BudgetReviews 155

Great prices, but you get what you pay for. Don't shop Budget or Experian. I prepaid for a car through Experian, went to the counter to pick it up, they did a "soft credit check," said I didn't qualify and was refused the car. According to CreditKarma, my credit score was 780 - very good. I asked for a refund and was refused. They said since I booked through Experian I had to request a refund through them. I went to Experian and was also refused. My experiences are consistent with the refusal to honor agreements that other reviewers have commented on. Budget or Experian are bad businesses.

When we arrived in Milan, Italy the airport Budget refused to honor the agreed upon amount and claimed it was because we reserved online while we were in America and that the new amount would be an extra 200 Euros which was more than the max on my credit card. They refused to even let us rent the car for a shorter length of time and claimed it would cost the same amount no matter how long we had the car. We were stranded in a foreign country and had to take a bus to the train station and take a train from Milan to Florence where our villa was. Only all of the rental car places in Florence were closed on Sunday so we had to stay at a hotel near the train station until the rental car places opened back up and pay a lot of extra $ for a rental car for 2 days just to get our stuff up to the villa in Falgano. HORRIBLE EXPERIENCE! We rented other cars from Budget the rest of our stay and each time they charged whatever they felt like rather than the stated price. We were afraid to use other rental places because they were European and Sixt charged us 3 times the amount in Ireland...

Such a terrible experience with their customer service. After not getting the correct truck for a move that we booked online, (of course they didn't have the right one available after realizing they gave us the wrong one), we decided we would rent from somewhere else. They told us we would get the hold fee of $105 back within 24-48 hours. Not so much. After not getting it back 2.5 weeks later, we decided to call and ask what was taking to long. Their answer? Literally..."It's not our problem, it's your bank." So we checked with our bank and after researching it, they said no, Budget had placed a 3 week hold on the funds. (I later found out that the exact same thing happened with a colleague of mine) That's a ridiculously long amount of time, no? Anyway, it wasn't a big deal... at least would be getting our money back at some point. My husband had to call their customer service line back to give them more information, and when we asked to speak to a supervisor, the girl replied "We don't have any here." How is that possible? He asked if there is ANYONE else he could talk to and she, again, literally said, "No, sorry. You can leave your information and someone may get back to you within 24-48 hours. But they probably won't call back because they don't usually call about releasing deposit funds." Seriously? We were speechless. She was the most UNPROFESSIONAL, rude "customer support" individual we have ever encountered. She barely listened to us, kept cutting us off with "I can't help you, there is nothing else I can do" and pretty much hung up on us. When we called back for a 4th time, (yes, seriously), we got a nicer person who, suprise suprise! Was able to connect us with a supervisor. He looked into the matter and saw that yes, it was Budget who had put the hold on the funds for 3 weeks. He was apologetic and we appreciated that, but we were more upset with how we were treated by the others we had spoken to up until that point. It's not about the money, it's about "customer service" providing anything BUT customer service.
I decided to share our experience by emailing their corporate office and their response? An automated email stating, "Thank you for your feedback. Our records show your problem was resolved."... I am speechless. I work in customer service and if my organization ever treated our customers that way... let's just say it would never happen.
In today's world where consumers have many options for services and much of our decisions are based on service/experience, companies should do whatever they can to provide excellent customer support. Let's just say that I would NEVER, EVER use Budget again and am beyond appalled at what they call "customer service".