Complaint Review: Dollar Car Rental

I had made my reservation online through my AAA membership for May 10 - May 14. Our original reservation was for a Compact Car @ $13.86/day, computing my estimated total to less than $89.22.

We had arrived in Orlando at 1:00am and a man named Yusef assisted us. As soon as we approached the counter he asked us for both of our ID's and requested out reservation number. Once locating our reservation he began trying to sell us upgrades to the cars you had available to which we kept declining. He offered to put us into a Dodge Charger for $25 more per day, he then offered to put us in a Chrysler 300 for $20 more per day, to both of which we declined. After flying across the country and it being the middle of the night, when he offered the full-size car for $10.00 more per day, we just agreed because we didn't know if he'd ever stop offering the upgrades. Once we had finished the reservation, it came time to sign on the keypad. He told me okay ma'am, just sign when I say to. "Sign. Sign. Sign. Sign. Sign."

We left to the garage to pick up our car and when the attendant approached us, he said "these are the only cars we have left. You can take any one you like." He pointed to three mini-vans or a Nissan Altima. I asked him, "These are the only options?" He said "yeah, we don't have any other sizes right now."

So, at the end of the day, Yusef had pressured us into paying for an upgrade when if he had stayed with our Compact Car reservation, we would have been given a full-size car anyway. How is that fair?

Also - when we were on our way to the airport, I began reviewing the documents that we had be given for the car and noticed that there was a $44.00 charge for an "additional driver fee". I realized that when we had arrived to pick-up the car, we had approached the desk, Yusef requested both of our ID's and never told us why. I just figured that that's standard procedure to ensure both people have valid Driver's Licenses. Never once did Yusef explain to us that what the charges were, and he never disclosed to us or ask us if both of us were going to be driving the car. Whenever my boyfriend and I are together, I never drive - and I feel that Yusef was just trying to rack our bill up being that it was the middle of the night, we were tired and just had traveled 3,000 miles. During the entire duration of our trip, I never got behind the wheel of the car. Our estimated reservation went from $89.22 to $160.00+ in no time.

I called Dollar's customer care phone number and it took them a while to find my reservation because Yusef entered David’s Driver’s License number under my name and my name with David’s Driver’s License number. Once we finally figured out the data entry issue, I explained the situation to a very nice girl on the phone. She confirmed that it was NOT required that we be charged for the additional driver fee if we had not been informed or asked if there would be a secondary driver. She advised that I would have to speak with a manager at the rental desk about the fees.

On top of that, we got to the airport three hours early so that we could go back to the desk to speak with a manager regarding these extra charges. When we arrived, there was no one in line and there were five representatives standing around each other talking and socializing and had not offered to help us until one of them finally decided to look up and see us standing there.

The woman we spoke with was not friendly at all from the first words I spoke. She was polite enough to deduct $20.00 or something from our invoice but I don't feel that amount is fair at all. She kept saying things like "well, I don't know why the man in the garage told you that we didn't have any compact cars, because we always do, he just would have had to go across the street to get it." or "I'm sorry ma'am, but you should have read the signature pad because you were agreeing to all the fees when you were signing the pad." - well, if your customer service representative advised me what I was signing and not just trying to get away with hitting me with all these fees, I would have known that. I didn't appreciate being spoken to as an idiot by your employees. I have worked in Customer Service for many many years, and I understand the stresses that come with dealing with customers day in and day out, however I honestly do not feel that we were treated fairly in this situation.