On July 11 I made an online reservation to rent a car from Budget Rent A Car. My reservation was for 6 o'clock. I got to Budget at 6 o'clock and my car was not available. The girl working at the front counter told me they did not have my reservation on file yet and sometimes it takes 30 minutes to an hour after the scheduled reservation time for reservation to come through their system. I then waited 30 minutes after my 6 o'clock reservation before I asked if they could check to see if my reservation had come into their system yet. It still had not.
At this point I asked if I could cancel my reservation and just rent a car without one. The woman told me they were currently out of cars and were only offering SUV's so unless I wanted to pay for an SUV it would be best to wait for my reservation to come through. To make a long story short my reservation was made for 6 and I was not in a car until 8. That was 2 hours after my car was supposed to be ready. Come to find out the reason why it took 2 hours to get this rental car was not because my reservation had not come into their system but they did not want me to have an SUV for the car price. So they were waiting for someone to return a car before they would rent me a vehicle.instead of telling me this they lied to me.
So I finally get in my rental and on my way. Once I got my rental car to my hotel I noticed that the headlights were not working. I did not think much about it at the time I just assumed that the headlights were not turning on because it was still day light. The next day I drove to Texas during the day light and once I got there I just parked the car at my hotel and did not drive it at night. The next night though I did need to drive my car at night and the headlights still did not come on. The parking lights and the bright lights worked but the dim lights did not. I called the emergency roadside assistance number because the Monroe Louisiana office where I rented the car was closed. I was then informed that corporate could not help me out or send me a new car because the Budget in Monroe Louisiana was not a car of the corporation which left me stranded in downtown Austin Texas without a ride. So I was forced to take a taxi to my hotel.
The next day was my day to return home and have the car returned. When I got to the Budget in Monroe I let them know the headlights did not work and I was stranded in Texas and corporate told me it should not be a problem for them to refund me one days off my bill because they were not able to send me a working car out. I was then told that they were not going to refund me any money because I did not call them to inform them the head lights were not working. To which I responded with you were closed when I needed a new car and I was bringing the car back today so what was the point in calling?
They told me that it was not their fault the headlights did not work in the car they check all the cars before they rent them out. I know they did not check the car before they rented it to me because it had just come in. Four other people then came to the counter to put in their opinion on why I should not get one day refunded back to me. This one man who worked there asked me if the air went out in a home I rented would I expect money off my rent just because it went out. To which I responded YES too. Needless to say all I got refunded from my $335 bill was $10.99. So I filled a corporate complaint and when I was filling the corporate complaint they also assured me they did not understand what the problem was with refunding me one day off my bill which was all I was asking for. I am waiting now to hear from someone that working in higher management in the Budget Corporation.
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