you know when I returned the car they charged me $527.03. I was livid. I went right up to the counter and told them to get this off my credit card that the total should be $305.00. The guy at the counter looked at it and told me the extra was for tax. I couldn't believe it. When I got home to New Jersey I researched on line and apparently this is a common fraud tactic by this company. There are thousands of complaints from people about the same exact scenario. When I wrote to customer service they had a scripted response saying I initialed for the insurance at $26.00 a day and I asked for an upgrade. These people are nothing but common thieves. If any lawyer is reading this and wants to do a class action lawsuit against them contact me at [protected]@gmail.com Thank You, Dolores

I rented from budget in December They sent us out in a car with no block heater in -47 degree weather the car would not start I called budget and all they bsaid was oh well it is optional in some cars. So we tried to push it into the garage but the bumper cracked because of the cold. Then we tried towing it and it cracked the back bumper not alot but it did crack. We has to fly out the next day so we had to do something and budget would not do anything they then took 3400 off of my visa card and then would give my an invoice of what they charged. I would never reccomend them to any one. the car had a block heater it would not have happened. The service was awful and they told me that I was a liar and that it did not happen that way.

To whom it may concern;

I'm writing to make an official complaint against Budget Car Hire for extremely poor service as far as providing the hire car is concerned as well as their complaints procedure. Below is a full breakdown and timeline of my complaint and all correspondence with them.

Please advise if you take these issues any further as I'd like to get back to Budget with some response as to my feedback from yourselves?

Many thanks,
Peter Armstrong

RE: budget‏
From: Peter Armstrong ([protected]@hotmail.com)
Sent: 19 January 2010 19:28:49
To: customer.[protected]@budget-emea.com

Dear Simon,

I find the email below quite insulting.

I booked a car early to ensure I would get one, but believe me when I arrived there were at least 8 - 10 of your customers at that desk being told the same thing and I quote "unfortunately we don't have any cars and some of the cars we expected back haven't yet arrived"! To add insult to injury in my haist (trying to establish how long a car might be) I actually asked one of your other customers how long they'd been there and they said that they'd been waiting for their car since 8am that morning.

Let me explain my dissatisfaction with this appalling service:

1. Very poor service and no answer to help
2. The first email complaint I sent was the 3rd of November 2009 to express my dissatisfaction
3. After several automated responses to the emails I posted you, I finally got an email from someone at the beginning of December to say you have some company policy that clearly allows you to investigate this matter in a reasonable time frame (up to 20 days) to allow for good customer service
4. I've now finally got a response that's not only a total fob off, but more than a month overdue.

No, this is not acceptable and the feable excuse without even so much as a small gesture is not good enough, so I have no other option than to report you to the UK Complaints Board with all the correspondence attached.

Peter Armstrong

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: customer.[protected]@budget-emea.com
Subject: budget
To: [protected]@hotmail.com
Date: Tue, 19 Jan 2010 15:43:37 +0000

Case Number: 32-45340

Customer.[protected]@Budget-emea.com

Tel. [protected]
19 January 2010

Dear Mr Armstrong,

Thank you for renting a car from us recently and providing us with the opportunity to deal with the issues you raised in your letter.

We can only apologise for any inconvenience incurred especially considering the circumstances of your trip.

However please note that you had booked the vehicle for pickup at 0900hrs you state that you did not arrive in until 1040am. Unfortunately we are unable to hold vehicles indefinitely for customers and this was an extremely busy time for us.

Our staff did try to assist you and explained that we could get you a car but there would be a delay in doing so.

Please note that you have not been charged the 20.50GBP fee for the reservation as it was a pay on arrival site that you booked through.

Unfortunately we are unable to offer a refund on the taxi fare.

If you should require anything further then please do not hesitate to contact me.

Kind Regards

Simon Macionis

Budget Customer Services

Tel. [protected]

E-mail: customer.[protected]@budget-emea.com

Website: www.budget.co.uk

P Consider the environment. Please don't print this e-mail unless you really need to.

(No Subject)‏
From: CustomerCare (customer.[protected]@budget-emea.com)
Sent: 25 November 2009 15:00:56
To: Peter Armstrong ([protected]@hotmail.com)

Case 32-45340

Dear Peter Armstrong,

Thank you for your recent correspondence and for bringing this matter to our attention.

Customer feedback is very important to us and we intend to resolve this issue quickly and efficiently.

We have initiated a comprehensive investigation into the issue you have raised with us. Your feedback has been directed to the station manager of this particular location requesting their comments and an explanation. We have also requested all of the relevant documentation pertaining to your rental.

In order to resolve issues such as this as efficiently as possible we have Service Level Agreements with all of our worldwide locations of 20 working days for all customer service cases relating to vehicle damage and 10 working days for all other queries or issues. This enables Customer Services to investigate, gather the relevant documentation and resolve the issue on behalf of our customer in a timely manner.

In most instances, we receive the required information from our Station Managers in a timely manner. Should this not be the case the issue will be escalated to a Senior Manager, who will resolve the issue based on the information we have collated up until that point. We will then contact you within a short time of the Service Level Agreement elapsing. If you have booked with Budget through a travel agency, tour operator or broker please provide a copy of the voucher supplied at the time of booking Budget Customer Care at the details below.

As you have found your rental experience with us less than satisfactory, we would like to take this opportunity to extend our sincere apologies. Please be assured that your custom is extremely valuable to us and we hope to resolve this issue for you as soon as possible.

Neil Dean

Budget Customer Services

Tel: +[protected]

Fax: +[protected]

E-mail: customer.[protected]@budget-emea.com

Website: http://www.budget.co.uk

Budget Customer Care
Park Road
Bracknell,
Berkshire RG12-2BW

RE: Contact Budget - Confirmation‏
From: Peter Armstrong ([protected]@hotmail.com)
Sent: 20 November 2009 11:44:47
To: [protected]@budget-emea.com
1 attachment
image001.gif (1.9 KB)

Dear Customer Care,

It's now been an additional 9 days since I received the last email below and still I have NO feedback, NO refund and NO compensation for the huge lack of service I received from Budget!

Once again I've given you a reasonable amount of time to respond and now my patients has run out. Unless I get a reasonable response (my money refunded) within 48 hours, as promised I'll take this complaint to the UK complaints board because this is simply unacceptable.

Peter Armstrong

RE: Contact Budget - Confirmation‏
From: Customer Services ([protected]@budget-emea.com)
You may not know this sender.Mark as safe|Mark as junk
Sent: 11 November 2009 11:29:22
To: Peter Armstrong ([protected]@hotmail.com)

1 attachment
image001.gif (1.9 KB)

Dear Customer,

Thank you for contacting us and taking the time for bringing your concerns to our attention.

For us to improve our service delivery we rely on valuable customer feedback.

For your peace of mind we will be investigating your comments thoroughly.

As soon as we have everything we need we will get back to you shortly.

Please note that our Customer Service team operates during the following hours:

Monday – Friday: 09:00 – 17:00 hours

Customer.[protected]@budget-emea.com
Tel: +[protected]

P Consider the environment. Please don't print this e-mail unless you really need to.
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RE: Contact Budget - Confirmation‏
From: Peter Armstrong ([protected]@hotmail.com)
Sent: 11 November 2009 11:29:12
To: customer.[protected]@budget-emea.com

To whom it may concern:

As of yet I've had no response to my email below which you received on the 3rd of November. Please response to this email within 48 hrs or I'll contact the UK complaints board as this level of service or lack thereof is totally unacceptable.

Peter Armstrong

> Date: Tue, 3 Nov 2009 20:38:34 +0100
> From: customer.[protected]@budget-emea.com
> Subject: Contact Budget - Confirmation
> To: [protected]@hotmail.com
>
>
> Thank you Mr Peter Armstrong for your request.
>
> Reservation number: UKWB2CD7E
> Rental agreement number(s):
> Rental office: United Kingdom
> Salutation: Mr
> First name: Peter
> Surname: Armstrong
> Wizard number:
> Telephone: +[protected]
> e-mail: [protected]@hotmail.com
> Comment: To whom it may concern;
> Last week Monday evening I booked one of your hire cars online to be
> collected
> at Belfast City Airport the following morning, coming in from London. I
> arrived
> at your reservations desk only to be told that there are no cars available
> and
> it could take anywhere from 45 minutes up to 2 hours until one would be
> available.
>
> On any normal day this would frustrate most of your clients, but I was
> particularly upset as I was in Northern Ireland for a maximum of 5 hours to
>
> attend my grandmother’s funeral. I arrived at 10:40am, had to be in Lurgan
> for
> the 12 noon service, only to been told by your desk manager that the only
> solution would be to take a cab, as there would be no other way to get
> there on
> time.
>
> Firstly I would like a full refund for services paid and not rendered to
> the
> amount of £20.50 and I would also like compensation towards my cab fare of
> which that was £43.56. If you require proof of invoice, when you reply to
> this
> email I will forward scanned copies.
>
> I look forward to your prompt response.
> Regards,
> Peter Armstrong
>
> P.S. Many of your other customers (business men & women) where appalled by
> this
> level of service, so in future I would advise you find a way to prevent
> bookings if you know you won’t have the capacity to fulfil these
> requirements.

When my husband and I flew out to vancouver to be married a year ago, I had planned everything in advance to make sure we could cover costs.
Our budget price quote was just under 500 for a five day rental. I believe 460 was the quote. I was perfectly happy with that amount, and naturally, I expected perhaps another 50 for some odd airport tax or whatever other little surprises there might be.
I'd heard there were some complaints about their 'pay in advance and drive back on an empty tank' deal, so I avoided that, and promised myself i'd return the tank brimming with gas. Crisis averted, right? Wrong.
So, we return the car, he marks down the gas gauge as a full quarter tank above where it was when I picked it up, and I see that he marks it down as such (I am sitting in the drivers seat until I see this information has been marked down). We walk twenty feet over and enter the agent office, and appartently another reality.
In this reality we are billed for returning the tank empty, then for extra insurance because they said we didn't pre-pick our insurance, and then a series of other charges that even the manager couldn't find a reason for, but refused to remove.
We paid 970 dollars for the rental.
I cried openly in public for the first time in my life, outside of a funeral.
We had to use all our wedding present money to transfer funds onto our visa to pay for a rental that was supposed to cost us shy of 500. I called budget for three months at least twice a week.
They told me that the budget at the airport was independent and they couldn't help us in anyway.
The budget I delt with at the vancouver airport refused to go over my bill, explain charges, and on one occasion I was told in not uncertain terms to never call back. Once I was told "too bad!" and she laughed and hung up.
I can't say enough terrible things about them. Never use them.

I reserved a car online and went with the pre pay option to save money. ONLINE it states that if you need to cancel for any reason it's not a problem. Budget will charge you $10-50 cancelation fee depending on the circumstances and refund your money as soon as possible. I canceled and was told that it would take 7 days to refund money. I asked why so long for an electronic transfer? It's just money they took out that they will resubmit to my account. I'm still waiting on my refund. When I spoke with a rep today she told me it may take up to 10-15 days because the processing is behind because of the holidays. DO NOT pre reserve your vehicle online with a credit or debit card. They will charge you and you won't know when you will get your money back. Place a reservation for the car WITHOUT prepaying it.

Reserved a car on Budget.com for a week in Seattle. Arrived at the airport, presented our reservation, declined the insurance, and signed the forms. Did not read the contract, BIG mistake! We were upgraded to a more expensive car without our knowledge. Reading the contract afterwards, it is not obvious that the car was upgraded. But it was, and we ended up paying $276 more than expected. Always read your contract and compare it to your reservation. They said absolutely NOTHING verbally about the upgrade.

Also, their customer service is worse than useless if you try to resolve this sort of thing.
No more Budget for us, bunch of crooks.

At the time of returning a rental car for a week=end use having driven it only a total of 139 miles, we were charged for a full tank of gas. We returned this vehicle with a full tank as per their contract. We complained and they say they have investigated and supposedly are giving a credit for 1/3 of the additional charge. Also that we should be understanding of their plight, although I can't understand what plight that might be unless they are in financial staits because of shoddy operation. We are willing to pay the original exhorbitant car rental charge for the weekend in question. but resent their usurious overcharge..This sounds like the attempt of a National company to make the consumer pay for its management failures.

Budget has defrauded a few of us in Dublin, I rented a VW Golf in April 2009, it had a defective clutch (?), it stalled 3 times in 10 minutes, I returned the vehicle immediately, with a total of 5 km. Requested a replacement, Budget would not give me one, they blamed me for causing the damage(!), they still charged me 50.00 Euro for a day(!), than SEVEN weeks later they charge my credit card for 1, 300.00Euro for replacing the clutch, 160 E for towing, 88 E for loss of use(?) while they rented the damn car to some other people ! An another lady in May got scammed too for the same amount after 9 km !She was charged also for a burned out clutch! What a scam!
So I had the car key in my possession for 15 minutes, and Budget charged my card for $ 1, 825.00, if you rent a good car they get $ 50.00/day, it is so much more profitable for them to steal from you, using your credit card, so I am fighting them trough the local court.

Upon pick-up of confirmed, quoted, reserved vehicle, Budget decided to apply additional taxes on top of the taxes already quoted, which bumped their weekly outrageous fee by an extra $36.00. Because their pick-up location (and most of the other car rental facilities at Denver Airport), is in an area too far from the airport for a customer to give their business elsewhere (you are shuttled to the car rental facility), a person is forced to accept their add-on, rip-off fees. There is no other alternative. You are at their mercy. The non-smoking vehicle had obviously been smoked in, with cigarette burns and stench. The front window had a large, round chip right under the front mirror that I got to look at for one week. Upon receipt of my charge on my credit card yesterday, they also decided to charge me $15.00 in toll fees originating in New York one week after I returned the vehicle. I never used a toll road, and I've never been to New York. NEVER RENT FROM BUDGET. I am also going to report them to the Better Business Bureau and all agencies in Colorado.

After bidding on a car through Priceline, I went to Fort Lauderdale airport to pick up the rental. The agent asked if I needed to ugrade the full size car I'd pre-purchased and I told her "No". She then asked if I wanted to add insurance. I again declined. I told her everything was pre-paid and I was just there to get the car.

She then printed my form, circled a bunch of items and asked me to initial. I didn't think I needed to double check that she would try to sneak in the insurance at $26.99 per day!

I just checked my statement and noticed I'd been billed by Priceline and Budget.

My warning...READ EVERYTHING those con artists ask you to sign. This must be one of their scams - pulling a bait and switch on airport customers because they know we are rushing.

Arrived from Canada last night. Went to counter in Budget in Lihue, Kauai. We were met by Miss Cho. Miss Cho intimidated, yelled, was defensive when asked a quiet question, politely, insisted on giving us insurance for both husband and wife when husband only driving, would not take wife's credit card for the transaction and only husband driving, only had one credit card with us in interest of security, yelled and was extremely rude, demanding licenses to be removed from wallets and placed correctly before her, had such a thick accent we could only understand 1/8 of what she said but the body language, tone, and manner were very explicit. She thought we were a couple of country hicks not worth 2 cents and could be sold a $1200. deal when I had a confirmed reservation with a base price of $444.48. We just wanted a small car and insurance for one. When in Maui 6 months ago we had a car from Budge for $1200. for 5 weeks, and it was Mustang convertible, now we have a 4 door compact for $1332.77 and I have been up all night fuming unable to contact any customer service people as it is a holiday weekend. There was no one to talk to last night in the Office at Budget locally either. We will be wasting a whole morning driving back there, not mention long distance calls on my cell, and extreme anxiety, and a really bad impression of Kauai as she was the first person we met.

Truck broke down... They towed my dog in the broken down truck for 2 and a half hours through the desert with no air conditioning or water... Totally illegal... Made me lose a lease, now paying 125.00 more a month for a house... Couldn't register my son for school, etc etc. They said they would discuss settlement when closed out... Called cutomer service in tulsa oklahoma and spoke to the end all in customer service, nan. They offered 25%... Not acceptable... They cost me 1400.00 for the lease alone... Nan said she had no one above her to discuss further and she did not know a corporate numer. I was calm, but she said that was that and hung up on me. Called back, talked to nina, asked for nans supervisor... No one else... Nan is the top dog. I insisted I talk to someone besides nan... Nina said that was their final offer and the other level 2 agents were busy and they will call me back in 24 hours... Not acceptable... Again I insisted that the offer was not acceptable and nina also hung up on me... This is budgets customer service department... Its their way or nothing and when they are done with you they hang up on you... Keep in mind... I was not screaming or going crazy... Just wanting to be heard out... Ridiculous... When we were broken down we met several people and they said always use penske... I will.

I worked with your company Budget rental to rent a car to drive to Florida and back for a Medical Emergency for a family member.

They gave me a confirmation number, they guarenteed me a car rental.
Never in any of the process in which I had spoke to the online personel as well as the service people at the location no less than 15 to 20 times getting all this arranged.

The day I was supposed to leave, I drove a hour to get there, they said I wouldn't need to have a $400-$500 hold on my account only $200.00, then said "let me go see what we have, when he came back he ran my check card, he then informed me I didn't "pass your credit check" and they refused to rent me a car.

Never in the entire process days earlier was this ever mentioned, EVER! They had my card #, they had all my information.

I would like for your company to explain to me how you can do this to the public, if you guarentee a vehicle, give them a confirmation # how could they have done this" at the complete and total injustice of what your company has done!

Trina L Harnden
[protected]

Hidden fees
Recently I rented a car from budget (Thru priceline) from the indianapolis airport location. Upon arrival, they allegedly didn't have the midsize I had reserved or a fullsize upgrade, so they stuck me in this hideous little economy. They took a little bit off of the price after letting them know I was pissed off about the reserved car not being available. $169.00 for 4 days before fees and taxes. After insurance, fees, taxes on the fees, taxes on the insurance, fees for the additional taxes, and oh yeah, airport fees, county, state and local taxes, that little pos cost me $467.28 - for 4 days.
Won't happen again. Bad when it's cheaper to take a cab.

I made a reservation with my local Budget through Orbits. I called the morning of the pick up and they told me they didn't have ANY cars available. There was no help from the person at that location so I called corporate. They seemed shocked but could offer no help at all. They did try to get me to take a smaller car, farther from my home with an additional 50% higher rate. I told them I would pay no more than what was quoted me. They agreed to the price but could not guarantee that the car would be available for up to 7 hours after my original pick up time.

I went back nearly 2 hours after being told no availability and talking with corperate headquarters to make another reservation through Orbitz and a 3rd reservation through Budget online. Both reservations were accepted and confirmation numbers were issued. So it was NO ACCIDENT that they had no cars. They made no effort to keep what happened to me from happening to others at the same time.

Just a really poor business ethic that makes me really sick to my stomache.

I recently rented a car on-line through Budget car rental and declined all insurance coverage because it was included on our credit card. When we arrived in Cancun we were shuttled to the Budget Airport office where we were told by the Manager that we had to pay an additional $10.us per day for liability insurance because it was mandatory in Mexico. I argued with him stating that it was not on my confirmation and he said we could not have the car unless we signed for the insurance. It was dark outside and we were in the middle of nowhere so we signed for the insurance knowing we could complain once we returned home. Well we did complain and the bottom line was that Budget said we signed the agreement so therefore we accepted the terms of the contract.

My brother arrived the same day in the morning to pick up his car and they did the exact same thing to him.

My suggestion is not to rent from Budget at the Cancun airport but if you do and this happens make sure you make a note on the agreement that you are signing for the insurance only because they said it was mandatory and you have no choice if you want the car.

Budget kept me waiting a half-hour though I had a reservation, while Budget helped people without a reservation. Clerk said, "sign for this amount", but later put in a higher amount (triple), in retaliation, becuaus I complained to her that she and her partner should have had two lines, one for people with reservations and one for people without, or should give priority to those with reservations. Budget Car Rental in Nashville are crooks. Company replied saying they would not refund my money, offered me a coupon on my next rental. I said, I won't be renting from Budget again.

On January 16, 2009, my husband and I rented a Budget 24 foot box truck from Taylor Rental in Port Jefferson Station, NY to move his great aunt into a group home. When we went to fill out the papers, my husband inquired about the additional insurance. The rep noticed that we were paying with our American Express card, and told us that we were covered by Amex as the primary, and our regular auto insurance as a secondary. He also told us that we had to opt out of the insurance otherwise Amex would not cover any damages.

We knew that we would not be finished with the truck until after store hours, so the rep told us to just put the keys in the drop box and the truck would be checked back into the system in the morning. A different rep walked us around the vehicle..only major thing noted was graffiti on the sides.

We took care of moving his aunt and returned the truck after hours, locked everything up and put the keys int the drop box as we were instructed . The next morning, we received a phone call from the store, asking us to come down and fill out an accident report for the damage done to the roof. We went down to see this for ourselves and sure enough there was a hole in the roof approximately 7 inches wide.

We told the rep that we didn't do this, it must have happened overnight, and he said that he had absolutely no stake in this (of course he did, he gets a commission from Budget!) and that he would just fill out an accident report that said "customer denies damage". He said sometimes Budget decides to pursue these things and sometimes they don't. We'd know in a few weeks if they were to pursue this or not. So we left...

About a month later, we received a letter from Budget with a $4, 700 bill! The pictures of the damage are not like anything we saw, they were 10 times worse. The estimate was done in Florida, which is very sketchy because this truck was rented in NY.

We found out that they gave us COMPLETEY INCORRECT information...we were virutally driving around WITH NO INSURANCE! Can you imagine if we had hit a pedestrian? We'd be living out on the street! Basically the whole thing about Amex will cover you was false- when we inquired about this, they do not cover commerical vehichles. Neither did our personal auto insurance because it was a commerical vehicle.

To top it all of, even if we had taken the additional insurance, there is a clause that states it doesn't cover roof damages. So we would have been screwed anyway. When we inquired about this with Budget, the answer we got was "it is up to the renter to know what is covered and what isn't".

Sorry I left my crystal ball home... how were we supposed to know that we were given incorrect information? You trust that the vendor is giving you legit info... lesson learned!

We now have a lawyer involved and are in the process of contacting the State Attorney General. Our personal auto insurance rep said that this is a common scam to get rid of old trucks and replace with new ones at the consumer's expenese.

If anyone is interested in filing a class action suit, please contact me ASAP. I have spent the last hour browsing this website and am horrified at some of the postings about them...this cannot continue!