Fortunately, you kept excellent records. You had proof of your final payment and of the discount. Ha

A couple weeks ago I received a voicemail saying the Budget at the Kansas City airport would be charging me an extra $104 because an internal audit found they gave me too much of a discount. My receipt shows the $85 discount, celebrity cruises our fleet which seemed right since there was an advertised discount.
So, they billed my credit card without my authorization, and then added in all the additional taxes and fees to bring the amount up to $104. I called Budget celebrity cruises our fleet corporate celebrity cruises our fleet and the franchise, but nobody would help fix the issue, even though I had a receipt to prove we agreed on the lesser amount.
I rent from Budget weekly, easily spending anywhere from $1,000 to $1,500 a month on their cars. The franchise doesn t share information with the corporate office, so corporate is pretty much useless on the issue. Since there does not appear to be anything stopping them from charging customer credit cards at will, I refuse to ever do business with them again. Any advice? Brandon Chase , Columbus, Ohio
Answer : Some of the most hotly-debated cases I mediate are pricing errors a fare or rate where a decimal point went astray but I d never come across a complaint where a discount had been withdrawn after a trip. (Although we had something similar to this yesterday .)
The Budget franchise in Kansas City should have caught any discounting error before your transaction, or at the very least, when you checked out. But leaving celebrity cruises our fleet a voicemail celebrity cruises our fleet weeks after your rental is highly unusual. It s probably also illegal: Budget had a contract with you, which its retroactive re-billing breached, the way I see it.
I don t understand why Budget corporate couldn t help you. Isn t that what the corporate office is for? By the way, who cares if Kansas City is a franchise location? Budget s corporate structure is irrelevant to a customer, and the company shouldn t use it as an excuse. Cheap hotel chains often do this, too, and you can t let them get away with it.
Fortunately, you kept excellent records. You had proof of your final payment celebrity cruises our fleet and of the discount. Had you tossed your receipt (which some customers do) this might have been a more difficult negotiation.
A simple call to the credit card issuer should celebrity cruises our fleet have fixed this up quickly. Customer had the receipt so Budget had absolutely no leg to stand on. This is the typical scenario celebrity cruises our fleet we like to throw around a lot about fat-finger discounts where a merchant comes running after you after you left the store with the merchandise. No way they are going to be able to collect unless you voluntarily give them the money.
How incredibly stupid can a company be? Even if they really felt they were owed the money, did anyone stop to check how much they were shearing this guy for every year? And consider how many people he d tell about getting celebrity cruises our fleet treated like this? (Obvious answer: no.) But I GUARANTEE you the CEO gets some kind of daily dashboard celebrity cruises our fleet of sales leads in the funnel .
Suddenly, following voting, an ad pops up almost obscuring the results. And the ad? Was by Budget. I wonder if there is something you can do, Chris. Do you have that sort of control? I m sure that was merely an invasion and Budget didn t pay anything for that annoying popup.
I have never heard of such a thing! What lousy customer service. To all Budget or Dollar execs who may read your post: We rented a car not too long ago, my husband was researching and I asked him to please not even look at your companies because of your reputation for being sneaky, illegal practices and bad customer service . I m sure we re not the only ones who avoid Budget and Dollar. These companies don t seem to be run very well, do they? Whoever thinks it s a good idea to scam their customers shouldn t wonder why business is slow . Money talks, we ll take ours elsewhere, thank you!
This is like somebody going on a cruise, coming back without glitches, then 3 weeks later call Carnival or Holland America and say they want 40% back because they misantecipated the casino and beverage costs.
Why is it that people go whining to a third party for help without going through the proper channels first? This could have easily gone through the credit card dispute process after his attempt to rectify through the vendor failed.
I had a hotel recently charge me after disregarding a cancellation of a reservation which they never formally accepted. (Yes, I requested a reservation at a hotel who never responded to the request, and never responded to my request for withdrawal of the request due to lack of response. A Cape Cod motel.) My credit card company (CHASE) dithered about it for THREE MONTHS, even though my email trail was strong. So I don t have any faith that the credit card company would do anything.
I m using Chrome with the AdBlock celebrity cruises our fleet extension (thanks TonyA!) on both of my computers. The computer where I disabled celebrity cruises our fleet Java acts funny on Chrome (screen constantly flickers and shows that it s updating); the one computer where Java is altogether uninstalled works fine. This has been going on all week and is a new phenomenon to this site. Wonder if this have to do with the Java 7 update that just came out? Just throwing it out there.
Once you return the rental car, and the company takes it back and acknowledges its existing condition, that should be case closed. No charging you for discounts it wasn t supposed to offer you. Internal audits can prevent that kind of thing in the future, but should not affect past business.
celebrity cruises our fleet One word explains your problem CHASE. I ve had a Costco American Express card for years, and asked them for help three times. All three times, they stepped up immediately, went to war on my behalf and won! A hundred bucks a year gets me that, a Costco celebrity cruises our fleet membership, and cash back ($420.92 this year). Gotta love it. :-)
I think I was more than a little stunned when I read this one. Just so I know I ve got it right, the OP rented a car from Budget. The OP used said car, returned it, signed a credit card receipt and then returned home. A couple/three weeks later Budget leaves him a voicemail they under charged him and THEN runs his credit card for an ADDITIONAL $104? Whew! That s quite a problem
I m declaring shenanigans on this one against Budget. I can t even imagine how they thought this would be okay and I have to wonder how many people celebrity cruises our fleet they ve done this to who DIDN T contact Chris? Hundreds? Thousands?
Budget fails in both. There is no proof provided that the discount was a mistake. And, unilaterally charging the credit card of a customer for a pricing change weeks after he returns the car is so bizarre. If the did not like the rate he got, they should have cancelled his reservation.
I would have given the franchise a single chance to see the error of their ways, and then disputed the charge on the credit card. Only the most stupid and tone-deaf bank would have sided with the business for such a stupid charge.
I once rented a budget moving truck from a convenient location a few blocks celebrity cruises our fleet from my home in downtown Manhattan (Tribeca area) on Dec. 31 (had to move out by Jan 1.) I was surprised to find that location on Budget website map, phone number, hours, everything! because living relatively celebrity cruises our fleet close, I ve never noticed it. But Manhattan can easily be that way some parking garage can have a car rental in the middle of the busiest celebrity cruises our fleet block and you d never notice.
When I went to pick up my truck, I could not the address anywhere. There was a gap, a fenced empty lot where the address would fall. I spent an hour running around asking every business in the vicinity if they ve ever seen Budget rental there. Nothing. I kept calling the phone number but getting celebrity cruises our fleet busy signal followed by a message that all agents are busy helping other customers. I called corporate office, which was COMPLETELY unhelpful simply telling me the location must be there, celebrity cruises our fleet must be busy, and if I can t find it, they can t help me there are no trucks available anywhere in the vicinity.
I ended up renting guys with the truck and paying several times the amount out of my pocket, and disputed the charge with Budget through my credit card. I found out that this location NEVER existed, the fenced lot at that address used to be a residential building raised years ago for a new construction that never took place. I wrote letters of complaint to the corporate office, asking for reimbursement of the difference in fees for my replacement truck rental. It was met with complete silence, and a few weeks into January the location was removed from Budget website search database, even though the location specific link still worked, a few weeks after that it too stopped working, of course.
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