Complaint Review: Payless Car Rental

I received a price from Hotwire for Payless Car Rental for around $121.  When we arrived at the Payless Car Rental facility, I had about 6 to 8 people behind me with only one agent. I showed him the Hotwire paperwork and he immediately started trying to hard sell me on getting additional insurance but I told him that my insurance would cover the rental but he kept on going about that it wouldn't cover this and that, windows, etc. minor damage, etc. After 4 times of saying no, he finally said OK and that he could put me in a Chrysler 200 convertible. Wow, I told him that would be great. He never once mentioned ANYTHING about additional charges or upgrade or anything to indicate this would cost me more money. In fact the customer in front of me was upgrade (for free) to a VW Jetta so I didn't think anything of it. He then told me they would have to hold $280 or so until I brought the car back but it would be refunded to me. I thought that was pretty high but I had people waiting behind me and appointment to make.

I would say about 4 days later I remembered this and looked at my paperwork. It showed that the agent had charged me an upgrade cost of $25 a day for the Chrysler for $125.00 extra. I put in a complaint to Payless Car Rental through their web site but as of this complaint I still haven't heard a word from them. When I brought the car back, the agent I worked with was working so I went to him and explained my issue with being charged $125 extra for this upgrade which he NEVER mention any additional costs at all. I told him that if he had mentioned any type of charge in association with the Chrysler, I would said no way. His response was that I should have known better. He said that he had circled the total cost and that I had signed the form showing the cost. I told him that I thought that was to deposit that he told me about and why hadn't he circled the upgrade cost of the Chrysler since he was being so upfront, he had no answer. He told me he would give me $60 back but I told him no since I shouldn't have been charged the $125 in the first place. He never once disclosed that he was charging me more for the Chrysler.  The whole process seemed very under handed and high pressured. Not to mention that you are charging someone an additional $125 a week is dishonest. DO NOT RENT FROM THEM.