Complaint Review: Budget

On Wednesday, February 20th, my flight from Newark, NJ to Fort Lauderdale, FL was delayed by an hour and a half.  I arrived at the Budget Car Rental counter in Fort Lauderdale at 1pm to pick up my reserved car.   There was a rat-maze line of over 20 people and there were only 3 customer service personnel at the counter.  I had a 2pm appointment in Boca Raton.  I hope that you understand that we are “in season” in south Florida and traffic is a bear.  I would not have been able to make my 2pm appointment if I were to stand in line and wait for over an hour, especially for a car that I had reserved.  Thus, I had to go to E-Z Rent-A-Car.  They provided me with a car within 10 minutes…NO WAIT; NO LINE; JUST PLEASANT EXPEDIANT SERVICE.

However, my experience with Budget was the total opposite.  I attempted to cancel my reservation with Budget in Fort Lauderdale who refused to assist me at all.  They indicated that they could not cancel the reservation because I had booked it through a third party.  I contacted the third party who, in turn, contacted Budget while I was on the phone with the third party.  Budget was not only extremely rude, but they kept the third party on the phone for over 20 minutes by putting them on hold for long periods of time only to come back with no response, no answers to any of their questions and Budget would not help the third party at all.  Budget has extremely terrible customer service and they do not care at all for their customers.  They not only expect their customers to wait an hour for a car that was already reserved, but they did absolutely nothing to assist in the cancellation and refund process other than to be rude and disrespectful.

I even chatted online with a Budget “specialist” who kept on typing DIRECTLY (obviously it was an automated response) after her response to me that if I did not respond to her in ONE minute, the chat would be cut off.   Therefore, if one is not fast at typing, they must not be able to chat with Budget since the customer is only given ONE MINUTE to respond to the “specialist”.  I type over 75 WPM and even I needed to rush to type what I needed to say because my one minute was almost up.  This individual would not listen to anything that I was saying and she kept telling me over and over to do things that I had already done.  When the chat was over, I specifically asked her to email me a copy of the chat.  She indicated that she would, but she never did.  Again, another great example of Budget’s customer service.  Over and over again, I was told and given the “Nothing I can do” line with an attitude.  Budget’s customer service, not only over the phone, but also via chat, is horrendous.

I have been a loyal Budget customer for years and do not deserve how I was treated and spoken to.  The terrible customer service, long wait lines and Budget “specialists” that are extremely rude and can care less about you, makes me think twice about renting a car again from Budget.

I am demanding a refund from Budget through my Chase Sapphire card ending in 6745.  I used my hard earned points to rent a car from Budget who greatly disappointed me by not providing me with a reserved car in a timely manner, among other things.  NO ONE SHOULD HAVE TO STAND IN LINE FOR AN HOUR TO PICK UP A RESERVED CAR.  I  W A N T  M Y  M O N E Y  C R E D I T E D  BACK TO MY ACCOUNT!!!!!!!