MamaMootz
08-06-2006, 11:47 PM
Hi,
Just got settled in our new home and am writing to Budget to complain about the truck rental. Sorry this is long, but I'm looking for opinions on this letter. I'd like to ask for some sort of compensation for the lost time, but I think I will leave it out of the letter. Thanks for reading and do let me know what you think.
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I am sending you this letter to give you some details on our Budget Truck rental experience. We rented this truck for a move from New Jersey to Colorado and picked up a 24’ truck and a car carrier on July 19, 2006.
My family loaded the truck and drove out of New Jersey on Thursday, July 20 at approximately 4:00 PM. After we drove only 55 miles at approximately 5:45PM, we had to stop because we had a flat tire on the car carrier. We pulled over on the side of Route 80 with my wife and 4 year old daughter in a different car, while I attempted to fix the flat with a battery-operated tire inflation device I had with us, which took over an hour. I was able to inflate the tire enough so that we could drive to a safe location from which to contact Budget. We found a Comfort Inn right off the next exit, pulled in, and contacted Budget at approximately 7:00PM. At first, Budget insinuated I was at fault for the flat, and placed me on hold for 15 minutes. The customer service rep I spoke with told me they contacted dispatch and had to call me back with an ETA for a repair person to reach us. 90 minutes after I called, Budget called me back to let me know someone would be at our location within 2 hours. Total time lost on this leg of our trip: 4 hours, 30 minutes. We were forced to stop and spend the night at the Comfort Inn earlier than anticipated.
The second time we had trouble with the car carrier tire was on July 22 in Cloverdale, Indiana. My family and I had stopped for lunch and when we returned to the rental truck, we discovered that the tire the maintenance person had fixed in Pennsylvania was flat again. After some examination of the tire, I found that the tire valve was leaking. We called Budget again and waited 3 hours for a repair person to come out and fix the issue.
Total time lost on the second occasion: 3 hours.
The third time we had another incident with the car carrier tire was just off
I-70 in Colorado on July 24. We had just exited on to Route 24 toward Colorado Springs when we found yet another flat tire. We found a place to stop in Simla, where I called Budget customer service and spoke to Dimitri. Dimitri started out by telling me that there is no way that the car carrier could have broken down 3 times and that these constant stops were our fault. Dimitri was also telling me I needed to bring the car carrier to a weigh station to prove that we didn’t overload the car carrier. I was furious. Here I was, stranded by the side of the road for the third time with all my furniture, my family, and my dog in the middle of nowhere with a flat tire. The car carrier capacity was rated at 4,000 pounds. and I was towing a Rav-4 on it, which weighs about 3,500 pounds – well within the capacity rated on the carrier. After I went through the process of explaining to Dimitri that I have worked as an automotive mechanic in the past and saw that the first flats were caused by dry rotted tires, the second was caused by a leaking valve, and this third time appeared to be a blowout on a different tire, he agreed to contact dispatch and get someone out to assist us. A different customer service agent contacted me and let me know that someone would be out to assist us within 2 hours.
Total time lost on this trip due to the unreliability of the Budget trailer:
9 hours and 30 minutes. In other words, I lost a day’s travel because of all the snafus we encountered with Budget. This not only caused my family undue stress on the road (imagine, if you can, being stranded with a 4 year old and a large dog for hours on end) but also caused me to have to unload the truck in a much quicker fashion than I had planned. Instead of having the time to hire people to help us, my wife and I had to unload the entire truckload in only 6 hours in order to get the truck back to Budget on time.
I am certain that if I have occasion to rent a truck for moving again, I will not be utilizing Budget for my needs. Not only did the customer care representatives insinuate and in one case actually accuse me of damaging Budget’s equipment, but when I complained about the time all these breakdowns were costing me, Budget could care less. No one had a recommendation about where I could lodge a complaint, and acted, at best, indifferent to the stress and aggravation I endured during this road trip.
Just got settled in our new home and am writing to Budget to complain about the truck rental. Sorry this is long, but I'm looking for opinions on this letter. I'd like to ask for some sort of compensation for the lost time, but I think I will leave it out of the letter. Thanks for reading and do let me know what you think.
************************************************** ******
I am sending you this letter to give you some details on our Budget Truck rental experience. We rented this truck for a move from New Jersey to Colorado and picked up a 24’ truck and a car carrier on July 19, 2006.
My family loaded the truck and drove out of New Jersey on Thursday, July 20 at approximately 4:00 PM. After we drove only 55 miles at approximately 5:45PM, we had to stop because we had a flat tire on the car carrier. We pulled over on the side of Route 80 with my wife and 4 year old daughter in a different car, while I attempted to fix the flat with a battery-operated tire inflation device I had with us, which took over an hour. I was able to inflate the tire enough so that we could drive to a safe location from which to contact Budget. We found a Comfort Inn right off the next exit, pulled in, and contacted Budget at approximately 7:00PM. At first, Budget insinuated I was at fault for the flat, and placed me on hold for 15 minutes. The customer service rep I spoke with told me they contacted dispatch and had to call me back with an ETA for a repair person to reach us. 90 minutes after I called, Budget called me back to let me know someone would be at our location within 2 hours. Total time lost on this leg of our trip: 4 hours, 30 minutes. We were forced to stop and spend the night at the Comfort Inn earlier than anticipated.
The second time we had trouble with the car carrier tire was on July 22 in Cloverdale, Indiana. My family and I had stopped for lunch and when we returned to the rental truck, we discovered that the tire the maintenance person had fixed in Pennsylvania was flat again. After some examination of the tire, I found that the tire valve was leaking. We called Budget again and waited 3 hours for a repair person to come out and fix the issue.
Total time lost on the second occasion: 3 hours.
The third time we had another incident with the car carrier tire was just off
I-70 in Colorado on July 24. We had just exited on to Route 24 toward Colorado Springs when we found yet another flat tire. We found a place to stop in Simla, where I called Budget customer service and spoke to Dimitri. Dimitri started out by telling me that there is no way that the car carrier could have broken down 3 times and that these constant stops were our fault. Dimitri was also telling me I needed to bring the car carrier to a weigh station to prove that we didn’t overload the car carrier. I was furious. Here I was, stranded by the side of the road for the third time with all my furniture, my family, and my dog in the middle of nowhere with a flat tire. The car carrier capacity was rated at 4,000 pounds. and I was towing a Rav-4 on it, which weighs about 3,500 pounds – well within the capacity rated on the carrier. After I went through the process of explaining to Dimitri that I have worked as an automotive mechanic in the past and saw that the first flats were caused by dry rotted tires, the second was caused by a leaking valve, and this third time appeared to be a blowout on a different tire, he agreed to contact dispatch and get someone out to assist us. A different customer service agent contacted me and let me know that someone would be out to assist us within 2 hours.
Total time lost on this trip due to the unreliability of the Budget trailer:
9 hours and 30 minutes. In other words, I lost a day’s travel because of all the snafus we encountered with Budget. This not only caused my family undue stress on the road (imagine, if you can, being stranded with a 4 year old and a large dog for hours on end) but also caused me to have to unload the truck in a much quicker fashion than I had planned. Instead of having the time to hire people to help us, my wife and I had to unload the entire truckload in only 6 hours in order to get the truck back to Budget on time.
I am certain that if I have occasion to rent a truck for moving again, I will not be utilizing Budget for my needs. Not only did the customer care representatives insinuate and in one case actually accuse me of damaging Budget’s equipment, but when I complained about the time all these breakdowns were costing me, Budget could care less. No one had a recommendation about where I could lodge a complaint, and acted, at best, indifferent to the stress and aggravation I endured during this road trip.