Alamo Rent A Car

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Category: Automotive

Contact Information
PO BOX 842264, Maryland, United States

Phone number: 1-800-462-5266
alamo.com

Alamo Rent A Car Reviews

November 29, 2007

Alamo early return policy can triple your costs!

Alamo has a clever way to double or triple the bill of unsuspecting customers. Over the web, I arranged to rent a car from Alamo for 5 days and received a special weekly rate of $149. My return plans changed and I had to return the car on the fourth day. I fully expected to pay the entire $149 as I agreed and wasn't looking for a pro-rated charge - in fact the confirmation email states that early returns on special weekly rates are not entitled to a proportionate refund. Fine. What I wasn't expecting was that for returning the car *early* my bill jumped from $149 to $288. When you return a car early Alamo considers the contract specifying the special weekly rate to be terminated and instead charges you its default daily rate. Although this claus apparently exists deep in the rental agreement, there was no mention of this in my confirmation email and the when I rented the car the rental agent only mentioned a $15 early return fee, nothing about doubling my bill. When you rent a house at the beach for a week and decide to leave on Friday instead of Saturday, do you expect to pay double for leaving early?

I've tried to figure out any coherent rationale for a company treating its customers like this and can think of none.
As a footnote, after one angry exchange with a customer service rep who scolded me that it is my "responsibility to read the contract" (maybe I need to bring my attorney next time) and a second follow up call, Alamo did agree to charge me only the original weekly rate.

See http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18964550 for another story on the same topic.

April 18, 2007

Fraud and lack of service!

Re: Alamo Rent a Car,

I could not believe that your web site (aka your company) deceived me into believing I had a rental car lined up and ready to go via your online check-in service. I put in the “required” confidential information on your web site to include our debit card that I hereby request you to delete immediately from your data warehousing server. You do not need any of my information ever as I will never use nor recommend Alamo Car Rental to anyone. You can believe me when I say I will go out of my way to make my friends, relatives, and co-workers aware of the service I did not receive. I was allowed, via your online check-in web site, to believe that the rental car was not only ready and available for pick-up that the debit card I provided was debited and the transaction was paid for. Never in my life have I been so mislead. I get to the rental car company to pick up the car and apparently your company does not take a debit card to pay for the transaction. I secured the rental with my credit card; however, I did not have enough of a balance available to use my credit card to pay for the rental – that’s why I used the debit card.

The supervisor sent me down the counter to Dollar Rental which was able to handle the car rental payment using my debit card. Now either you have antiquated software or you people have some sort of agreement/kick back with credit card companies. I was late leaving and therefore, late arriving at my destination due to your negligence and deception. I really should take this up with an attorney. As it is, I believe letting the ten thousand acquaintances that I know of your lack of service and deception will be sufficient.

Arlene & Marc Reeves,
Dissatisfied sought after car renters.