Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Charging Me to Give You More Money

This week I find myself in the position of Secretary of Aron. I have to call Avis because of a $150 charge that showed up 2 weeks after he turned in his rental car. I also have to call Budget because of a $101 charge that showed up. Both charges have no explanation, so I have to sleuth out the deal.

Avis has sent me all over the place ... some pretend person named Michelle who won't call me back, and to Claims. The Claims lady and I had a good laugh when she said I did NOT need Claims and I told her the office is smoking crack and she said EXACTLY! We're thinking the charge is a cleaning charge because in Wyoming Aron works on a muddy mountain and often doesn't have time to clean the car inside and out before he returns it. That's fine. What I love is that Avis does not have the software to be able to have the space to enter what the charge is for. An employee actually told me this. So we all have to waste our time tracking this down when they just need a programmer to add more space in their software.

Budget actually made me laugh out loud. They still aren't quite sure, but they think the extra money is because at the last minute we needed the car 2 extra days. They got over $1,000 from Aron's company for almost 5 weeks of renting the car (returned clean!!!), but because he needed it TWO MORE DAYS, they charge an $80 fee OVERSTAY fee. I asked very politely, "You guys are charging us to give you more money?" Yep. You would think they would be happy renting the car out two more days.

What do you think about airlines and car rental companies? I just have to laugh because there is no fighting them.