Alamo Rent A Car — Local services in San Diego

We rented a car from alamo in November. They wanted us to use the kiosk, so my wife tried while I stayed in line. The kiosk didn't work, not for us, not the people before us, or after us who tried it. We chose the white Volkswagen out of the several cars they offered us. We didn't notice at that time that it had damage on the driver's side. I drove to my brother's house in Carlsbad, to my mother's rehab center the next day, and back to my brother's in Carlsbad. Each of the two places had protected parking. I noticed the minor damage the day we went to see my mother. I showed the damage to the alamo staff once they looked over the car upon our return and hadn't noticed the damage themselves. They are now trying to put the damage on me. We are now in damage dispute with Alamo. I am posting this to help other drivers be aware when you are renting any rental car, especially when picking it up at night. The parking garage lights helped to hide the damage from both us when we picked it up, and when the staff received it back from whichever previous rental the damage happened with. I didn't notice the damage until the next day when we were in daylight. I will post the picture. With overhead lights in a parking garage, it is much harder to see the damage with multiple lights reflecting off the car. Renters beware! 1.3.25- i am updating my review: I have complained about my damage case to Alamo. They are investing the case. I am now adding two more pics to my post. The second picture is just one side of the contract, which I received before receiving the car. They protect themselves by putting all this small print that protects them, that you are supposed to read and understand. How many of you take the time to read the small print before you take the car? The contract is downstairs where you do the car rental, then they send you upstairs to actually get the car. I trusted that they were giving me a car in pristine shape. The damage was not obvious in my quick look at it. Hindsight is 20/20. I should have done a thorough walk-around to check everything was ok before taking the car. What if one of the tires has a nail in it and you don't see it until 2 hours later and you have a flat? "You should have checked those tires!" When I rent a U-Haul truck i always thoroughly inspection it because they always have some kind of damage. Alamo isn't U-Haul, so I figured new cars are not likely to have any damage. The third pic is of the section that tells you (that most of us don't read, because the car IS in good shape) that you should inspect the car. Did anyone upstairs have me check a box that I have done my good inspection? Nope. I have no idea how many times that car went out with that damage that I noticed once we were in daylight the next day. I felt rushed that evening and knew there were other car renters coming up to grab a car. We picked one out of the 4 they had out for us to choose from. I have emailed the Damage Recovery Unit of Alamo, asking them to review their camera footage to confirm that the damage we discovered was already there from a previous rental. I will follow up to let you know. 1.7.25- update: I wanted to follow through with my review. Alamo reviewed my case and decided we could resolve the matter in a positive manner for both us and them. I greatly appreciate that. I'm changing my score...

Hope you don’t leave anything behind! I dropped off our rental at the San Diego airport and I forgot a very expensive pair of sunglasses $600+ in the center console. I realized it as we boarded the plane. Immediately when we landed I frantically went online and filled out the lost & form report. I tried to call everyday only to get a recorded message that “all agents were busy and to leave a number and someone will call you back”. I’ve left 6 messages and 7 days later I’ve had zero return calls. I did customer service who were completely helpless saying there is no one you can talk to you. Basically you at the mercy of an employee finding something and turning it in. And IF they do they will contact you. Today is 7 days since I returned the car and I got an email saying “Sorry nothing has been found yet”. I find this type of service completely unacceptable. It’s quite obvious Alamo has zero integrity nor customer service when it comes to lost items. I would guess that’s a pretty common occurrence and to not have a better system is crazy. I have a sliver of hope but not holding my breath. My next call will be to some type of Mgt

UPDATE 1/14/25- as "Jean" who replied from Alamo said to do, I contacted Customer Service who said that a manager would contact me and assured me this has been passed on to the right person. Still 10 days later and now 7 messages later, I have still not received a single phone call nor response from anyone, let alone a manager. This is THE most ridiculous and frustrating situation I've ever encountered. When I asked Customer Service what is your protocol for logging missing items she simply said "oh every situation is unique and we aren't responsible for lost items "-WHAT? don't you have a standard of operations that employees must follow. I know you aren't responsible for lost items but when San Diego airport itself has over 454 pages( 25 items per page) of logged "found" items I would say there are a lot of people who leave items behind. I sincerely regret my decision to rent through this company. When people leave items behind that are very important it is really disappointing and the flat out disregard to help them. .......Still waiting for a phone call or...

Alamo is usually my first go-to rental company when traveling, but the San Diego Airport location is the last place I will ever rent a car from. The vehicle I received was faulty, with a hole in the center console. I found out about the hole AFTER I put my sun glasses in there and had them fall through, under the e-brake. I contacted central customer service as soon as it occurred, and they annotated my reservation, and told me the car would be taken to the dealership to access the area where the sunglasses were. When returning the vehicle, the person receiving the car confirmed that my glasses were indeed down under the center console, and told me to speak with the manager. The manager told me they would retrieve the glasses and contact me within 1-2 weeks. It has been a month and a half, and despite multiple attempts to contact the San Diego office, they have been ignoring me so far, and claiming that they never found any sunglasses. Fortunately, I was able to take a couple of photos of my sunglasses jammed under the center console, so that I can at least prove I'm not making this up, as the management at this location seems to imply.

My entire reservation was for $163, and I have had to spent much more to replace the sunglasses since I got no help in retrieving the old ones, and this location's complete indifference. It took me multiple calls and emails to finally reach a customer service agent (central) with enough empathy and trust to hear me out and believe me, despite the San Diego location's claims of not having found any sunglasses. This was a situation where I didn't forget my glasses, or lose them as a result of a break-in or something. For a lack of a better term, the vehicle essentially ate my sunglasses due to a defect in the car, and the location office chose to ignore me in response.

So all that to say; use this location at your own risk. Chances are, you'll be fine with the rental since it's a simple car you are renting, but don't count on them for any customer service support! Also triple check the storage compartments in their vehicles for holes and openings before storing...