To whom it may concern;

I'm writing to make an official complaint against Budget Car Hire for extremely poor service as far as providing the hire car is concerned as well as their complaints procedure. Below is a full breakdown and timeline of my complaint and all correspondence with them.

Please advise if you take these issues any further as I'd like to get back to Budget with some response as to my feedback from yourselves?

Many thanks,
Peter Armstrong

RE: budget‏
From: Peter Armstrong ([email protected])
Sent: 19 January 2010 19:28:49
To: [email protected]

Dear Simon,

I find the email below quite insulting.

I booked a car early to ensure I would get one, but believe me when I arrived there were at least 8 - 10 of your customers at that desk being told the same thing and I quote "unfortunately we don't have any cars and some of the cars we expected back haven't yet arrived"! To add insult to injury in my haist (trying to establish how long a car might be) I actually asked one of your other customers how long they'd been there and they said that they'd been waiting for their car since 8am that morning.

Let me explain my dissatisfaction with this appalling service:

1. Very poor service and no answer to help
2. The first email complaint I sent was the 3rd of November 2009 to express my dissatisfaction
3. After several automated responses to the emails I posted you, I finally got an email from someone at the beginning of December to say you have some company policy that clearly allows you to investigate this matter in a reasonable time frame (up to 20 days) to allow for good customer service
4. I've now finally got a response that's not only a total fob off, but more than a month overdue.

No, this is not acceptable and the feable excuse without even so much as a small gesture is not good enough, so I have no other option than to report you to the UK Complaints Board with all the correspondence attached.

Peter Armstrong


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email protected]
Subject: budget
To: [email protected]
Date: Tue, 19 Jan 2010 15:43:37 +0000


Case Number: 32-45340

[email protected]

Tel. 0844 544 3455
19 January 2010

Dear Mr Armstrong,

Thank you for renting a car from us recently and providing us with the opportunity to deal with the issues you raised in your letter.

We can only apologise for any inconvenience incurred especially considering the circumstances of your trip.

However please note that you had booked the vehicle for pickup at 0900hrs you state that you did not arrive in until 1040am. Unfortunately we are unable to hold vehicles indefinitely for customers and this was an extremely busy time for us.

Our staff did try to assist you and explained that we could get you a car but there would be a delay in doing so.

Please note that you have not been charged the 20.50GBP fee for the reservation as it was a pay on arrival site that you booked through.

Unfortunately we are unable to offer a refund on the taxi fare.

If you should require anything further then please do not hesitate to contact me.

Kind Regards

Simon Macionis

Budget Customer Services

Tel. 0844 544 3455

E-mail: [email protected]

Website: www.budget.co.uk

P Consider the environment. Please don't print this e-mail unless you really need to.


(No Subject)‏
From: CustomerCare ([email protected])
Sent: 25 November 2009 15:00:56
To: Peter Armstrong ([email protected])

Case 32-45340

Dear Peter Armstrong,

Thank you for your recent correspondence and for bringing this matter to our attention.

Customer feedback is very important to us and we intend to resolve this issue quickly and efficiently.

We have initiated a comprehensive investigation into the issue you have raised with us. Your feedback has been directed to the station manager of this particular location requesting their comments and an explanation. We have also requested all of the relevant documentation pertaining to your rental.

In order to resolve issues such as this as efficiently as possible we have Service Level Agreements with all of our worldwide locations of 20 working days for all customer service cases relating to vehicle damage and 10 working days for all other queries or issues. This enables Customer Services to investigate, gather the relevant documentation and resolve the issue on behalf of our customer in a timely manner.

In most instances, we receive the required information from our Station Managers in a timely manner. Should this not be the case the issue will be escalated to a Senior Manager, who will resolve the issue based on the information we have collated up until that point. We will then contact you within a short time of the Service Level Agreement elapsing. If you have booked with Budget through a travel agency, tour operator or broker please provide a copy of the voucher supplied at the time of booking Budget Customer Care at the details below.

As you have found your rental experience with us less than satisfactory, we would like to take this opportunity to extend our sincere apologies. Please be assured that your custom is extremely valuable to us and we hope to resolve this issue for you as soon as possible.

Neil Dean

Budget Customer Services

Tel: +44 (0) 844 544 3455

Fax: +44 (0) 0870 762 8305

E-mail: [email protected]

Website: http://www.budget.co.uk

Budget Customer Care
Park Road
Bracknell,
Berkshire RG12-2BW

RE: Contact Budget - Confirmation‏
From: Peter Armstrong ([email protected])
Sent: 20 November 2009 11:44:47
To: [email protected]
1 attachment
image001.gif (1.9 KB)


Dear Customer Care,

It's now been an additional 9 days since I received the last email below and still I have NO feedback, NO refund and NO compensation for the huge lack of service I received from Budget!!!

Once again I've given you a reasonable amount of time to respond and now my patients has run out. Unless I get a reasonable response (my money refunded) within 48 hours, as promised I'll take this complaint to the UK complaints board because this is simply unacceptable.

Peter Armstrong


RE: Contact Budget - Confirmation‏
From: Customer Services ([email protected])
You may not know this sender.Mark as safe|Mark as junk
Sent: 11 November 2009 11:29:22
To: Peter Armstrong ([email protected])

1 attachment
image001.gif (1.9 KB)

Dear Customer,

Thank you for contacting us and taking the time for bringing your concerns to our attention.

For us to improve our service delivery we rely on valuable customer feedback.

For your peace of mind we will be investigating your comments thoroughly.

As soon as we have everything we need we will get back to you shortly.

Please note that our Customer Service team operates during the following hours:

Monday – Friday: 09:00 – 17:00 hours

[email protected]
Tel: +44 844 444 0002

P Consider the environment. Please don't print this e-mail unless you really need to.
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RE: Contact Budget - Confirmation‏
From: Peter Armstrong ([email protected])
Sent: 11 November 2009 11:29:12
To: [email protected]

To whom it may concern:

As of yet I've had no response to my email below which you received on the 3rd of November. Please response to this email within 48 hrs or I'll contact the UK complaints board as this level of service or lack thereof is totally unacceptable.

Peter Armstrong

> Date: Tue, 3 Nov 2009 20:38:34 +0100
> From: [email protected]
> Subject: Contact Budget - Confirmation
> To: [email protected]
>
>
> Thank you Mr Peter Armstrong for your request.
>
> Reservation number: UKWB2CD7E
> Rental agreement number(s):
> Rental office: United Kingdom
> Salutation: Mr
> First name: Peter
> Surname: Armstrong
> Wizard number:
> Telephone: +447739165985
> e-mail: [email protected]
> Comment: To whom it may concern;
> Last week Monday evening I booked one of your hire cars online to be
> collected
> at Belfast City Airport the following morning, coming in from London. I
> arrived
> at your reservations desk only to be told that there are no cars available
> and
> it could take anywhere from 45 minutes up to 2 hours until one would be
> available.
>
> On any normal day this would frustrate most of your clients, but I was
> particularly upset as I was in Northern Ireland for a maximum of 5 hours to
>
> attend my grandmother’s funeral. I arrived at 10:40am, had to be in Lurgan
> for
> the 12 noon service, only to been told by your desk manager that the only
> solution would be to take a cab, as there would be no other way to get
> there on
> time.
>
> Firstly I would like a full refund for services paid and not rendered to
> the
> amount of £20.50 and I would also like compensation towards my cab fare of
> which that was £43.56. If you require proof of invoice, when you reply to
> this
> email I will forward scanned copies.
>
> I look forward to your prompt response.
> Regards,
> Peter Armstrong
>
> P.S. Many of your other customers (business men & women) where appalled by
> this
> level of service, so in future I would advise you find a way to prevent
> bookings if you know you won’t have the capacity to fulfil these
> requirements.