Budget — Local services in Salt Lake City

So after all I went through for this one I wonder how you stay in business. I placed an order over the phone for a truck about two weeks ahead of time. I confined with the agent over the phone my name and phone number repeating my self several times till I was sure that he said it back to me right.(US accent)

Then the day comes to pick it up the 26' truck. I call in again to ask what location I ordered it from again. They can't find my order under either of the only two phone numbers that I would have put it under. I asked if there was another way to look it up (thick accent most likely over sees). The agent said no! then I hang up and call right back. Someone else answered this time I gave them my phone number and they couldn't find any thing. I asked if there was another way they could look it up(US Accent this time and doing what they could to be helpful). She say yes what is your email address. I gave her the only two that I would have used still nothing. Then she tried to look it up by my first and last name. Nothing still! Lastly I thought and asked can you look it up by my card number I use to reserve it "yes" was her answer. I thought surely this would work. NOPE still nothing.

At this point I am like forget it I will just try to get another one. So I ask to book another one she says sure and books me another 26' truck. an hour away. it this point I have people showing up to help me move, and I have spent more than 45 minutes on the phone. So I ask if I could have the number for the store to see if I could pick it up right now. she gives me the number and I call.....

...then guess what happens, They answer and say that they don't have a truck there for me that size that they just rented it out earlier that morning. I was like are you kidding me!!!! So I ask if another store has a truck that I can rent in the size I need it. he then proceeds to tell me that he can't see that information. I ask if I could have the other stores numbers because of course they aren't listed anywhere online. he says that he doesn't have there numbers, and that I will have to call the 1800 number again.

At this point I would be Irate but I work for a living taking phone calls so I didn't take it out on him because he is just trying to run his store and this wasn't his fault. It was the idiotic person that took my reservation in the first place.

So I call the 1-800 number again. Let them have a peace of my mind and asked why they reserved a truck that the store didn't have. There answer was that the renters don;t always bring back the trucks when they say they will. I ask her to get me to a supervisor or someone to get me a truck that I was promised even if I have to go to a different store. she said that "inventory mangers" can see more details about inventory at the stores. I was like great transfer me to one of them. The answer!!! I can't I have to put in a request and they will call you with in two hours. I am like REALLY! so just before I get off the phone with her I get a call and I didn't recognize the number I really did try to answer it but it went to my voice mail before I could get her to under stand I was going to put her on phone for just a minute.

I then hang up and was going to wait for the "IM" (inventory management/managers) to call but guess what the phone call that came in while I was still on the phone with her that I missed was IM. They left a message and THANKFULLY a number and extension! So I call them right back. Of course no answer the automated system after there was no answer asked if I would like to leave a message you go to the next available person. So I chose the latter. Still no answer and the same options as before so I chose to leave a message.

She calls back to her credit a few minutes later and I answer. She lets me know that she was able to find the original order and the one I had just made. Get this the agent that I first spoke to and took my original order literally spelled everything wrong!!!

See picture for full review couldn't type...

I rented a vehicle from this location on a Wedensday. I rented it for four days (return Saturday). Because the location doesn't have a key drop box and closes early on Saturdays, I was going to have to bring the car back Friday night by 6PM even though I had paid through Saturday. This is my first issue... not being more accommodating with returns.

I then realized I wasn't going to be able to bring the car back before the location closed on Friday either. I called the location and was told that I could either keep it until Monday and pay for 6 days, or keep it until Tuesday and pay for a full week, with the full weekly rate being less expensive. I agreed to do this. However, when I later checked my contract, the Weekly reate was 10 TIMES the daily rate for some reason. This is not what I was told by the location, and by the time I realized this, I was in a bind because I had already made plans to keep the car for additional days based on this misinformation. Second complaint: misinformation.

I then tried calling the local location again at about 2PM Mountain time. The calls were just forwarded to the companies administrative offices which were closed, and thus I received a recording. Selection of any of the options provided by the recording simply resulting in the system asking for an extension and then disconnecting the cal. Third complaint: ridiculously lousy customer service and an inability to reach local locations if they decide they don't feel like answering their phone.

I then called the reservation number. The only way I could get ahold of a live person was by pretending I wanted to make a new reservation. The first person told me that she couldn't put me in touch with a local office, so I asked to speak to a supervisor. I was transferred to someone who actually wasn't a supervisor, and this individual transferred me again. The third person was not a supervisor, and finally on the third try, I was successfully transferred to someone who claimed to be in a supervisory role. Fourth complaint: reservations agents unable to offer any kind of assistance.

When I finally spoke to the supervisor, she asked me for two pieces of information: a number off of my keys, and a rental agreement number. I gave her both of these pieces of information, and she still couldn't find my reservation. She finally looked me up using my phone number, but she said that she cuoldn't view my contract because the location didn't attach the contract to my reservation.

I don't know who is more to blame, the locatl location or Budget. The local location provided misinformation that's going to cost me about $250, and I can't get them to answer their phones to discuss. Corporate Budget, on the other hand, is clearly just ans unconcerned with customer service because after spending hours trying to reach someone to assist, I was ultimately told by a SUPERVISOR that she couldn't do anything because the local location didn't process the paperwork properly. She told me to call the local location (clearly she wasn't listening when I told her repeatedly that they weren't answering their phones), so then I was back where I started.

I will definitely not rent from Budget again, and if I ever had to for some reason, I would choose a different location. I would encourage others to steer clear of this...

The bottom line: The van I had reserved, which I could see sitting in the parking lot, was SOLD.

The full story: I reserved a van for the SLC airport on Expedia. At some point during the process, the system indicated that this was an off site location. Assuming that the airport was set up like others (say DFW or SAC) where you have to take a shuttle to get to the rental car center, I was not overly concerned. When I got to SLC with my family of 6 in tow, I could not find any shuttles and called Budget and they said I should just go to the counter (as it turns out, there is a rental car center on the airport grounds). Great! After waiting 30 minutes at the airport counter I was told that my reservation was at the downtown location. There was no transportation to get there.

OK, at this point, this is probably my fault. I should have paid closer attention. But this is where it gets fun. I asked the representative whether there was a van at the airport I could rent and was told that there wasn’t and that I would have to go downtown. I left my family at the curb and grabbed a taxi (for $25). Arriving at the downtown location there was again a long line and a very slow and methodical process for checking out. Finally, after my turn arrived things were looking up. I could see my van in the parking lot and we were breezing through the questions. The man at the counter had the keys in his hand. Then he made a phone call and said to someone on the other end of the line, “I have a van here that is ‘status 17’, can you send over another one?” I asked him, “what kind of nightmare does ‘status 17’ mean?” He told me it meant my RESERVED van had been sold. I was incredulous. He then explained that he would have one sent over from the airport. I said I was just there and they wouldn’t give me one. He said, that the representative over there should have offered me one.

The rest of the story is not relevant. We ended up cancelling our reservation and getting one from somewhere else. After a 3 hour flight from Indianapolis, I had already spent 2 hours trying to make the last 10 miles. Apparently, my experience was not unique. There was another person there who had been waiting for 3 hours. She had completed her reservation, even had the keys in her hand and then the manager rented her vehicle to someone else. There is something horribly, horribly wrong with the culture at this place. I appreciate that customer-facing representatives in the travel industry can bear the brunt of a lot of frustration. But a company that takes a reservation and then sells the reserved vehicle has something seriously wrong with its...