When I picked up my rental car on Monday, I was surprised to find that they gave me a car with 118,000 from 2005! Plus, it has old all-season tires on it! I would think that would be the type of car Rent-A-Wreck would rent not a “real” rental car company! I made a bunch of phone calls trying to get a car with winter tires at least but once I finally talked to someone who had some knowledge of the situation was told that they’d been too busy this year to change the tires on most of the cars. It seems crazy as they don’t clean the roads too well here and they are in bad condition to begin with. Plus, you would think that a lot of people renting cars from the airport would be flying in from places where the roads are nothing like they are here!
I finally got sick of calling the local numbers are being put on hold, hung up on etc. As an aside, I swear if there was an award for the place with the worst customer service in Canada this town would definitely win. There are a of couple places here that seem okay but generally places don’t seem to care at all because they have no competition. I found things bad in Abu Dhabi sometimes but at least I could blame some of that on lack of English ability which I certainly can’t here. Anyway, I decided to call the 1-800 number and was basically just reconnected to someone locally. The guy from the 1-800 number didn’t even tell the woman from the local office who he was! I cannot find an email or a mailing address to make a complaint to Budget. I’m thinking there is a good reason for that!
But sadly, the whole Budget thing pales in comparison to my other problem. I received an email yesterday, that I didn’t see until I returned home from work, telling me that they have decided to write off my car. I was surprised because I didn’t think the damage was that bad and because I thought they would have figured that out a long time ago. I could deal with this if a) the were offering to pay an amount around what I paid for the car and b) they were offering to let me keep a (decent) rental car while I looked for a new car. I wrote back saying that the amount was much too low as I had paid a fair bit more for the car and that was only in August and because the car had brand new winter tires on it. Of course, I’m sure I won’t hear anything to Monday which is also the date they want the rental car return; though, the rental car place seems to be expecting it back today but of course is not answering their phone!
I will go look at cars today at the place where I didn’t buy my now ruined car as the place I bought it was horrible plus they are the owners of Budget. Hopefully, they are better but who knows are there are only two options here! I initially thought I’d look at used cars again but some Internet because has me a bit conflicted because it sounds like after a car accident a leased car would be a lot less of a hassle. I have very little confidence in a lot of the drivers here so sadly I think another accident isn’t all that unlikely. Maybe I’ll be lucky enough not to be here much longer but I don’t have high hopes for that either.