Several days ago my granddaughter had to make a fast trip to Arizona to see her ailing father. She is leaving for Australia in a few days to be with her children and wanted to see Jimmy before she left. Unfortunately she does not have a credit card and “DOLLAR RENT A CAR” would not accept her debit card as payment for the one-way rental. She called her mother and asked if she would sign the rental agreement but her mother – my daughter Michele – was suffering the ill effects of a nasty case of Shingles and could not get out of bed.
Guess who was next on Kyla’s list. Grandma.
Although reluctant to do so, I felt sorry for her and didn’t want to have the guilt if something happened to Jimmy and she did not get to say “good-bye” so I agreed to do so.
Kyla and I went together to the DOLLAR RENT A CAR on Pacific Coast Highway where the first indication there might be a problem developed when they had two reservations for her. After clarifying the correct reservation, the following conversation was held between Kyla, the reservationist and me:
Kyla: I am renting this car one way. That should be what the reservation indicates.
Clerk: That is correct. We will put a $250 hold on the credit card but IF the car is returned before 10:00pm tomorrow, that charge will not appear on your statement.
Judi: Let me see if I understand this. You are holding $250 on my credit card but it will be waived if Kyla returns the car by 10:00pm tomorrow, the 18th of February. Is that correct?
Clerk: That is correct.
Reluctantly I signed the credit card for Kyla and she was given a DOLLAR RENT A CAR automobile for her one way trip to Arizona.
Two days later I looked at my statement and found that there was a $250 charge to my account. I immediately called Kyla, because she told me she returned the car before 6:00pm. In fact, I have a copy of the receipt verifying that fact. I called DOLLAR and this conversation ensued:
Judi: My granddaughter and I were told that if she returned the car before 10:00pm there would not be a $250 charge. According to the receipt I have in my hand she returned the car at 5:44pm. Why is there a $250 charge?
Clerk: Because she was supposed to return it to the DOLLAR RENT A CAR in Phoenix and she returned it to the Scottsdale DOLLAR RENT A CAR. Phoenix needed cars in their fleet; Scottsdale did not. Therefore there is a drop-off fee.
Judi: My granddaughter called DOLLAR RENT A CAR and asked them if she could drop the car off anywhere and was told “yes”. She was not told that if she dropped it off at Scottsdale – only 15 miles from the Phoenix drop off – there would be a fee.
Clerk: Sorry. That is our policy.
Today I had Kyla fax me a copy of the original agreement. It does say that the car would be dropped off Sky Harbor , Phoenix DOLLAR location. But in reading the contract, no where can I find where it says that if it is not dropped off there I would be charged the $250 fee.
I called DOLLAR again this morning, and, basically I was told the same thing. DOLLAR will NOT enter into any negotiation about refunding this fee; that I can dispute it all I want and it will not change the outcome. I owe the $250. Period. Their policy – must be an unwritten one since I can’t find it in my contract – is that if the car is not dropped off where it is supposed to be dropped off there is a fee. In spite of an employee of DOLLAR telling Kyla it was all right for her to drop off the car at any location, I am out the $250.
I have been involved in disputes before. I have gone to small claims before. I have encountered hard-nosed employees that stick to the party line but have to back down when their supervisors tell them a compromise is necessary. I may lose this fight, but I will do my damnest to make sure that all of you reading this know about the problem I encountered and think twice about renting from DOLLAR. This whole thing is so ironic because I have encouraged all of my students, all of my friends, to rent from DOLLAR because they have been so easy to work with and their prices were the best in San Diego. I might just have to file in Small Claims Court to have their “policy” made more public. And I certainly will let my Credit Card Holder know that I am disputing the bill. Stay tuned for the next chapter. (By the way – Jimmy will be ok.)
Judi Curry
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I’m thinking about going after AT&T, but they’re almost impossible to understand before they snap their lash, so complaining about them only makes me sound stupid. But you did a nice job on DOLLAR cars, which is good enough for me, ‘cuz they’re probably owned by AT&T.
Thanks, Bob. You know the old saying – “it ain’t over until the fat lady sings” – and this fat lady is just getting warmed up!
Thanks for the tip, Judi. I don’t rent vehicles very often, but in the odd event that I do, I will definitely either avoid Dollar, or make sure that I get everything the clerk says in writing, including what the reply is when I ask where does the vehicle have to be returned. That way if their cute little policy bites me, I can also expose the fraud. Further, I really think just for grins and giggles and getting even more exposure to this kind of bait and switch fraud that you should file in Small Claims Court.
Thanks for the encouragement re: small claims court. I have sent a copy of my article to the corporate headquarters of Dollar and if I do not hear from them in 10 days, small claims is where I will go next. The fat lady’s vocal chords are getting a lot of practice!
Turko Files?
Great idea. Maybe before Small Claims. Will see if I get a response from Corporate. THANKS!
Fight the good fight and keep us updated. Small Claims isn’t glamorous and it certainly doesn’t generate any headlines, but it does, however, serve as the great equalizer between consumer David and corporate Goliath.
Will do. What do you think of the “Turko” suggestion?
I think you should utilize as much PR as you can get. Turko seems like this might be right up his alley.
But since you’ve already contacted Dollar corporate HQ, you really ought to give them the ten days before contacting Turko. That way you can present both sides to Turko and it will have that much more impact. Just my $0.02.
Compared to the $250 bill – your 2 cents is worth a lot!
There’s a new (free) webiste called scambook.com that’s supposed to have good success – Love you Mom!
Thanks, middle daughter. (Did I name you that?) Have it bookmarked for future reference, if needed!
No you didn’t name me that! But you were certainly responsible for it! ;-)
People! Say all you want about Yelp.com. but most people nowadays KNOW that you MUST check a biz on Yelp first BEFORE you do any transactions with them. If nothing else, people are pretty damn honest on there.
Judi, I just checked your Dollar Rent A Car on Yelp……over 60 reviews and only ONE AND A HALF STARS out of FIVE! That is almost unheard of on Yelp! They look like total losers and I would still just copy and paste this article onto a review there if I were you and GO GET ‘EM!
Thanks Mercy. I tend to forget about Yelp – primarily because of some bad publicity recently. But thank you for checking it out for me. I have never had any trouble with Dollar – in fact it was always my favorite rent-a-car. But, of course, no more. I will now wait and see if I get an answer from the Corporate Office. (As my eldest said – they don’t know who they are dealing with! My granddaughter in question is the same young lady that was ousted from Southwest Air because her dress was too short!) Companies that want to screw this family better think twice about the genes we carry!)
You last picture on f/b was wonderful.
Please note that Yelp is worthless as anyone can visit the site and delete/add comments as they like. I know of several businesses and nursing homes that have tasked an employee to keep watch over its Yelp ratings and that employee visits the site periodically to delete the negative comments and add fairy tales accordingly. The fact that Dollar has negative reviews simply means that it hasn’t been paying very much attention to its Yelp reviews.
WRONG Prattle on! No one can delete a review from Yelp except for the person that wrote it. They filter reviews out, good and bad, BUT you can read ALL filtered reviews at the bottom of every page, for every business on there.
The only fairy tale here is that you stated your comment above as fact, and I can say unequivocally that you are wrong.
Yes, anyone can ADD any fairy tale review they want, but Yelp DOES keep watch themselves over all of it and does filter in and out the good and the bad.
And companies that are diligent about their social media watch, hire social media reps where that is all they do, is search all the sites for bad reviews and respond accordingly. The ones that don’t, like Dollar, will suffer more in the end.
I don’t work for Yelp, but I am on the Elite Yelp Team, so I know a thing or two about it. And say what you will, good or bad about Yelp itself, but it is THE fastest growing review site on the Internet. I’ve heard it mentioned on TV shows, in comedy series, and on menus. Even Phil’s BBQ has a sign hanging out front that says, “Over 1500, 5 star reviews on Yelp, before you start Yelpin’ let us start Helpin’!”
(1) The fact that you work for Yelp means that your opinion is biased in favor of the site. No one who collects a paycheck is going to bite the hand that feeds it.
(2) I stated my opinion as fact because that has been my experience. Reviews are, in fact, deleted by the persons who wrote them, and in the instances I cited, those reviews were written by employees at the company being reviewed; That’s hardly a ringing endorsement for credibility.
Prattle on…you say you file legal complaints for a living?? Really? Then how come you can NOT read something as obvious as I stated above….”I DON’T WORK FOR YELP.” I said I’m on the Elite Yelp Team, which means I get invited to private Yelp parties every month for Elites only that restaurants hold for us. so we will return and hopefully give favorable reviews. NO ONE has ever offered to pay me money to write a review for them. Sometimes, we do NOT give favorable reviews to a place, EVEN if they have invited us to a private party there. As Judi stated in my defense (thanks Judi!) I am honest and maybe only the Elites that review on Yelp are…But I know there are others. I have tons of friends who review for Yelp and they are very honest people.
I question Yelp’s policy only in that they want business owners to pay them to put their link to their web site on their Yelp profile page. Other than that, you have to be selective in what you want to read into on reviews. After awhile on there, you can tell which are fake and which are not. When you see a lot of people with “1” or “2” reviews give a favorable one amongst many bad ones, you need to take that with a grain of salt….every pun intended!
For someone that files legal briefs, you sure don’t pay close attention to important details!
No doubt in my mind either that reviews can be faked by friends and employees. It’s part of the reason Yelp DOES filter out good ones and bad ones as stated by Middle Daughter below.
I’ve written 50+ reviews on yelp, my reviews don’t get filtered. Once you know its benefits and limitations, Yelp is a great tool.
Oh and I saw an OB Mercy review on Yelp, think it was for a thrift store? It was dead on.
I write reviews for Yelp also, John, and I have not been filtered out. However, I know of some that have been, and for that reason I don’t put much faith in their reviews.
Mercy is a “regular” for Yelp and is the one that got me started with them. As you said, her reviews are “right on.”
Prattle – Yelp (apparently in their quest to keep things honest) also filters out reviews that they don’t think are valid – I recently gave a great review to a physician only to find that it had been filtered out within 24 hours! So between the false reviews that stay up, and the real reviews that get filtered out, Yelp is probably pretty useless!
When I read that Yelp’s business owners were paying some people to write favorable reviews for them – and were rewarded in cash, merchandise, etc., I stopped reviewing for them. Honesty seems to be a missing commodity in some of their reviews. I know that Mercy (see above) writes for them and I would never question anything she writes, but I do not know the others and do not trust the reviews anymore. Your experience, middle daughter, only proves a point.
As Dollar will likely be reading these comments, I’d like to say plainly and clearly that if this atrocity of service isn’t rectified, you’ll never see the likes of me or my friends in your offices. This lady has greatgrandchildren! And you’re going to stick it to her? Great going in adding your twist to “the American way”!
Have you tried filing a complaint with the Better Business Bureau? You might want to do that if you don’t get a favorable reply from Corporate.
Thanks, Ro. Will do that too!
I wouldn’t bother, Judi as the BBB is 100% owned/operated by business. You can file a complaint, but it will never be addressed. Been there. Done that. It’s a waste of time because there is no substantive consumer advocacy in this country at any level.
Although it does seem like most of the time the BBB might not help, I filed a complaint to them about our old t.v. – within a week the manufacturer had a tech in the field (at their expense) and a replacement part (at their expense). Interestingly enough, a couple of years later we received a letter about a class action suit against the manufacturer and the settlement was – the replacement part installed (at their expense)!
But, we got ours two years early because of the BBB.
By the way, it was just out of warranty and when we contacted the manufacturer before the BBB, we got nowhere.
That’s certainly very interesting. I wonder what made your complaint a priority. I have filed complaints with the BBB against H&R block in two different California counties for fraudulent reprentation of service. I file legal complaints for a living so I am reasonably familiar with the process. Each time, the only “resolution” was a postcard sent by the BBB approx. twelve weeks later to tell me they had received the complaint. Thereafter, I didn’t hear from anyone regarding either of the complaints.
Don’t know, Prattle. Maybe it was the quantity of complaints – have to assume that since there was a class-action settlement a few years later that there must have been a lot coming in around the time of my complaint. I’ve contacted them a couple of other times with little response, so I was happily surprised with this one!
Let’s put it this way – I will try everything and anything before I pay the bill. Turko, BBB, on line, facebook, etc. I used to have a friend that was a sky-writer. Wonder if he’s still available. (Hmmm…he was single too!)
Thanks, Middle Daughter for your input. Everything helps.
I’ve found satisfaction thru the BBB also.
If any problems have anything to do with on line orders or orders from another state, try the DOJ as online misrepresentations are considered WIRE/MAIL FRAUD.
Thanks, Paul. Didn’t know about DOJ.
Have also filed complaints with the DoJ also, but unless it receives complaints en masse, the situation is not addressed. All just goes to underscore that mileage varies regarding consumer fraud, especially if it’s just a single individual who was yipped by a business.
You can spin your wheels filing complaints tither & yon, but I think realistically, the only recourse you have are Turko and Small Claims. Large corporations like Dollar laugh all the way to the bank otherwise.
I also think the BBB is useless. I filed years ago on a company that was ripping me off for my time share, never got a response.
Dollar rental sucks….point blank and simple.
And I did get stuck paying the bill.
Just for future reference for anyone experiencing this kind of abuse…If you have problems like this, get the credit card company involved in this. Dispute the charge and let the Visa/MasterCard lawyers duke it out with Dollar. You can dispute any charge to the credit card companies and Dollar has to then plead their case. A little late for you Judi. Sorry! I am reading up on Dollar because I am renting from them this weekend. I have printed the local as well as the national policies and read through them thoroughly. I have highlighted all the areas I feel they may try to fleece me on. I will make sure I do my homework to avoid this type of situation and I would encourage everyone else to do so as well.
Actually, Mark, I did turn it over to the credit card company. They said that because my granddaughter did not have a written permission slip to drop the car off someplace other than where she was supposed to –and even though she had the name of the agent that told her it was ok to do so – the responsibility was hers to get it in writing and I had to pay. I did, and will never rent from them again.
—DO NOT EVER RENT FROM >>> Dollar-Rent-A-Car <<>>Dollar-Rent-A-Car<<< UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE—
—DO NOT EVER RENT FROM Dollar-Rent-A-Car UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE—
We have tried again and again and again to get our train-wreck experience with Dollar-Rent-A-Car resolved–to no avail. In the past five months, we have contacted Dollar-Rent-A-Car directly in Minneapolis, Dollar-Rent-A-Car HQ in Oklahoma, via the bank card company and finally thru the BBB. No success at all. It’s been an epic hassle and waste of time.
Dollar-Rent-A-Car left us for dead along side a busy freeway with a car that quit within site of the airport and then billed us $572 extra for additional “rental time”, towing and impound fees for the failed Dollar-Rent-A-Car rental vehicle.
Our Dollar-Rent-A-Car rental experience began with a prepaid rental—for a Dollar-Rent-A-Car rental—paid for with 28,100 United Mileage Plus points for a Dollar-Rent-A-Car vehicle in Minneapolis in August 2013. That is $702.50 paid to Dollar-Rent-A-Car with United’s standard exchange rate for miles for this Dollar-Rent-A-Car rental car.
This same Dollar-Rent-A-Car rental vehicle quit, stopped and completely failed, 1 mile from the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport on highway 5, when we were returning there on 9/1/2013–to catch our flight back to Denver.
We immediately called and spoke with a Dollar-Rent-A-Car emergency roadside assistant–not once, but twice. We were in a bit of a panic–we had to catch a flight home. The Dollar-Rent-A-Car attendant said Dollar-Rent-A-Car would send a cab to pick us up and get us to the airport to catch our flight. And Dollar-Rent-A-Car would also send a tow truck to pick up the failed Dollar-Rent-A-Car rental vehicle. Furthermore, the Dollar-Rent-A-Car agent indicated that everything would be taken care of from there.
When neither the cab nor the Dollar-Rent-A-Car tow truck showed up after 45 minutes–we had to go. We left the failed Dollar-Rent-A-Car vehicle off to the side of the freeway–where it died–with Dollar-Rent-A-Car rental car hazard lights on and the Dollar-Rent-A-Car rental keys safely in the dead Dollar-Rent-A-Car vehicle.
Then we unloaded the dead Dollar-Rent-A-Car rental, stepped out onto a busy freeway and hitchhiked a ride, from a hotel shuttle: with five bags and a four-year old in tow. So we could race to catch our plane back to Denver.
We called Dollar-Rent-A-Car again to let them know about the situation with the dead Dollar-Rent-A-Car rental before leaving Minneapolis–and the Dollar-Rent-A-Car roadside assistant said all would be taken care of by Dollar-Rent-A-Car. Thinking the nightmare with Dollar-Rent-A-Car was over—we headed home.
Two weeks later we got a bill from Dollar-Rent-A-Car for an $572 for the Dollar-Rent-A-Car tow truck, 3 days impound fees and 3 days additional “rental time” for the failed Dollar-Rent-A-Car vehicle while it apparently sat dead alongside highway 5 in Minneapolis.
At the time, we conceded the prorated amounts for charges to Dollar-Rent-A-Car for fees, taxes and license amounts–for the dead Dollar-Rent-A-Car, that were beyond the prepaid rental amount—and that were to be charged against the $250 hold Dollar-Rent-A-Car Minneapolis put on our credit card. The legit fees amounted to about $100. However, Dollar-Rent-A-Car has repeatedly charged, billed, re-billed and re-charged the entire $250 fee to our card no matter what is said or done. We have been unable to get Dollar-Rent-A-Car or the credit card company to concede that this is simply not a legitimate charge.
Dollar-Rent-A-Car left us to fend for ourselves, stranded on a busy freeway, in an extremely precarious and dangerous situation, never acknowledged the incident and then billed us, re-billed us and continues to re-bill us for this mess.
We have been let down, deceived and now defrauded by Dollar-Rent-A-Car and the Dollar-Rent-A-Car corporation–at every step of the way.
Our Dollar-Rent-A-Car experience with Dollar-Rent-A-Car is that Dollar-Rent-A-Car will fail to deliver on their implied contracts and duties—and then Dollar-Rent-A-Car will fleece you.
I wouldn’t buy a stick of gum from Dollar-Rent-A-Car if Dollar-Rent-A-Car were the last candy store on the face of the earth.
Run for your life from Dollar Rent-A-Car and any Dollar-Rent-A-Car affiliates.
—DO NOT EVER RENT FROM Dollar-Rent-A-Car UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE—