Economy Car Rental

We recently returned from a trip in the UK. We booked a car through economycarrentals.com. When we arrived at Europcar at Heathrow they said they did not have the type of car booked, either we pay 14 pounds/day for an upgrade or get no car. I tried to get a refund of the $224 paid to economycarrentals since Europcar would not honor the contract but they basically said, "Too bad you agreed to pay the upgrade." I have emailed them twice and called them with no success. They did not care about getting a 1 star review so that should tell you a lot about how they do business. I am currently disputing with Europcar as well.

They charged me for insurance even though I said no I called customer service who said that they would take a statement form the employee They said the customer service agent said I did want insurance (of course she did) I am sure it was a mistake and n her part Because of her statement my refund was denied Extremely disappointed and plan on continuing until I get my money back

[redacted] rented a vehicle from us on
10/04/2014. Her due back date was 10/11/14. We hadn’t heard from [redacted]
until 10/21/14. She was not notified we were going to keep the...

car.
Unfortunately, the agreement was 10 days overdue, payment on file was
declining, amount due exceeded the deposit, and there had been zero
communication until the 10th day. Customers that reach that point
and show little concern or lack thereof, are less likely to return and accrue a
larger bill, if we “pre-warn” them that we want to take the car. So no, she
wasn’t notified we wanted to keep the vehicle in fear she may keep the vehicle
longer with non-payment. Had she been in contact, payments made on time, not
been overdue, we would of let her take the car and clean it and we could of
avoided the cleaning fee. We don’t want to charge a cleaning fee. We know
disputes like this arise due to cleaning fees, among other charges. It costs
the consumer, and ourselves, more time and money. But certain vehicles cannot
be re-released to renters that have a track record for inconsistency of
payments & contact.
[redacted] stated that the cleaning fee was
(over) $[redacted]. This is inaccurate. It states on the rental agreement the cleaning
fee is $[redacted]. Also stated on the rental agreement and visibly posted in the
office, there is a cleaning fee if the vehicle is returned excessively dirty.
The cleaning fee, stands as is. There is also a charge of $[redacted] for the broken
door handle. Pre-inspection shows that the interior door handle was indeed
attached to the door. It was also free of any cracks, or damage. To ensure
there was no pre-existing damage to the interior door handle, I verified the
last two months of rental agreements with previous inspections. There was no
regard to the interior door handle. With the interior door handle being broken,
the following procedure is necessary to exit the vehicle; roll down the window,
reach outside the vehicle, pull open the exterior door handle, open the vehicle
door, roll up the window & proceed to exit. I would assume that exiting the
vehicle in a such a nonsensical manner multiple times per day would have been
brought to our attention sooner than the 3 weeks [redacted] waited to inform
us. The charges for the broken door handle stand as is.
Upon the vehicle exchange, the duration of
the rental, and the initial return, [redacted] made no mention of the door
handle or safety issues. There was 21 days between the beginning of the rental,
and the end of the rental. Only after [redacted] was told her deposit had
depleted, did she bring any concerns to bring to our attention. I believe the
validity of her concerns were only to offset the charges of damaging the door
handle and cleaning fee.
When [redacted] rented the vehicle, she
originally signed and agreed to pay $[redacted] per week. Throughout the extensions
I adjusted the rate to $[redacted] per week for all the weeks, and discounted the
rental fee’s for the length of time she had the vehicle. A total of $[redacted] was
discounted off the rental. It’s easy for many car rental companies to adjust
rates higher after a consumer has rented a vehicle. Most renters even find it
more convenient to pay a premium to keep a car, versus returning the vehicle
and hunting for a more competitive price. Without the [redacted]’s request, I
adjusted the rate, lower. I feel we have been more than fair throughout the
rental. I’m sorry [redacted], we cannot discount the rental further.

We attempted to use this company to rent a car in Orlando, FL. Upon checkout, they added multiple additional charges and claimed that our total went from $21.50 to over $75.00. We left the shop and we're waiting for the return shuttle to the airport outside the entrance. The manager then approached us and became aggressive, he then accused us of harassment as we tried to board the shuttle and instructed the driver not to let us on. Leaving us stranded, on a highway, in hurricane weather. Avoid this business at all costs!

Just got off the phone with a CSR from Economy Rental Car. The CSR actually answered the phone and stated "Economy Rental Car...How can I help you...and I am in a hurry"? Can you believe this? I couldn't believe I heard that so I asked him to repeat that...he repeated the exact same thing. When I said "Did you just say you were in a hurry?" he actually laughed and said in an irritated tone "How can I help you?".

Geez!

Review: 1) Saturday 04/25/15, 10:25am: called 3x's to ask general questions. They never picked up after the 3rd call, nor returned my call as their voice message promises they'd do. It was a very cheap generic & non professional voice message too.

2) 1:20pm, no one in office. Even though voice message indicated the office open hours on Saturday from 8am to 8pm. Called again and still got voice message and even knocked on the door and window several times. Decided to take a lunch.

3) 2:30pm, (2) employees finally showed up in no rush or concern while my family & I waited in the parking lot. Employee (1) was of Arabic decent, and casually groomed, while the other employee (2) was a badly groomed, over bearded and moustached Caucasian, both in t-shirts. Instead of greeting us with some customer service, I actually had to ask if they worked here since they wore regular clothes instead of company oriented uniforms.

4) My family &I came to rent a subcompact car. There were only (3) vehicles on the lot in this class: a silver Hyundai Elantra, a silver Mazda 2, and a white Nissan Sentra.

Although all the vehicles needed a good cleaning inside and out, we were still somewhat interested in the Hyundai. When we went inside to inquire about the Hyundai, we were told that the only subcompact vehicle available, was the white Nissan Sentra. So we askedhile taking a look at the Sentra, the employee wouldn't move from the left side mirror area of the car, as if he were hiding something. After asking him what was behind him, my wife & I noticed a large dent extending from the side mirror, past the wheel well down to the floor panel. It looked as if someone made a left turn into a black pole. So after we went back inside, I told the employee again that we were interested in the Hyundai, and asked why it wasn't available. He explained that the owner hasn't yet entered the other two cars into their database. Thus leaving the dented white Nissan as the only choice. He couldn't answer my question when asked "how long does it take to enter a car into the database". Not did he really seem to care. All bets were off when he told us we would have to pay one months premium of $96 of auto insurance to rent the car. In addition to the $500 car holding fee he said want guaranteed to be returned to us once we returned the car. We left so fast, I almost left my license behind. Never again.Desired Settlement: A complete overhaul regarding quality of service, presentation, appearance, representation, professionalism, staff representation on the way the business is run on a daily basis. Starting with the voice message quality, representation and appearance of the staff, knowledge of service, punctuality, and availability of products. Don't display cars on the lot that you can't provide the customer, and if you can't provide it to the customer at the time, make it available ASAP, within the hour. A car shouldn't enter the lot at any time until it's ready for business. Raise your standards of service: Don't leave customers with damaged products as thier only choices, especially at the same purchase rates as cars in pristine condition.

Strive to "mimic" the more successful competition (Enterprise,). Dress & groom accordingly like a professional business and employee: should not have the appearance of a wrestler, with excess facial hair.

Review: On 30 September 2013 I rented a car from Economy Car Rental for a week. At that time I was told that no pets were allowed in the car and I informed the employee who helped me, whom I've since come to know as [redacted], that my daughter has a service dog. [redacted] just said okay.

Before I got in the car I saw that there was extensive damage all the way down the passenger side of the car, front to back, as though it had been sideswiped. Also, half the mirror on the passenger side was missing. There also was a hole in the windshield on the driver's side of the car. I took pictures of all this damage right there in the Economy Car Rental lot, as [redacted] walked around the car to inspect for damage, but then did not mark any damage on the designated area in the contract, and I wanted to make sure I could not be blamed for this damage later. The car did not have dog hair in it, but it was by no means a pristine car, and clearly had not been vacuumed or in any way detailed since the last renter used it.

Once I got in the car I saw that there was a piece of the dash missing where a wire was sticking out. When I started the car the brake light came on and stayed on, as did the ABS light, the "check engine" light, and the "engine needs servicing" light, and as soon as I got on the freeway I realized that the car would not shift into third, meaning the RPMs were consistently very high and the car was shaking a little.

Because of the condition of the car, I returned it the first opportunity I had to get back to San Diego (I live in Boulevard, CA) rather than keeping it the full week, which was on 3 October 2013. Because of a time constraint with the person who was helping me drop off the car to give me the ride, I was not able to stop and vacuum the car, although there was dog hair in the car from my daughter's service dog, and I was fully expecting to be charged a reasonable fee for vacuuming this up. I did bring back the car with 1/4 tank of gas more than I picked it up with.

When I walked into Economy Car Rental to drop off the car, the first thing I told [redacted] was that I was dropping the car off early, because it needed to go in for servicing. He seemed very annoyed that I was ending the rental early, stating several times that I should have switched to a different car instead. After checking the car he came back into the office and stated that because of the vacuuming he would have to charge me extra, and I said "sure". He then told me that the cost of vacuuming would be $75.00. I told him that I thought this was excessive, especially in view of the quality of car he had rented me, and that I was not asking for any kind of discount for the days I had the car, only a refund for turning the car in early. He claimed that he had to charge $75.00, because it would take "his guy" 45 minutes to vacuum up the dog hair, and I told him that I doubted that, to which he responded that if I didn't like the fee, I could clean the car myself, and that his boss would get him in trouble if he didn't charge me the $75.00. I told him that I wasn't trying to pick a fight with him, just come to a reasonable compromise, and that even if it did take 45 minutes, who gets paid $75.00 an hour to vacuum? When I said this he became really agitated for some reason, and said "Fine, you know what, now I'm going to charge you $150.00!" I told him that I didn't think he could just arbitrarily change the cost like that, and he said that he could, because the real price was $150.00 and that he had been trying to give me a break when he said $75.00, and now he didn't want to give me a break anymore, and he was going to charge me the full price. As soon as he had raised his voice my daughter had started to tear up (she is developmentally disabled) and at this point I took her by the hand and said, you know what, come here. Her and I went out to the car and started to manually clean it. We got about a third way done in 5-10 minutes, when Chris (my ride) came out and said that we might as well stop, because he already said he is taking the money. About a minute later [redacted] came over to the car, told us not to touch the car anymore, because he was accepting this car as is, and handed me my paperwork, which I never had an opportunity to sign. When I checked the paperwork he had charged me a $125.00 fee for the vacuuming.

I am currently disputing $100.00 of this fee with my bank.

I want to point out that when I spoke to [redacted] on 4 October 2013 in a three-way-call with the bank representative, [redacted] claimed that the reason he had increased the fee was because he had returned to the car a second time, at which time the car, according to him, smelled like dog. However, you should know that not only did the car not smell like anything, [redacted] never came out from behind the counter between the first time he checked the car and the time he came out to hand me the final paperwork and made us stop cleaning the car, nor did he even once say anything about having to detail the car because of a smell of any kind, this was always strictly about vacuuming.

The second thing I need to point out is that while [redacted] represented himself as being the manager and having no superiors while we were talking on the phone with the bank representative, this may not be accurate. The day I rented the car he was on the phone during part of his transaction with me, and during the phone call he referred to “asking his manager why they were going to sell the SUVs”. Also, as stated above, he told me when dropping off the car that he had no discretion with the fee because he would be in trouble with his manager. I don’t know if [redacted] is or isn’t managed by somebody, but whether he is or not, it is clearly something he is not honest about.

Thank you so much for your time!

Sincerely,

[redacted]Desired Settlement: My desire is for the excess and illegitimate charge of $125.00 to be changed to $25.00 and the difference be refunded to me.

Review: After returning my vehicle to economy rental car I was charged and excessive cleaning fee for my car. I was not giving a chance to clean the car in the first place. I turned the rental car in five days early. Yet with the cleaning fee and the fee to replace an already cracked door handle I was given $0 at the time of return of the car. When I exchange the first car I was made change to a second car with notice. I was not given proper notice to clean the car therefore the car was not clean. At the time that the car was turned in the salesman told me it was not an issue not a big deal at all that in fact they have people who clean the cars for them. I was charged over $[redacted] to clean the vehicle. The second vehicle that I that I rented was rented to me with a check engine light on and no right turn. There was extensive damage to the vehicle from a prior accident. There was a large chunk of the steering wheel missing. The vehicle is very hard to handle and to steer and difficult to drive. As a consumer I felt that this vehicle was completely unsafe to be driven on the road and should not have been rented to me in the first place. I replaced the turn signal light my self and was told by the salesman they would not reimburse me. this automobile was not safe to drive. I felt like my life as well as the life of others on the freeway would be in danger if you continue to drive this vehicle this is why it was returned early.Desired Settlement: Since I was not given notice on the exchange of the rental vehicle the vehicle was not cleaned at the time of return. I was not given ample time or opportunity to correct a problem for which I was penalized for.. I would like to be refunded the cleaning fee for the rental vehicle.at the time of the return I was told by the salesman that this was out if his hands and he was not the manager and he can not help me. He attempted to call the manager two or three times however conveniently the manager never answer the cell phone or return a call to the store for which he was a manager.$[redacted] for a cleaning fee is excessive and uncalled for.

Business

Response:

[redacted] rented a vehicle from us on

10/04/2014. Her due back date was 10/11/14. We hadn’t heard from [redacted]

until 10/21/14. She was not notified we were going to keep the car.

Unfortunately, the agreement was 10 days overdue, payment on file was

declining, amount due exceeded the deposit, and there had been zero

communication until the 10th day. Customers that reach that point

and show little concern or lack thereof, are less likely to return and accrue a

larger bill, if we “pre-warn” them that we want to take the car. So no, she

wasn’t notified we wanted to keep the vehicle in fear she may keep the vehicle

longer with non-payment. Had she been in contact, payments made on time, not

been overdue, we would of let her take the car and clean it and we could of

avoided the cleaning fee. We don’t want to charge a cleaning fee. We know

disputes like this arise due to cleaning fees, among other charges. It costs

the consumer, and ourselves, more time and money. But certain vehicles cannot

be re-released to renters that have a track record for inconsistency of

payments & contact.

[redacted] stated that the cleaning fee was

(over) $[redacted]. This is inaccurate. It states on the rental agreement the cleaning

fee is $[redacted]. Also stated on the rental agreement and visibly posted in the

office, there is a cleaning fee if the vehicle is returned excessively dirty.

The cleaning fee, stands as is. There is also a charge of $[redacted] for the broken

door handle. Pre-inspection shows that the interior door handle was indeed

attached to the door. It was also free of any cracks, or damage. To ensure

there was no pre-existing damage to the interior door handle, I verified the

last two months of rental agreements with previous inspections. There was no

regard to the interior door handle. With the interior door handle being broken,

the following procedure is necessary to exit the vehicle; roll down the window,

reach outside the vehicle, pull open the exterior door handle, open the vehicle

door, roll up the window & proceed to exit. I would assume that exiting the

vehicle in a such a nonsensical manner multiple times per day would have been

brought to our attention sooner than the 3 weeks [redacted] waited to inform

us. The charges for the broken door handle stand as is.

Upon the vehicle exchange, the duration of

the rental, and the initial return, [redacted] made no mention of the door

handle or safety issues. There was 21 days between the beginning of the rental,

and the end of the rental. Only after [redacted] was told her deposit had

depleted, did she bring any concerns to bring to our attention. I believe the

validity of her concerns were only to offset the charges of damaging the door

handle and cleaning fee.

When [redacted] rented the vehicle, she

originally signed and agreed to pay $[redacted] per week. Throughout the extensions

I adjusted the rate to $[redacted] per week for all the weeks, and discounted the

rental fee’s for the length of time she had the vehicle. A total of $[redacted] was

discounted off the rental. It’s easy for many car rental companies to adjust

rates higher after a consumer has rented a vehicle. Most renters even find it

more convenient to pay a premium to keep a car, versus returning the vehicle

and hunting for a more competitive price. Without the [redacted]’s request, I

adjusted the rate, lower. I feel we have been more than fair throughout the

rental. I’m sorry [redacted], we cannot discount the rental further.