Budget Car Rentals

Quite possibly the worst experience I have ever had of renting a car. If you opt to book online to have the car delivered and collected there is no way of leaving the address, so you have no idea whether the car will ever arrive. Mine did -- nearly an hour and a half after the time booked, destroying my plans for the morning. It was due to be collected on Saturday 25 March at 10 because I was leaving for the airport soon after that. Innumerable calls to ask when it would be collected remained unanswered. As I write this from another continent at 11 am on Tuesday 27 March, it is still apparently sitting where it was left while I have had to rely on friends to contact Budget and get them to collect it. Great way to run a business! Never again!

DO NOT RENT FROM BUDGET!!! Five days before I had to drop off my car at a garage near Cresta, I phoned Budget-customer-care to find out wether Budget does drop offs/ pick ups of rented cars - so that I would get a car at the garage were I was to drop off my own car on a Monday morning before work. This was confirmed and I was informed about the extra fees that would be payable. I was also told that I should first do the booking and then thereafter! arrange the drop off/ pick up. So I booked and wrote an email to the Budget brach in Sandton that I needed a car to be dropped off near Cresta. ‘Already’ on Friday afternoon I was informed via email that there was no driver to do the drop off or the rental at my garage! I only saw this email only on Sat at 5.30am On Sat I tried frantically to get hold of Budget and was told that there was nothing to be done! When I wanted to cancel the car, I noticed a HEFTY CANCELLATION AND ADMIN FEE!!!! One clever customer ‘care’ - clown told me I should have read the rental conditions that mention nothing about drop offs!. He refused to put me through to a senior more competent colleague!!! Another ‘wise’ customer ‘care’ person told me that Sandton doesn’t do drop offs anyway!! On Sunday my problem was eventually presented to a ‘senior’ Paulo ‘Who?’ - it appeared that he couldn’t care less!! So on Monday I drove my car to the garage and took an Uber to Budget-Sandton Budget-Sandton is untraceable on the GPS-maps!!! in case a customer doesn’t know that Budget is equal to Avis it’s the customer’s mistake I was again reminded by some self assured matronly madam that Sandton doesn’t do drop offs or pick ups contrary to the information given to me at customer-‘care’ five days before!!! Thanks to the MESS at Budget and lazy complacency/ indifference of Budget seniors or managers I arrived 4 hours late at work which in turn caused a lot of delays for patients… there we actually DO care! I was ASSURED and GUARANTEED that a senior person/ manager would phone me first thing on Monday morning to perhaps help me have a car where I needed it - at my garage! SURPRISE - I was already phoned at about 16.00 on Monday! And I received an email in the late morning to say ‘soory’, confirming that I was wronged sniff from a ‘Golden’ from Budget. I replied to his email by explaining what a REAL apology was, and that I was a customer who can quite afford to rent a car. I suggested to him to combine his cheap email-words with a waver of the pick up fee, refund of the Uber payment, or a drop of price of the rental fee … - SOME meaningful gesture!!! Of course Budget-‘Golden didn’t bother to reply or maybe he is not competent enough. Life will teach him one day what a REAL SINCERE apology looks like. MAIN POINT: DO NOT SUPPORT BUDGET WITH THEIR MESS AND ARROGANCE OF SOME STAFF AND THEIR SENIORS!!!

Rude customer service