Budget Rent-A-Car, Inc.

On January 19, 2007 at 12:07 a.m. I rented a car from Budget at SeaTac Airport in Seattle, WA. I was very tired and anxious to get to our condo (we reside in Phoenix). When the clerk at the counter asked me "Do you want any of the damage waiver coverage?" I replied "No, I don't want any of the coverage because I have a program with American Express Corporate that covers all damages.

When the clerk put the contract on the counter he said "Please initial here, here, here, here and sign at the bottom. I quickly did that and went to get my car. Ten days later when I turned in the car, I was rushing to my plane and looked at the receipt. I had paid $140 more than my wife (who made the reservation) had told me the cost would be.

When I got home, my wife called Budget and they said they were willing to adjust 50% of the bill, but would not remove all of the charge. I told my wife to tell them "no" I wanted a complete credit for the charge.

I then called American Express and put the charge in contest and a couple of weeks later (last week) was sent a letter with a copy of the contract showing that I had initialed "declined" for 3 of the four coverages, but had indeed initialed the line saying "accepted" for something called "SLI." Amex said they could not do anything and would process the $140.

This kind of thing just makes me boil. I was wondering if the counter clerks at these car rental places are paid a commission of any kind of they get people to accept damage waiver insurance. This guy absolutely knew that I did not want ANY coverage of ANY kind, yet he slipped one in and I got stuck with it.

I have rented cars from Budget for over 20 years and have NEVER taken the insurance. Isn't there someone at Budget who would be able to understand that they will loose thousands of dollars in future business by not being a responsible corporation and correcting a mistake which is so obvious?

If anyone reading this has ever had the same problem, I would love to hear from you. Perhaps Budget is doing this on a regular basis and a class action suit is in order. In a Google search of Budget Rent A Car I must have found hundreds of lawsuits against them for a variety of issues.

Mike in Phoenix

Comment On This

this company is still getting by with this scam; it happened to me 2 days ago at the Dulles airport; almost word for word as this complaint; i would like to pursue criminal charges against the agent and the company for credit card fraud; i can't believe your credit card company was of no help; maybe if you show them that Budget is still using this scam, they will be more helpful