Complaint Review: Budget Truck rental - Olathe Kansas

My sister and I rented a moving van from Budget, we arranged to pick the truck up Wed. and the auto trailer on Fri. We were told Wed. that they would hook up the trailer to the truck and then coach us thru the process loading our car. (they could not load it for us because it was a liability)

We went there Fri. to hook up the trailer, which they did, but then refused to help us with the car. So my sister was going to drive the truck and trailer and I would follow in the car to go to her apt. to put the car on the trailer. She made 2 turns out of the lot and the trailer came disconnected from the truck. I had to go back to the lot for help.

The man, Don, who had hooked it up did nothing to help, so another employee came to our aid. After getting to the truck and getting the trailer reconnected, the lights no longer worked on either truck or trailer. We got it back to the lot. They would not transfer our things to another truck on the lot.

They opted to call their repair man. He said he would come to the lot and fix it. We were told we would be on the road in an hour. So we ran some errands. After 2 1/2 hrs. and no call, we headed back. We were then told that the truck could not be fixed on site and would be taken to their repair lot 45 min. away. ( at this point Don had not assisted or even apologized for any of the chaos he's created)

We would then have to pick the truck and trailer up from there. (We were starting our move late the next night, because I was going to my class reunion that night and the next in Manhattan, which was 3 hours away) The repair lot was not on our route, so now we had to reroute our entire trip.

After driving  to my reunion, we get a call from Bob, the repairman, he told us the truck cannot be fixed and our things would have to be transferred to another truck, which we had to be present for. We were 3 hours away and couldn't just run back to deal with this. We arranged for them to meet us at 7:45 am Sunday.

The transfer crew was 10 min. late and we had already removed several boxes ourselves. After they took over it went quickly. They hooked the trailer up and helped us load the car only to discover that the lights did not work on the trailer. I looked at the trailer number and it was the same broken trailer. They had given us a different truck but left us with the same broken trailer.

We called Bob again. He was angry we called him on a Sunday morning but said he would be there in 20 mins. While waiting on him, our dog who's anxiety had gotten the best of him, jumped out of the window and broke both front legs.

A man from the transfer crew googled an emergency vet for us while my sister did her best to calm him down. Bob arrived, got out of his truck without saying a word to either of us and went to his shop and came out with tools. He fixed something under the truck and got the light to work. I told my sister to get her and the dog in the truck while I got our purses from the car. Bob still offered no explanation or apology.

We drove about an hour to the vet. While at the vet, I called the location that we rented from to talk to the manager. He was not there, so I spoke to a  man named Mike. I told him everything that had happened and asked him to call customer service for me ( I had not been able to reach them and my battery was low on my phone ), I also ask him to call the Columbus location to let them know we would probably not have the truck there by Monday. He said he would. I found out the next day he did not make either call.

The vet was able to splint our dogs legs and medicate him for the drive but told us he needed to get to vet in Columbus the next day. This made for a long and very stressful drive for us. ( we had more trouble with the truck at 12:30 am when the check engine light came, we were told to keep driving, unless the light turned red then pull over)

During the course of everything that happened we made several calls to customer service, roadside assistance, the repairman Bob, and also to the original location we rented from. We received little to no help from anyone in the company. (I spoke to both Don and Bob at each of their locations, both were rude, condescending, and unwilling to help.)

I was amazed at the lack of help and concern from almost all employees with Budget. I came out of it wondering if we had been men, would they have treated us the same way???
 
I tried to keep this brief, but there is a lot more to this story.