Have you ever rented a car?

I recently had a horrible experience at a car rental company when I was returning the vehicle. I was yelled and scolded at. I was made aware and accused of damaging the car. "What damaged," I voiced out in outrage; the damage was a barely detectable scratch that required a magnifying glass to even notice.

While I had rented cars on numerous occasions with this particular business, this was the only time that I can recall where I felt uncomfortable and demeaned.

But even so, does it only take one bad apple to spoil the bunch? Does this one incident change my entire outlook on this company as a whole? No.  However, the reply from the company does.

 I sent out an e-mail to their customer relations department -- hoping for clarification on the matter, I was met with no reply at all. Naturally, I sent another...again no response. Maybe I should call them, I thought to myself, because if  customers were experiencing similar ordeals as mine, then I knew their email would be back-logged. I called and spoke with a sweet, polite customer service rep who assured me that the incident in question was an isolated one and is not indicative of their company. She took all of  my information, told me that someone what call me in about 3-5 business days, and she even gave me a reference number. That was over a month ago.


All-in-all, It has been three months, and still no word. What good are assurances when  the customer has failed to be reassured. And for a company whose founder coined the phrase, "Take care of your customers and employees first, and growth and profits will follow." The new schoolers appeared to have changed it to "Ignore your customers, cover for your employees, and who cares if profits decline, because the economy is trash anyway."

However, if you don't take care of your customers, there's always someone that will.

P.S. The only difference between this rental and past rentals, was that, I dropped off the car at a different location then from where I first leased it at.

Have you had an unpleasant experience with a rental company?