Q: I recently rented a car from Budget Rent A Car in Charlotte, N.C. While I was in Charleston, S.C., someone stole my purse, which contained the keys to the car.
I filed a police report and called Budget, asking if they could send someone with a duplicate key. A Budget representative said the car had to be towed back to Charlotte. I was assured that I would be charged only a key duplication fee and towing charges.
Several days after I returned home, I began receiving phone calls from Budget, inquiring about the car. I explained that the car had been towed, and was again assured that there would be no extra fees. This happened several times.
Imagine my surprise when I got the bill. Budget charged my credit card additional daily fees for four weeks, for a total of $3,551. I disputed the charge, and my credit card company sided with me. But Budget is still trying to collect the money. Can you help?
– Maggie O’Brien, San Francisco
A: Budget has no right to charge you for a car that you’ve already returned — unless, of course, you didn’t bring the vehicle back to Budget.
When you drive a car back to your rental location, the return is easy to verify. An employee signs off on the car and hands you a final bill. But that didn’t happen to you. It couldn’t have, because your rental car was stuck in Charleston, and Budget was 200 miles away. So you “returned” the car with a phone call. But when you do something by phone, it’s difficult to prove, as you have found out.
In retrospect, it might have been wise for you to wait until the tow truck arrived and then ask for some documentation of the pickup. That may sound a little obsessive, but the alternative — paying thousands of dollars in daily charges — certainly makes the wait seem worth it.
I checked with Budget to find out what went wrong with your rental. A company representative said the Charlotte location didn’t follow the proper procedures when the car was towed back; as a result, the return was never recorded in its system. “The car never showed up as actually returned,” said Budget spokeswoman Susan McGowan.
That’s one part of the mystery solved. But if Budget has found the car, why the charges?
“I’m still trying to get to the bottom of that,” McGowan told me.
Fair enough. So if your car has been found, and Budget acknowledges that it should not have charged you, then what can you do about that $3,551 bill? Disputing the charge was the right move. You might also consider supplying additional documentation to Budget. A copy of your return plane ticket might be enough to convince the folks in Budget’s collections department to rethink their claim.
In the end, Budget dropped its efforts to collect $3,551 from you and, as a gesture of goodwill, promised to send you a voucher for a free rental.
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{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
I have noticed a new trend among car rental companies — handing the renter a key ring with BOTH sets of keys — and they CANNOT be seperated.
Does this make sense to anyone? Does anyone do this at home with THEIR keys? Or do you keep the second set somewhere else?
When both keys are handed to the renter and they are welded together, I feel the rental company bears some of the risk of lost keys. Surely they should be able to think of a better solution!
When I was in Germany several years ago, we stopped by a little family owned restaurant several hundred miles away from the airport where we rented our car. Being side tracked, I locked the keys in the car…the owner who was serving us, asked why I had such a sad face and I told him. He said that if I don’t mind compensating the person, he knew someone who could get the keys out without damging the car. I was overjoyed…The person was very secretive, so I gladly handed the restaurant owner 100 marks…my choice on the amount, btw… (this was before the Euro) and bought the secret person a beer as well…Far cheaper than having the car rental company handle it!
Ed
web/gadget guru
Well this just shows how much sense people have nowadays,
who in their right mind would let a stranger who does not work directly
for the company, take their “own” vehicle to deliver somewhere with just a smile and a wave. You wouldnt! Why would you just let some unknown to you take
a rental vehicle with out any paperwork saying you returned it.
Hello travelers who do you think is going to “think” for you!