Budget Rent A Car
reviews and complaints

On May 1 I picked up a car rented thru Costco for a total of $279.43 Costco Confirmation # C358625617 Budget confirmation # 04985406US6. On arrival some 5 hours late due to flight delays, I made the mistake of telling your agent Gilbert that I was tired and in a hurry to drive to Las Cruces . Gilbert tried to upgrade me to an SUV for $20 a day which I declined. He did not advise me of your free upgrade offer in effect. Gilbert offered and I accepted the prepaid tank of gas and he then asked about insurance. I told Gilbert I have plenty of personal insurance and have never purchased rental insurance. Well I guess he decided to take advantage of the situation and marked accepted by LDW rather than declined as the other insurances read. I did not notice this when he asked me to initial the block. Not did I notice the statement at the end of the contract. Gilbert folded the contract and placed it into the Budget folder where it remained until I returned. Only upon seeing the printed receipt handed to me at turn in did I notice the excessive charge.

I went inside to the counter and confronted Gilbert. He said you initialed the insurance block and it has been a week since your rental began. I continued to press him and he offered to have his manager call me when he got out of a meeting two hours later. I have yet to receive that call.

I am 77 years old and have been renting cars for business and pleasure for over 55 years. On all of those rentals I never took LDW nor was there any attempt to entrap me as Gilbert did. My final bill was $593.25 over twice my original contract of $279.43.

I have declined this charge on my credit card, intend to report it to the local BBB, notify television stations of his fraudulent action and will never again rent from Budget or Avis. Your competitors have always been reputable in all my transactions across the years.

I would appreciate your taking the high road and refunding me the LDW and attendant fees and taxes. If this is satisfactorily resolved I will not pursue the above actions

Donald B Olson
[protected]

I rented a car from Budget in Chico, CA for a one way rental to the Oakland Airport. I had the car overnight only and drove it only to the airport. I was charged a $275 fee for smoking in the car and leaving the car dirty. I am 69 years old and have not smoked in over 50 years and I returned the car in the same condition I rented it in. The Budget manager who I rented the car from, and we inspected the car together, agrees with me and has written Budget and myself a letter stating that there was no smell of smoke at the time of rental. Budget will not reimburse me the $275 saying I left the car dirty and smelling of smoke.
Not Satisfied

Good morning,
I am writing in regard to a recent car rental, while on vacation in Arizona. I had originally booked a car rental with Budget through Expedia. Due to flight delays, I missed a connecting flight and needed to pick up a car in Phoenix, rather than in Flagstaff, in order to get to my destination. Upon arriving at the Budget rental counter in Phoenix, I explained my situation to the customer service representative, including showing them the paperwork confirming that I had already paid for the rental through Expedia, and just needed to change location for pickup of the vehicle. The customer service representative assured me that this would be an easy issue to address, and went through with processing the change in pickup location. The representative's demeanor was pushy and rude, and he pressured me to sign off on the paperwork without giving me adequate time to read over the agreement.
I expected that I would have to pay some additional charges to accommodate the change that I was requesting, but in reviewing my receipts following this transaction, it does appear that I was double charged for the rental, which I had already paid for in advance. I would like to discuss reimbursement for these charges, and understand that Budget values customer satisfaction, so look forward
to the opportunity to resolve this matter with your customer service department.
The date of this incident was April 14, 2019, with drop off on April 18, 2019 at the Flagstaff location. The rental agreement number on my receipt from the 14th is [protected]. I have attached receipts for this transaction to this email. You can contact me at [protected]@outlook.com or [protected]. Thank you

CONFIRMATION NUMBER: 05754077US0

I called Budget on April 12th, 2019 and reserved a vehicle for pick up at the Orlando International airport. When I arrived in Orlando on April 13th, 2019 I met with the agent at the Budget Rent A Car. We went over the contract, as I have many times in the past so I'm not ignorant to the process of renting a car. He asked if I wanted the "Basic" insurance. I said no. He said then he will give me the "Minimum coverage" then. I told him I don't care what he gives me as long as it does not go over the $236 that I prepaid on April 12th. He asked if I wanted them to fill up the car with gas upon our return for $37.50. I declined, however, he said "You won't find it any cheaper than us". Not true!

The next day, April 14th I received an email that my credit card was charged $283 which included the rental plus insurance. This agent had NO BUSINESS CHARGING MY CREDIT CARD ANYTHING. I declined the insurance AND I prepaid for the car on April 12th. However, he indicated on the Contract that I "Accepted" the insurance which I didn't. This agent had me so upset I couldn't even sleep that night, and writing you what happened is making me angry all over again. I called Budget Customer Service on the 14th, but they were closed. I couldn't call on the 15th because I was trying to enjoy our vacation.

Not only did he try to take advantage of me, but he was rude. He appeared mad when I declined the gas and insurance.

When I returned the car at the airport I told the agent this problem. He was helpful and said the $283 charge will drop off my credit card, which it did. However, because your agent caused me such distress over this DOUBLE charge plus insurance charge, his attitude, and adding the insurance after I declined it, I feel Budget should offer me some compensation for having to deal with your discourteous car rental clerk.

Your agent represents your Company. Maybe you need to do some customer service training!

Teri Barlow
[protected]@yahoo.com

I reserved a car two
Days earlier to pick up by 8 am at the 6790 SW 40 st Miami, Florida. At 8 00 A M I got a call from Frank who told me
He did not have any cars available to give him some time to call the fleet. At 8:30 am I called Frank back who told me
That neither the fleet nor
His supervisor were answering his emails and he would not have a car for me to call corporate and
Change it to pick up at the airport location. I called and talked to Angel who changed the reservation to the airport but told me it would cost me $8.00 more ! On top of
That I could
Not
Leave
My car at the airport so I
Has to use Lyft which cost me an additional $11.00. When I got to the airport there were about 15 people
Waiting for cars and took over 30 minutes to get service. Because of your negligence to not
Have a car available at the location I selected I not only was late to my meeting but I had to spend $30 more with the additional fee and the Lyft rides thee and back home. I had specifically selected the Bird Road location because I could
Leave my car in the parking lot over night. I feel strongly that you need to correct this mistake and reimburse me for the additional expense and somehow make up for all of
The inconvenience that you caused me . My name is Octavio Hernandez and my reservation number is 06019810US6. My phone number is [protected]

Good Afternoon:

I wanted to let Budget know about an issue we had with our rental vehicle. I rented a vehicle and had to continuously fill the back rear tire with air. Eventually, I had to get the tire patched because it was leaking. This was a cost that I incurred, when I don't believe I should have. I rented the car at Sanford airport in Florida From March 08 until 15, 2019 - #49944493CA4. I sent in a message on a Budget survey but I have not heard a response.

The car rental itself was good. The service people at Sanford were polite. There was a long delay in relation to the other rental companies when we picked up our vehicle.

I also brought it to the attention of the staff that the vehicle I rented was due for an oil change.

Sincerely,

Jeff [removed]
[removed]

Hi,

We picked up our car on March 12, 2019 at Budget Los Angeles Airport agency, following a reservation via Booking/Rent a car.

Rental Agreement Number: [protected]
Vehicle Number: [protected]

First, the lady (Mary):
- pushes us to get an upgrade (For an extra $180 for 10 days). We have to insist A LOT to finally simply get what we had booked (Ford Mustang convertible)
- Tries to make us pay for features we say we don't need (Online GPS, extra insurances, ...)

We finally think we are all set with what we have booked.

The day of the drop off at San Francisco Airport agency on March 22, 2019, comes the bad surprise.

The person at the drop off location tells us he needs to charge us $285, 76:
- $85 for being 1 hour late
- $199 for some 'extra insurance' (= NON PKG ITEMS).
We are very surprised as we explicitly said we needed 'NO additional insurance' in LA, that May was pushing us to get.

The lady at San Francisco Airport kindly removed the extra $85 but said she couldn't do anything for the 'extra insurance' as it was something discussed at LA agency.

Then we called the complaint service of LA Airport agency from SF but:
- Either we talked with someone clearly not willing to help us
- Either they transferred us to some unknown phone number.
We just lost 1 hour for nothing.

Of course, we signed some very uncleared documents on some screen agreeing with the location terms. But these documents are honestly so unclear that you can only trust the person you are renting the car to..

We were very surprised/disappointed with that poor service and we really feel like we got scammed.

Reading the reviews on Google, you can easily understand that we are not the first one who got scammed at Los Angeles Airport.

Thank you in advance for your attention.

Kind regards,

Delphine Dulière

CONFIRMATION # 49450856CA0
We missed filling up the tank and could not return to gas station.
Rental return location at Orlando airport is difficult to find as it is confusing so we didnt want to retry as we already made 2 passes before.
Never in our dreams we thought that Budget would charge 10.00 per gallon of gas .
This is absolute robbery and we are not satisfied with this situation.
Budget rent a car humm... A tank of gas was 35.00 Us not 127.00
This added almost 50% to our car rental.

I rented a car online from Budget and the cost was $119. for car rental 3/7/19 to 3/9/19. They charged me for the extra liability which I denied at the counter. When I returned the car I was charged an extra $50 for the liability. I want this removed from my credit card. Perhaps I need to call the credit card and say this was fraud and have it removed.
Carol Reynolds

I have done this several times you people only care about ripping people off they call it bait and switch! Your manager c.J. Holcomb lied to get us out of the office and threw the ball in corporates court and still no one gives a [censored] your company needs to be closed for stealing from customers. I know you need my $200.00 plus dollars to stay in business customer #[protected].

Attention Budget Customers:
On 1/14/19, I rented a white Toyota Prius from the Budget LAX location. I was coming to LA for my son's wedding from Boston. From day one my Budget car had serious mechanical problems. The Toyota would intermediately not start. Also, the low tire indicator on the dashboard was always on, after many, many calls to Budget for road side emergency for hours and put on hold. My complaint is that the Prius should never have been allowed the Prius to leave the rental lot at LAX in that condition. Budget was of no help for days. Finally Budget sent a replacement rental to my sons Hollywood home. I will be returning the replacement rental car to your LAX location today. I will be contacting my CC company when I return to Boston for further action.

On 1/21/19 - call reference # [protected] with al (supervisor)#38046
I've used budget rent a car several times in the last year and the most recent rental was the most disappointing of it all. No exception was considered regardless of professional relationship.
I had used my military discount for a 7day rental and was given an upgrade from a standard to a premium without disclosing details of daily rate change. I did not ask nor did I care for an upgrade, it was given because that's the standard according to al, everyone is offered the promotional upgrade as a courtesy.
What's not offered to the consumers by budget rent a car policy is disclosing the increased daily rate for the upgrade and military discount does not apply.
I was treated and had medical concerns in addition to the excessive amount of rain from 1/14/19-1/16/19 in la, that delayed me from returning the rental on time. Rental was returned on the 16th and I anticipated the additional daily rate that was agreed upon with the military discount. The gentleman that checked the rental when I had returned it, confirmed my rate was $27/day, estimated up to $60 for 2 extra days. My rental was $268, additional charge of 2 days was $330 but the charge on my card was $422. Those details should have been transparent at the time of rental and returned. Not a surprise.
I would like to continue as budget's business customer with a reasonable resolution, apply my military discount to the 2 extra days please for an estimated $100 refund.

Thank you for your time and I look forward to your response.

Addy

Wanted to express and make you aware that we were not happy with the rental process this past weekend with Budget Car Rental. We arrived at the airport after midnight and after a long exhausting day all we wanted was to get the car and go to our hotel room, that did not happen. Upon arrival at the Atlanta Hartsfield Airport we proceed to the rental car area and almost all counters were open, except when we got to the budget counter a sign told us to proceed to the booth outside so we could be attended. Upon going outside into 40 degree weather we noticed a huge line with about 30+ ppl waiting for a rental car. We got to the line almost at 12:30am and was in that line until about 3am. After a few mins in line we tried fastbreak to see if that would speed up the process and a Budget worker told us we still had to make the line. The monitor that was supposed to show the names of those that got fastbreak had the monitor off so no-one could make use of it. I really suggest that Budget gets it together. Don't think it was fair to have us out there freezing while other car rental companies were inside in the airport in a warm environment and moved much quicker, Also many people in the line were leaving to go to other rental agencies and had we not pre-paid we would have done the same. After this experience I really don't have any interest in using your company esp. on that doesn't have 24 hour customer service available for us to call for assistance. Since we were put thru so much trouble we would like a free rental as we don't think we were treated fairly no apologies from your staff or signs of remorse for the wait. If I don't hear back from you guys I will post my experience with Trip Advisor, Google, Facebook and make others aware of our experience with Budget.
Thanks!

Contratto noleggio nr [protected]

Egregi signori,
Scrivo in merito al noleggio in oggetto per il quale ho prepagato al momento della prenotazione in data 26/3/2018 eur 62, 75.
Con la presente contesto, con documentazione a supporto, il vostro addebito sulla mia carta di credito di eur 76, 24 che è stato effettuato da Budget Malta Airport dopo la mia vacanza in data 24/7/2018, senza avermi mandato fattura comprovante. Essa ormai ce l'ho in mano visto che l'ho richiesta tramite la società della carta di credito. Contesto innanzitutto il fatto dell'addebito stesso e poi gli importi sotto elencati nel loro dettaglio:

-31, 55 € "rabbocco carburante" : in allegato scontrini di rifornimento carburante eseguito a distanza di pochi minuti causa difetto macchina. Allego anche foto della spia carburante che documenta come il sistema sia non funzionante. Qui vorrei precisare 2 cose: 1) in tutti gli anni che noleggio auto tramite il vostro servizio, sono sempre stata molto soddisfatta del vostro servizio e della qualità di auto che mettete a disposizione. 2) in questo caso la macchina era vecchia e ridicola, ed uno dei problemi era che nonostante abbia fatto il pieno, l'ultima tacchetta della benzina non si accendeva, e l'operatore non accettava questo problema. Dopo un ulteriore rifornimento non si muoveva la tacchetta e l'operatore continuava ad insultarci nella forte discussione che purtroppo sì era creato con lui alla consegna della macchina. Non accettava il fatto che c'era un problema meccanico della tacchetta. Ora mi ritrovo addirittura dover pagare per la mancanza di aver reso la macchina -secondo Budget -fornita piena. È una cosa che non accetto.
-25 € "prodotti addizionali": perché un pagamento in loco (anche se non era scritto sul contratto) de una maggiorazione per macchine prese dopo le ore 20 (come solo indicato al banco stesso)?
-pagamento di 62, 75 € effettuato online e quindi tracciato non coerente con la somma indicata in fattura di 86, 78 € "prodotto ma"

Tutto ciò evidenzia la mancanza di trasparenza da parte Budget Rent prima durante e dopo il noleggio e ritengo non valide le condizioni applicate perché non specificate nel contratto come impongono le normative Internazionali.

Certo del vostro immediato rimborso e in più del pagamento di un'indennità risarcimento per ogni inconveniente subito vi saluto cordialmente
Jutta Kraemer
Assistita da avvocato S. Coli

Costco Travel # C349356410
Budget Conf # 40054762US6

Aug, 4 - My family and I arrived in Washington DC after a red-eye flight from Los Angeles. We headed to Budget to pick up the car we reserved. At the counter, everything was going smooth up until the Insurance part. We initially declined the insurance offered to us and that is when we got told that "WE CANT RENT YOU A CAR WITHOUT INSURANCE" - We told her, we have our own insurance. she replied "WE STOPPED TAKING PERSONAL INSURANCE FOR COVERAGE" We were stunned. I asked, when did that change? she said "IT'S BEEN LIKE THIS FOR A WHILE NOW. IF YOU WANT, YOU CAN LOOK IT UP ". My Fiance and I were both in disbelief, My Fiance had worked for Enterprise rent a car for a decade and he knew her disclosure was incorrect. But its Budget, not ERAC so we had no choice but to believe what was disclosed. Today, 8/21 - called Budget and was told that IT IS NOT THEIR POLICY TO DECLINE CAR RENTAL USING PERSONAL INSURANCE. The experience made me upset. We got taken advantage because were tourist and the chances of us returning to DC to file a complaint after the fact is slim to none. I ended up keeping the vehicle for another day. What should have been $118.14 ended up being $303.64 - Not happy with the experience. I wanted to share since Costco have a partnership with Budget rent a car.

confirmation #38718343US6
Agreement #179684046c
Car reserved July 27, 2018
car pick up Aug 03, 2018 at 8a.m.
Grand Rapids, GR4
2740 28th street
Grand Rapids, Mi 49512

I arrived at 8a.m. to pick up economy car. Was told no cars available. If I wanted to stay one maybe would arrive around 9a.m. I called the airport and was told a car would be available if I wanted to pay an extra $200 . Was not an option fome. At 847 a.m. one was delivered. I was told I could take that car but that it had not been checked out nor cleaned. I was traveling to Atlanta, Ga. with my grandson and needed to get on road. I agreed to take the car after looking it over for any problems. It was an intermediate suv and representative said I could have it for no extra cost. 50 miles down highway the change oil light went on soon. Another 50 miles and the alarm went off and indicated change oil now. I was now thoroughly scared. I pulled off highway and checked the oil and called your toll free road service. They assured my grandson and myself that it was a sensor and was there only for maintenance. We continued to Ga. with alarm going off frequently telling us oil needed changing. Traffic was bumper to bumper in Atlanta . Every time we came to a halt the alarm would again go off, over and over again. When we arrived I had my son recheck oil. We drove over 1600 miles with threat of car having problems and the alarm going off .

Reserved truck on 4-11-18 for pick up 4-26-18. Confirmed with Budget 3 times and Skyview Service Inc. 370 Middletown Road, Nanuet, NY 10954 (place of pick-up) on 4-24-18. Four confirmations. Received phone call from Skyview on 4-25-18, 2:00 pm, day before pick up that a truck was UNAVAILABLE. How does this happen? No explanation from Skyview, just WE DON'T HAVE A TRUCK FOR YOU!. EXTREMELY RUDE AND UNPROFESSIONAL. Skyview complaint will follow. Immediately contacted Budget. Transferred to Escalation department. Said they will contact me within 2 hours. Shouldn't this be resolved right away? Received callback and said a truck was found but new pick up spot would be Lodi, New Jersey. 25.3 miles away from me. Totally UNACCEPTABLE. Was told they could reimburse me with miles. I don't need their DAMN miles. I needed a truck for my move the next day. I will never rent from Budget ever again and will advise all customers to stay clear away. With all their facilities, they couldn't locate a 16" truck nearby?. I can't remove the one star rating up top. I will give negative ratings if possible.

Budget Car Rental in USA (may be world wide) is a scam that herds clients to their high end partner like Avis and Hertz.

Clients will be skinned and they actually enjoyed skimming them.

My story:

1) the reserved hybrid prius vehicle was not available in Newark ( and it becomes Budget's usual practice of shortchanging clients no matter what car they reserved);
2) I was put in a midsized car without explanation;
3) both JFK and Newark says they run out of car; they habitually use this excuse to short change clients; there are multiple discussions that you force clients to upgrade at great additional cost and shortchange (change into smaller vehicles) for those who booked large cars;
4) I reserved a replacement car at JFK through your customer service phone line, only to find that your customer service is lying, because according to JFK staff (manager), they haven't seen a hybrid car for days. The so called JFK station staff is actually located in Oklahoma, "who have no idea of the actual situation in JFK!) . How is it possible for you to reserve a car when it doesn't exist?
5) it seems that Budget enjoy scamming their clients (not to mention charging their clients for loss damage and others when there were none, or when your staff created the damage, as I see in the internet)
6) I wasted a few hours detouring to JFK, receiving the upset that the promised car exchange to the Hybrid that I have reserved, is a usual scam (see 4 above). The manage is not apologetic about that. He just ask me to see the empty rental lot.
https://www.consumeraffairs.com/travel/budget.html?page=34
https://www.consumeraffairs.com/travel/budget.html

Very upset at Budget

Seems that this is the business model that Avis used to herd clients away from Budget

George Tseng Life-Journey

https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/…/budget-rent-a-car-ripoffs_n…
"They did it on purpose — charging the customer like way too much, " said a former lot attendant,

https://www.consumeraffairs.com/travel/budget.html
https://www.thrillist.com/…/secrets-the-car-rental-companie…
http://abcnews.go.com/…/rental-car-place-doesnt-hold…/story…
https://www.smartertravel.com/…/car-rental-secrets-bet-don…/
Lots of Car Rental Counters — But Only Three Car Rental Companies
While there seems to be a heap of competition along the bank of car rental counters at the airport, in truth most U.S. agencies are owned by one of a few major companies. Here is how it falls out:

- Avis owns Budget, Zipcar and Payless
- Hertz owns Dollar and Thrifty
- Enterprise owns Alamo and National
- Advantage owns E-Z Rent-A-Car

Also:

"They did it on purpose — charging the customer like way too much, " said a former lot attendant, who worked at Budget's Vancouver airport location for a year, checking cars for damage.
He said staff members were told to inspect vehicles from top to bottom, even after customers were gone, and report any damage to managers no matter how minuscule.

"I remember one time there was a senior couple. The other [employee] found out there was a tire cut. But from our standards, they should not charge them, honestly, " he said.

"The other [employee] asked for the manager to come out and take a look. And then the manager charged them, just charged them."

Some repairs not done
"If there was a scratch on the car, we charged their credit card immediately … and that scratch would never even be fixed, " said another former employee.
three or four times a week people were billed for damage they didn't cause.

"If [earlier renters] didn't notice it and we didn't notice it, then we would just charge the next person, " she said.

Upset customers
"I saw customers that cried. They really cried. They were shocked, " said the lot attendant.

He claims some people were made to pay for damage caused by Budget employees after vehicles were checked in.

"Sometimes it's the employees that make the damage, but everyone doesn't want to be responsible for that. The manager will make a decision ‘Hey, call the customer — he's your damage.'"

"There were a lot of [customer] complaints when I was there, " said an ex-manager, who worked at Budget's repair facility at the Vancouver airport several years ago.

He estimated 25 customers a day were overcharged for repairs.

"Every car that came from Budget that needed repair all had inflated costs on them, frivolous charges on them. Every repair that went through the system — the customer got overbilled."

Budget's repair facility is owned by Inland Transportation, a company owned by wealthy Vancouver businessman Syd Belzberg. He also owns Budget Rent a Car of B.C., which runs the car rental outlets in B.C.'s Lower Mainland.
The former manager also claimed customers were billed for windshield replacements, when in reality only a chip was repaired, at nominal cost.

"Different customers would be billed … on a windshield before it got replaced, " he said.

"We repair the chip. The customer gets billed for a new [windshield]. It doesn't get replaced. Another customer takes the car, chips the windshield again. He gets billed for a new one again. And it could have happened on numerous occasions — especially in ski season."

https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/…/budget-rent-a-car-ripoffs_n…

the Budget company forces you to avoid Budget...what a business model to force clients to higher end?...don't they understand that the sister company will also be tarnished and the whole chain will run to the ground?

I reserved a Mini Van from Budget in Jan 2018 for the family spring break vacation (in March). When I showed up early Saturday morning (8 AM) to pickup the Mini Van I was told that they have been out of minivan since Thursday, and that they only have 5 seat car available to rent. They also told me that they knew about this since Thursday, however no one called me to let me know to make alternate plans. Since there were more than 5 of us going on this trip, I had to cancel my plans and lose money on some of my hotel reservations since they had 72 hours cancellation policy.
I have been renting cars for over 30 years and something like this has never happened to me. I highly recommend everyone to stay away from Avis & Budget Car Rental.