Re: rental cars
 

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Another time I rented from them they insisted that I had damaged the car. I had only used it to go to work in the morning while my car was in the shop. I noted on the walk-through that there were dents on the left rear quarter (before I actually rented the car). They argued that the dents "looked new" and they wanted to charge me for repair. I lost my [censored], made a scene in the office in front of other customers, and said I was going to call the cops. They said, "go ahead," so I did. When the cop arrived - a sergent - he inspected the rental form that clearly showed preexisting damage to the rear quarter and asked them pointedly if they were trying to defraud me or the insurance company. Then Enterprise gave me a ride to pick up my car.


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Companies like that make me sick. Digital cameras are useful for this sort of thing.

It also sadly reminds me that I forgot to take pictures of the damage to my rental house before I moved in this year (though I did leave comments on the rental form for everything)

Re: rental cars
 

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has anyone had bad experiences with places like thrifty or dollar?

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i had a bad experience with dollar, and when i finally gave up and went to hertz the experience was so good that i swore i'd never use a crappy car rental place again.

i was going down to AC with a friend of mine and there was a dollar place 1 block from my house. i got there on time and there were several people sitting around doing nothing, and obviously all of the cars were there. their computes had broken down and they were unable to release the cars even though i had the online printout right there with all the details of the reservation, etc.

so they said go to their other location on the other side of town. obviously they gave me the wrong address. when i finally found it there was a line of ~10 people. 30 minutes later 2 people had been processed. they were also out of standard cars, so instead of upgrading people to their nicer cars that they still had, they gave people minivans. another 20 minutes later i called hertz, walked 5 blocks and was out the door less than 10 minutes later had a car that cost me barely $5/day more than the other place.

the nicer places, especially hertz, have a reputation for better service, and in general i expect that there is a noticeable difference in service. it's possible you don't think it's worth the extra money, but i do believe there is a real difference. and while it may not always have an effect on your trip, the small percent of the time that they do screw up it usually causes such huge headaches that i'd gladly pay the extra premium as insurance against those somewhat rare pain in the ass situations.

Re: rental cars
 

my friend is an enterprize manager and says the insurance is a [censored] scam

Re: rental cars
 

Thrifty's cars are usually a little beat up and a couple years older than the top companies but who cares, it usually spends most of the time parked in a casino parking lot anyway. No insurance obviously, your own insurance plus platinum credit card benefits are excessive.

Re: rental cars
 

I rented from Dollar. I got a flat tire. When I called them to report it they said they wouldn't send someone out to fix the tire because I didn't buy the damage insurance. They told me they would refer me to someone who could fix it on my dime. I wasn't stranded on the road since the tire went flat in the condo parking lot where I was vacationing, so I called AAA and they came out and changed the tire. I left the tire in the trunk and returned the car with the little spare on it. I told the guy at the return place the real tire was in the trunk and left.

Then Dollar called me and told me I owed them $375 for the tire because the damage was in the inside sidewall and the tire couldn't be fixed and I didn't buy the damage insurance. I told them the AAA guy said it looked like a tire defect and that the sidewall had split. I didn't run over anything. I told Dollar there was no way in hell they were getting $375 from me for a tire. I finally offered to pay the $160 the stupid insurance would have cost me just to get them to stop calling me. They wouldn't accept that. They sent me pictures of the tire. I told them to send me the tire to prove it wasn't defective They wouldn't so I told them to pound sand.

I got calls from collection agencies for 6 months. I told them all I didn't owe Dollar anything and I had no intentions of paying them anything. They stopped calling.

I won't use Dollar again.

Re: rental cars
 

I just recently got a job with Avis. As much as they push us to sell the insurance, it is obviously a big money-maker for the rent-a-car companies, no question about it.

I wouldn't go so far as to call it a scam though, bc regular auto insurance policies often vary greatly on the amount of coverage they give, and to what types of rental cars they give it to. For example, if you have regular State Farm, Allstate, etc. auto insurance for your hyundai elantra, and then you rent a bigger/more expensive vehicle, such as a ford mustang or something, it might not cover you.

Just little things like that. Like I said originally, the rent-a-car companies obviously make big money off these small insurance add-ons, but it is definitely not a scam.

Re: rental cars
 

I worked at Hertz for awhile. I don't think I would call it a scam either. Basically its just expensive insurance. If something goes wrong it is great. If nothing happens then you wasted money. Same as any other car, health, life insurance.

Re: rental cars
 

I think I've rented cars about 20 times this year (work) in a lot of cities across the country and have had the best luck with nationalamo and budget. I got Hertz once and didn't even get a remote for the locks. I never had a problem with locations either.

Re: rental cars
 

I have rented from Enterprise in Canada and the US several times and have had nothing but amazing customer service. Plus, they have some nice features like unlimited kilometres for in province rentals, and when I rented in Minneapolis it was half the price of the big name agencies and I got unlimited miles in MN, IA, ND and SD - which I needed.

Re: rental cars
 

I saw this thread and read it as "mental cars." I thought it was going to be about cars that you could drive by thought alone.

I was so stoked.

Now I am bummed.

FU oddjob.