Budget reviews and complaints

I have 3 refunds that I am waiting on. To make a long story short I reserved 3 within a 24 hr time frame all to be cancelled and have not receive any of them yet. I waited the 3 to 5 day that they said, nothing. I had to wait an additional 7 to 10 business days, after that I called on July 2nd. The agent assured me that I would receive my money back into the accounts in 24 hours, it is now July the 6th and still nothing. I am on the phone now on hold after that agent told me that they are in process and he doesn't understand why the agent before told me that it would be 24hrs. I am beyond done and over this with still no for sure answer as to when I will have my money. If I go another day without it I am contacting the News channel to look into this.
July 12th- cancellation #27884755US1= $406.70
July 13th- cancellation #27912318US0= $406.70
July 13th- cancellation #27933698US2= $273.02

I rented a Toyota Highlander while visiting family in North Carolina in Mid-March. First the branch did not have the vehicle I had originally reserved on line so I ageed to upgrade. I had done some research on line and was impressed with the Highlander's performance reviewed, but the vehicle assisgned to me was nothing close. When I would decelerate in traffic to stay with the flow, the car would decelerate to the point where it seemed like the vehicle was braking to an abrpuprt stop. When I would be in traffice increasing my speed to get into the flow of traffic, the car would continue to accelerate even when I had taken my foot off of the I was not using cruise control on either occasion. As this had been become a life safety issue, I decided to return the car a day ealy,
Today, when I called the office to discuss the situatuion, I had an animated review of the topic with the Guess Road office who continue to tell me that I was due no compensaton was due because I pre-paid my reservation. WHen I requested he escalate the call, he reitererated only that no refurnd was due and there was nothing else he could do.
As a customer service professional myself, I find this level of unprofessionalism completely unaccpteble. If that individual was one of my employess, I would have termiated him today. Instead, I expect the be re-imbursed for the day that I did not use the vehicle in addition to that day's liability waiver insurance. You have my credit card information and I will be looking to hear from you soon,

Thanks you in advance for your assistance

If there are any questions, let me know.

I had the same thing! Trusted the rep even though I declined and even put my insurance card on the counter! Regional manager was rude and said you should've read before you signed the document. Did anyone get their money back? What'd you do? There trying to charge me an extra 700! I can't afford that. It's a scam and so unjust. They're supporting people who are being deceitful. Will never return to Budget Rental Cars.

I've booked the car online with a children toddler. I've paid and when I arrived to the Sao Paulo, Brazil Airport, the agency didn't have any toddler available.
So as I was with my children I couldn't get the car available.

in the local agency, no one wanted to write down what happened and I left and went to another agency to get my car and children toddler seat.

After complaining the Car Trawller support said that they HAVE the seat for me, but I can't attest right now.. SHAME ON YOU BUDGET.. I will never ever rent cars on your agencies

I've booked the car online at VAYAMA.com
Regular car with a children toddler.

I've paid and when I arrived to the Sao Paulo, Brazil Airport, the agency didn't have any toddler available.
So as I was with my children I couldn't get the car available.

in the local agency, no one wanted to write down what happened and I left and went to another agency to get my car and children toddler seat.

After complaining the Car Trawller support said that they HAVE the seat for me, but I can't attest right now.. SHAME ON YOU BUDGET.. I will never ever rent cars on your agencies

Today at 6 pm Central time I rented a car at Budget in the Kansas City Airport and it was the worst experience ever in my 45 years. It was such a bad experience I went to my car and broke down and cried. I flew in from Oklahoma and walked up to the counter and 3 out of the 5 counter employees were extremely rude. They had an unpleasant customer before me and took their frustration out on me. What is truly sad about this situation is there was a new employee being trained while she watched her managers and co-workers treat me less than a human. On the other hand an employee that was working at the counter felt so bad for me that she smiled at me and apologized for her co-workers. When I asked one of the mean bullies why they were treating me so badly she said the customer before me stressed them. I always rent with Enterprise and decided to go with Budget because they had an economy car for a few dollars cheaper and boy do I regret it. Saving a few dollars made me cry and leave their counter upset. I was so upset that I sat in the rental car and cried for a few minutes, prayed, and left. I am ok because I never lost my cool and talked to them the way they talked to me.

To: Mr. Thomas M. Gartland- COO Budget Rental 6 Sylvan Way, Parsippany, NJ 07054 Mr. Gartland, I reserved a rental truck from Budget and even received a reminder email on 11/26/2015 verifying and reminding me of my reservation #######. When we went to pick up the reserved truck located at (Budget of Federal Way) 34225 Pacific Hwy S, Federal Way at 8:00 AM, the dealer was not open and was about 25 minutes late in doing so. Is this how you want Budget to be represented? When they arrived at approximately 8:25 AM, we were told they did not have any trucks and could not help us. I was at the very least upset but it gets worse. I contacted your Corporate Customer Service at [protected] and I was literally told the same thing but they added, “Someone from Budget should have contacted you about not having a truck available”. These comments were made by a fleet manager; I believe his name was Robert. I did not get any phone call only the confirmation and reminder email. I was also reminded by Robert to look at my rental contract. Only a hint that Budget does not guarantee anything and it appears your contract is only downside for your customer. I trusted that I would get the service I expected. You should be ashamed! I am a mid-level manager for a large corporation and if anyone that worked for me provided the same answers to our customers, I would at a minimum given them some sort of corrective action if not fired them. While looking up the Budget Corporate office address, I noticed social media posts about Budget which I included in this envelop. Have you ever read these? You should be ashamed of the postings about Budget’s poor service. I also realize that often time people do not share good experiences, only bad. I do share both bad and good. I have already signed up for a Twitter account so I can share my Budget experience with the world. I contacted Penske and they were very professional and found a truck for me. I do not expect anything from Budget. You should be thankful that there are some people that share experiences with you so you can make things better, based on the social media postings that does appear it will happened. I will also contact my company’s corporate Travel Manager about my Budget experience. I want to make sure others at our company do not, nor have the same experience while traveling as I did with a truck rental. I feel sorry for you sir, I am blessed to work for a company that cares for its customers. I do hope your admin gives this letter to you; my admin gives me the bad news too. I am still flabbergasted!

I am writing to tell you about my bad experience with Budget car rental. (Rental agreement number: [protected], 08-11Nov Nantes airport) On the second day of rental, I found that my GPS charging is not working (and it is not working from day 1, but we don't know it's not charging until the GPS run out of its battery). We luckily found a car sales shop with garage along our trip. They fixed the charging dock in the car. However, the mechanics there found that our car is running out of engine oil. The car will probably be broken down if we continue. They help us to call Budget assistance, and the choices Budget offer me are: 1. I pay the oil by MYSELF, and the Budget staff are NOT sure if I can claim it back 2. I wait there for 1-2 hours, while the Budget staff will try her best to find a car for us (but she CANNOT guarantee.) We (the boss of the car sales shop and I) cannot imagine that it's Budget giving me a car with NO ENGINE OIL and broken charging dock, I have to suffer myself. Eventually, the boss is so kind that he pay for us first, and he will claim it back from budget himself. In this case, we are just pissed off. 1. The boss and mechanics of car sales shop. They suppose to have their own job and duty, and they have to spend more time and have to pay for me. 2. Me and my wife. We are tight for our trip, and because we spent 1-2 hours waiting for Budget to response, and fix our car, we have no choice but just missed some sight-seeing points. It's all because we have a car from Budget, a car with NO engine oil and broken charging dock. I hope you can review this case, and make sure no customers will have a car like this in the future. I also see no reason why I have to pay full for this car rental. Please have a review on this case, and I am hoping to get some refund from Budget.

I was rented a defective car that caused a hazardous experience and was not compensated or reimbursed for the repairs made to get us back to the airport. We had reserved a car with Budget thru CheapOair for Sept 1 at Chicago OHare airport at 10000 Bessie Coleman Drive. We picked up the car and inspected it for any scratches or damages and did not see any. Later after driving for awhile, we made a stop and noticed that the front left tire on the car was a spare tire. Because we was driving the car from Chicago to Iowa, we wanted to make sure we did not have any problems so we checked the trunk for the original tire to install back on but noticed it was already cracked. So we proceeded to drive slowly and stay with the spare. On the day we returned the car on Sept 3, driving slowly back from Iowa, we noticed a funny noise and slowed down to pull aside. As soon as we pulled aside and was approaching the exit, the tire blew. We called the roadside assistant for help and they told us to swap out the car at the nearest Budget (2 Airport Circle, Rockford) which was an hour away. When we told them that we could not drive that far with the flat, they recommended for us to go to the nearest tire store to change out the tire and present the receipt to Budget for reimbursement. It took us almost an hour to crawl to the nearest tire shop (Moore Tires, INC)with the flat that we had. The repair man took off the flat and proceeded to replace with another tire and noticed the rod to hold the tire was bent which causes any tire to blow after time. Because the tire rod was bent, it also affected the right tire and he said that the right tire was not going to make it for another mile before it blew, so he ended up changing both tires and warned us that because of the bent rod, the tires will not last too long. We just wanted new tires on to get us back to the airport so we took pictures of the problems to show Budget. The bill for the tire change was $213.04 with an extra $20 tips. When we returned the car to Budget at Bessie Coleman Drive, the line was long and everyone we went to told us we had to wait on line. When it was finally our turn, they called for a manager to speak with us. Ernesto was the manager we spoke with that said to us it was not their responsibility because we were supposed to have checked the car before it left the lot. Now how was one to know if a tire rod is bent? He made a copy of our tire receipt and told us that they will be mailing us a check. Because we were in a rush to catch our flight, we took that as our answer. It is now over 4 weeks since the incident and we still have not received a check or an email notice. I have made several phone calls to try to follow up on a number that Ernesto provided for us [protected]). Everytime it led us to a answer machine where we leave a message and was never returned back a call. On 10/2, I tried calling a main number ([protected]) where I was left on hold for long periods then transferred and finally got hung up on. I spent 3 hours trying to get some answers and finally spoke to a rep called Joanne and she told me according to the records, there were no reimbursement issued for us and they do not pay reimbursement! The rental agreement number is [protected] under the name of Vincent Li. Total paid for the rental is $256.35

We reserved a midsize car for 4 days at $15/day. When we went to pick it up the desk clerk said that we could upgrade to a Lincoln for $20/day. We hesitated because we really didn't need a bigger car. He said, "Come on, for only $5 more you can get a really nice car." My partner agreed. The rental agreement says, "agreed upon upgrade at $20/day." Which to me says the car is $20/day. We initialed IT.After we got the car I looked at the total to find that it was $20/day in ADDITION TO the $15/day on our reservation for a total of $35/day. I guess you need to expect the clerk to lie and the paperwork to be ambiguous. I tried explaining to Budget that they had misled us but they would not budge. we rent cars I on a regular basis and will NEVER go to Budget again.

Hello, On 6 September, I tried 3 times to booking a car in BUDGET website, however, my card was denied and the car rental process has not been completed, I did not get a booking number. At the same time I observed three debits equal value on my card at Budget.com name of US $ 94.92, amounting to US $ 284.76. I called 3 times in customer service and you did not get my money back. Urgently I need you to give back my money, I'm traveling in the US without balance on my card because BUDGET held these amounts improperly and I could not rent my car.
The name of the attempted reservation is as VINICIUS RIBEIRO.

Budget is a complete fraud, worst experience of my life renting cars. It was already pre paid with my AA Miles, they said it was obligatory to pay for the insurance fees and there are several hidden fees. If I use the page to buy the car rental the price for a week with Fees and taxes is only $188.00 and total Price with the insurance coverages is $516.47, I paid in cash $487.33, only $29.14 were paid with AA miles, It's incredible. One of the problems is they billed 7 days, when I had 6 days agreement, I accept I returned the vehicle only 30 minutes after the limit, but the person who received told me there were no additional charges.

Good morning, I would like to request a refund.
My point is very simple. I rent a ford ecoline wagon with you on april 23th at 16:26 and return it on on april 24th at 19:01. I was charge for two full days of rental including insurance. Which you shall agree it's not fair. I have no problem in pay the partial extra two hours and 35 minutes, but I do not agree to pay the full amount for a day. At the time I went to your office to talk bout this and nobody could help me, they only say the system is automatic and they can't do anything. So i'm writing you I order to please refund the extra money I paid for a service which was not used.
Rental agreement number: [protected]
Waiting on your comments.
Marcelo reis

An online price booking was quoted in bold print as £22 for a days car hire. Seemed competitive. However closer inspection of small print revealed a 'city centre location surcharge' of £23.50 (Belfast city airport is some way from the city centre). After threatening to charge £850 from my credit card in the event of a scratch upon return, I was foolishly persuaded to part finally with over £60 for a bottom of the range vehicle which did not even have a full tank. When I queried the half empty tank, I was told they 'sometimes don't have time to refill vehicles' and that I would have to guess how much fuel to return it with (or I would no doubt be further extorted). I was barely out of the airport when one bar on the fuel gauge vanished, and had to return in order for this to be verified. When I returned the vehicle in the evening there was no-one at the drop off, and no-one at the airport desk to sign it off - which obviously I wanted to do to avoid further spurious charges. I had a nice day in Belfast and co Down, but this was considerably marred by Budget's calculatingly deceptive pricing system and poor customer service attitude on the ground. Be warned.

For a real treat rent a car from Budget and then wait to see waht they add to your credit card bill. After a 2 week rental we were dinged for a $1 toll charge plus a $20 "convenience" charge for supposedly using the eToll device that is mounted in the car. We never activated the device. Apparently there is no way to turn off the device so you have to hope it does not activate as you get near a toll plaza. When we called Budget they simply said it was not their device and said we needed to speak with eToll, the vendor that supplies this lovely service. eToll is about the rudest bunch of thieves you can imagine. My adice: Next time you get in a Budget car make sure you yank out the eToll device unless you want to get robbed.

When your car rental goes budget-bad!
Her email started with huge bold red capital letters saying - do not reply to this email. Anel walker, was the 6th customer care representative from budget to contact me following a complaint I made back in december 2008. Her communication was informing me that she had ruled against my request, judging it impertinent following a series of lies claimed by the budget rental office in mar del plata, argentina. At the end of her email, just to make sure I had heard her loud and clear, the same sentence in huge bold red capital letters - do not reply to this email. It is one thing to be caught at the wrong place, at the wrong time, but it is another to suffer from the lack of service and professionalism from international brands which want you to believe that you are important for them.

In a world of mobility, the modern traveler often seeks reliability in his choice of brands he deals with. Those companies, those brands become more than simple product. The minute a company decides to establish itself on an international level, her product mutates to a service of reliability, not matter what it is. As a customer, you seek and buy expectations. And you are willing to pay a premium for that. As you travel and often find yourself in uncharted territories, with people that don’t necessarily speak your language, the sign of a brand you know is greatly welcomed.

Back in december, I needed to rent a car to go pick up my kayak at the buenos aires airport - a 800 km round trip. After checking the yellow pages, I decided to go with budget - a company I had dealt with before and was so far satisfied. I went online and looked at rates and options they had. After settling on what I wanted, I went to the rental office and proceeded with my rental. To my surprise, the rate I was given was not the same advertised on the website.in fact the rental contract showed no rate, just a total, no explanation. It was, I must admit, pretty much the same I had calculated, so I went ahead and took the car.

We left the next morning for the airport, leaving at 5h30 am. Unfortunately, a huge miscommunication between the custom and me had me show up at a closed office. Biting my nails real hard, and swallowing this more than frustrating situation, I drove back empty hand, with no kayak. I returned the car, with no problem, telling them I would need to rent it again, for the same exact trip, sometime the following week.

The next week, after clearing any grey spot with the carrier, I went back to the rental office and got another car. By 5h30 am, we were on the road, heading for another long day of driving. Shortly after driving off, I decided to pull my window down and discovered that it was malfunctioning. A bit too far for turning back, the matter was not that trivial so I stayed on course and forgot about driving with the window down. About an hour before the airport, the car started to act bizarre. The contact in the engine seemed to break and the power was greatly diminished. It was also getting worse. Pressing the gas, the car would slowly accelerate, showing signs of missing power. I was now not sure that the car would last the entire trip, so when we arrived at the airport, we called budget and told them that the car was broken and we needed a new one. Being at the airport, and in buenos aires (Not a third world city!) I figured that the company would bring another car, or would have a car onsite. I assumed that the matter would be taken care in less than 30 minutes.

Our first call was to the rental office. Their answer - not their problem! Call the customer service number. We called the customer service number. Their answer - can’t do anything, you have to drive back the car back to buenos aires downtown - a 2-hour round trip. Called the rental office in downtown buenos aires, not much they could do either. I was left with no choice but to drive the broken car into buenos aires - the last thing I wanted to do. The city is known for its traffic, tolls, complicated streets which more than often ends up in the tourist getting lost. Great! I was seriously not happy but had no choice and headed to the city.

In buenos aires, I missed the exit and had to do an extra 30 km to get back on the right street. The way for the rental office was not that obvious either. After going around the same corner twice, I finally managed to find it. I gave them a car that I had refilled in gas briefly before discovering the problem and took a new car. Once the exchange done, I sped my way back to the airport. Bare in mind that the original trip is roughly over 8 hours of driving. The whole ordeal was now adding another 3 hours. Time I simply didn’t have since I spent just under 2 hours at the custom, paying the fees, signing never ending forms, just to get my kayak. Don’t forget about the $40 in tolls and also gas for 2 hours driving at 70 mph.

By the time I had the kayak and was ready to drive back to mar del plata, the clock showed closed to 5pm. I called the rental office in mar del plata to tell them that I was not going to be able to make it on time. They said I had until 8h30pm no more. Honestly, I was not happy at all. This situation with the car had totally messed up my plans and the office was showing no understanding whatsoever. I had 3 ½ hours to cover over 450 km with a kayak strapped on the roof. Which I did by driving at 130 km/h!

I arrived at the office shortly before 8h30pm. Not happy at all, I told the clerk we needed to work something out because of the problems encountered and the extra expenses (Tolls and gas). The man told me there was nothing he could do and I had to come back the next day at 4pm to meet the manager. Unpleased yet tired and wanting to relax, I told him I would be back the next day to speak to the manager.

I showed up at 4pm expecting to settle the matter. The clerk, the same as the day before, told me that he had spoken to the manager and there was nothing they could do and I would have to pay the full fare, not caring at all about the extra expenses. I obviously disagreed and told him that he had told me to come back at this precise time to speak to the manager and now, the manager was not here, and the clerk could not do anything. I made myself clear, I would not leave until I speak with him. Seeing me obstinate, he walked in the back and came back, his head tilted forward, announcing that the manager would see me. I was furious! The manager simply didn’t want to deal with the situation. The manager finally decided to walk to the front after another 15 minutes.

We sat at his desk and proceeded to explain the problem. His attitude and reaction were beyond what I expected - sorry there is nothing we can do, you will have to pay the full fare! And my answer was simply - no! On top of his insult, he added that I had driven a lot more mileage than I was supposed to. I told him it was surely because I had to drive to buenos aires, and got lost. I also told him that it was for sure unlikely, since this was exactly the same trip I had done the week before, with a correct amount of mileage. After going back and forth for quite a while, he finally said that he would give me 15% discount and I would not have to pay for the extra miles. Basically the 15% was only covering the extra expenses for the trip to buenos aires. It was not taking in consideration all the complications resulting of the broken car. My offer was to pay half the fare, and I would absorb the extra expenses. His answer was no.

I informed him that his proposition was insulting. He told me to call the office in buenos aires because there was nothing else he wanted to do! I left the office that day in disbelief. I told the manager that I would not pay until the matter was cleared.

Some days later, I noticed in my bank account that the rental office had charged my account with the deposit slip I had done for renting the car, and refunded the balance from the rental cost.in other words, the rental office paid itself with the full fare from the my deposit slip, not wanting to deal with the situation. The account showed a debit of $900 with a refund of $600. This had gone too far. I contacted budget, email them, and filed a complaint. After 5 months, the matter was still unresolved. I would get an email telling me that someone was on the case and that he or she would get back to me within 2 weeks with an answer. The 2 weeks would go by, then 3 weeks, and with no news I would email them wondering what was happening. I would get the same answer, that someone was on the case, and would contact me soon. The nonsense went on and on and on. On may 4th, I received the last email from ms. Anel, telling me “I apologize for the delay but we have advised you twice that the customer service department in argentina advised us that you were not charged for the second rental. We have now closed our customer service file. If you have any further question, please contact the customer service department in argentina at 011-5411-[protected]/4555.” I have since, send them copies of my bank statement showing them the transaction, but budget still denies anything and refuses to act.

Extreme Bad Experience.
We reserved a medium size car in November, 2008.
The 1st car we got has engine oil problem.
The 2nd car was incredible crappy.
After a period of waiting,
the 3rd one we got Chevrolet Cobalt, which should be a compact car.
... after 4 hours, they still gave us the Chevrolet Cobalt,
and said it belongs to mid size in Las Vegas area.
Furthermore, a staff ( woman ) had very bad attitude.
We gave up struggling due to hungry and thirsty finally.

Our horror show started in calgary. Ford edge had tire low light go on. Budget cant even check tires. Replace with buick rendezvous. 3 hour delay when leaving calgary. Transfer all luggage and boxes. Two days later, wipers go out in manitoba. Check fuses in dauphin on sunday. Drive to yorkton in rain, to gm dealer in yorkton monday morning. Wiper motor shot--2 days to get from Edmonton. Get budget addresses in saskatoon off internet, and drive there in rain. Almost halfway there--big warning light comes on--oilcan with wrench. Stop car on shoulder and call gm on cellphone. Will send towtruck from wadena. Insists that if it costs more than $100 i will be responsible. Tell him i think otherwise. Tow truck arrives. Oil level ok. Don't want to spend days in wadena sask. Tow driver follows as i drive west. Oil light goes out. Comes on twice more on way to saskatoon. Get to address for budget. No longer a budget. Locate one. Patronizing girl says they are all separate franchises and i will have to deal with calgary. Ready to blow stack. Girl thinks, and then says i am "really lucky", in that they have a calgary car that needs to go back to alberta. Transfer luggage again, and proceed to calgary, with third car. Big oil warning light apparently means oil needs to be changed (which gm rep obviously didn't know). Calgary offered a 10% discount for the hassle.
Will avoid budget henceforth. And general motors.