I made an online reservation with Budget Rent-A-Car at Piarco Int'l Airport in Trinidad 2 weeks ago, and when I showed up to pick up the car on May 18, they had no record of my reservation. The reservation still showed up online, and I had the printout in my hand when I presented to the airport. The person in charge at the moment, Shivani, was extremely unhelpful, rude, and even laughed at me because she found the fact that I had no car and was upset about it very amusing.
First of all, renting a car from Budget in Trinidad is terribly expensive. For 2 days and 10 hours, the total was 178.00 USD. For the same car for the same time in the states I would have paid about about 80.00.in the states, say your rental is 60.00. They usually will put a hold on your card for something like 25% above the amount of the rental. Meaning the hold would be 75.00. Not in trinidad. For the 178.00 rental, they put a hold on my debit card for 600.00 USD. Anyway, back to the fact that they didn't have a car for me... A guy just happened to show back up with his car early, so they had one for me. But they said they didn't have time to clean it out. I said fine, I don't care, my family is coming down here to visit me on vacation while I am down here teaching a course. I was just glad to have a car. I did a thorough walkaround with the lady and I took the car. This car was so scraped up that the scrape-up sheet was absolutely covered in circles and notes. One of the hubcaps even had wires holding it to the rim.
I left the airport, and I noticed the transmission was slipping when I would put the car in drive. The air conditioning didn't work right, either... And it gets pretty hot in Trinidad. The radio was non-functioning. I picked my family up, and the next morning, we went on a previously planned family outing, and the car broke down. My husband has a mechanic background and he said it was acting like the fuel pump was going out. Budget sent a guy out with another car, but he didn't even give me the opportunity to do a walkaround. When I walked to the parking lot of where we were, he had the car running, said, "Look, 3/4 tank of gas" and he left. It was a brand new car, and I did notice that I didn't see anything wrong on the back and side, so I thought, okay, cool. Bye.
I drove the new car straight home and parked it for the next 5 hours, then it was time to return the car. I took it in, and when the lady inspected it, she noticed that there was a scrape underneath the left front bumper that wasn't noted in their records before. I did not have any incident in the car that would have caused this, and I have witnesses that can attest to this fact. She also had the inspection paper that they had from this car WITHOUT my signature on it, proof that I wasn't given a walkaround. Feeling like they were going to try to stick me with this, I panicked. No way. Anyway, she told me off the record that since that paper did not have my signature on it, that they couldn't do anything. She also made me copies of the paper i signed when i received the car (including the unsigned inspection sheet) after I demanded it. The best I can figure is that the driver must have run over a curb or something and didn't report it, and I assumed they were going to try to stick me with it. I paid the amount for the rental, and she told me that they were legally obligated to return the hold that was on my debit card, and that they couldn't keep it by law... But this still has me very nervous.
So they owe me 560.00 that they are holding on my debit card. I will never, ever rent from Budget outside the US EVER AGAIN.in fact, if this doesn't work out, I will never rent from Budget INSIDE THE US again, either. Particularly, the Budget in Trinidad is not actually a Budget, they are some lousy local company doing business as Budget. And they definitely do not come anywhere close to the usual Budget standards.
0 comments