BEWARE, RENTERS, FOR THESE BOTTOM-FEEDERS.
I rented Dollar car by bidding on Priceline. Got bid of $100 won. Immediately, Dollar adds $42 of "fees, taxes & costs. Wait!!
Here are the MINOR rips:
Taxes are 7%. Airport taxes are a few more bucks. I look in a little deeper and they are simply renting a car to you for $100 a wk, then dumping their costs directly onto you. How did we get to 42% increase for fees and costs? By them dumping their fees and costs upon me, as if these were some required transaction costs, and they couldn't do anything but charge them--and they are automatically payable by the renter. Disposing of tires? Batteries? Fees so they can be at the airport? I don't think so.
They rented me an old junk-heap. Old 4 door sedan with 34,000 miles on it. Decrepit inside and out, as you can imagine. As we know, a rental car with 34,000 miles on it is like a nasty old man. I guess it was either rent it to me or wholesale it for $500.00. Disappointing. All dented and dinged and nasty.
Here is the MAJOR rip, after I just let the above go.
Two days before the week was up, I called to extend it for a week. They said OK. They then explained there would be a late return fee charged, and also that I would be charged $17.00 extra a day, for that next week. The week would cost $223.00 instead of $142!
I called customer service 3 times. The first time, the CSR spoke only enough english to be polite and to thank me for calling DOLLAR. You have seen this on comedy sketches. The second was a man who said he could only help me if I was “out of the rental”- and he admitted he had no power to change or adjust anything—-BUT, he would immediately transfer me to “Kelsey”, who could.
28 minutes later, waiting on hold, with a recording boringly blathering that they have unusual call volume (I bet) - Kelsey comes on the phone.
Her reason given for charging the double rate was essentially that they could! It was just what they did to people who extended. She said it was in the printed contract somewhere, that I signed, but she wasn’t sure where. She said any remedy I have is with the actual people I rented from, in Tallahassee. . She said I could have returned the car and started a new week (hardly likely for people needing to extend, eh?)- but since I still had the car, I had to pay double.
I told her that Priceline, who I made the reservations, never said a word, and I have never had these kinds of fees added on when I extended.
She finally, without apologizing for the wait, or further adieu, told me that she couldn’t help me either, even though I had waited 28 minutes to talk to her, based on her predecessor saying she could.
In essence, without forewarning, and in contravention of what one expects and what one gets from the Priceline site, and for the sole purpose of taking advantage of people in urgent situations who need their car another week—-if it is a Dollar car and you need to keep it, they are essentially going to double the price. And, do it unaplogetically, as if it were just a routine back-stab.
I know Avis and Budget don’t do that. I will stick with them.
I will ask a LOT more questions this time. And, I will stay away from "Double Dollar Dollar Rentals"
1 comment:
This is how american companies do business now. This is my corporate rip off story, I called Nationwide to drop comp coverage on my car when I paid it off. Nationwide also writes my homeowners insurance. The lovely customer representative explained to me that if I dropped my auto coverage, THEY would cancel my homeowners. I told her that was illegal, and she said, I know.
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