Never, EVER rent from the Thriftys/Dollar outlet on Parliament and Queen. Our near-flawless trip to Montreal/Vermont was marred by the inept staff at this outlet. Hear our tale of woe:
SharkBoy went online a few weeks before Easter weekend and reserved a “Full Sized” car and was told it would be ready by 5pm. Of course these chuckleheads think those simple reservation facts actually mean “the less-than-full size Camry will be pushed upon you (“This is all we have sir!”) somewhere around 5:30pm, dirty and without keys”.
We’re always renting a larger car for the transporting of in-laws and their luggage across Quebec into Vermont and have as of yet, never gotten exactly what we asked for when reserving online, at any outlet or rental company. So the swapped out car really was no surprise. The late arrival of this car, coupled with the conditions it came in was unacceptable, though.
To start, the new car had a new keyless ignition and the staff gave no instruction as to how to start the car. In fact, the dickfuckwad attendant took the key with him after he hastily “cleaned” the outside of the car. SharkBoy was shown the car and he had a brief conversation with the assmunch attendant about how the license plate of the rental car (from Nova Scotia) may get the border crossing guards in a snit when we tried to enter Vermont (it did, but thankfully not to the point of having to stop and get out). SharkBoy was assured it would be alright and was ok’d to leave. When he turned off the car at home, he couldn’t restart it or close the windows. No “key”! An angry phone call to Thrifty/Dollar was made and SharkBoy was told to come back to the office to get the key. Huh? After some REAL SLOW TALKING he was able to get them to realize they still had the key and he could not start the car again. Well that was his fault, according to them – he didn’t take it! So some poor car jockey had to come to our house and take the brunt of SharkBoy’s anger: This car is dirty. You forgot to give me the key. I have no clue how to start this car. You better tell your manager I’m really pissed. Etc.
The poor kid’s response? “Could you go easy? It’s after 6pm and I have to go home!”
Yeah. Kids today.
Further investigation of the car found that the previous renters left garbage in the trunk and used the cup holders in the back seat as an ashtray (yes the car smelled like a seedy dockside bar from the 70s). There’s more to this tale of incompetent woe, but just know that no one in that office would take responsibility for the conditions of the car, or their actions. When we returned it, the outlet manager gave us one day off the price (wooopie.) and hoped that we would rent from them again.
We said no. Never. You should too until someone teaches those tacofucks some customer service theory.
6 thoughts on “Rent A Pain In The Ass”
I feel your pain
A few years ago I was hit by a Flatbed truck on HWY 404 and my car was totalled. Luckily I wasn’t.
My insurance company sent me to your friends. Under the terms of my insurance I was supposed to get a “compact” car or whatever is essentially the middle tier. I was offered a Hyundai Accent. Now I actually prefer small cars, I have nothing against fine Korean craftsmanship and it was nly going to be for a few days but the fact is I have a small problem with the Accent: I cannot sit upright in it. I am not overly tall but all my height is above the waist, so among the things i am aware of is a car that forces me to crouch down or tilt my head in order to drive.
However this was mooted when he informed me my driver’s license was expired and they could not rent to me. I was dumbstruck as it would have had to be more than 6 months gone, and I just can’t imagine having let it lapse at all, let alone left it that long. He said I would have to get it renewed before they could give me a car. Perhaps still dazed by my high speed crash I dutifully trudged off to the nearest licensing office: Victoria and Adelaide to renew my expired license. After about a 1 mile walk in lovely winter weather and then waiting in line for about 20 minutes in the driver licensing office I was informed that my license was not expired. The hammerhead at Thrifty Rental Car had inverted the year and month in reading my license. I have nothing against dyslexics but perhaps they shouldn’t be left unsupervised in reading contract details.
The good news? By the time I got back from my hour of time wasting, they had a bigger car for me.
The bad news? It was a Pontiac Sunfire
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The Enterprise on Eastern – just around the corner from the old 18 East – is great and they have good cars in new condition.
I knew his comments would be: “Next time you rent with us, we’ll give you blah blah blah”… I interrupted him so fast and said I’d never rent there again. I guess it’s back to Avis, further away, but a tad more reliable in cleanliness.
madame, have you driven a hybrid? I can’t recommend it enough. Literally cut our weekend gas bill by 1/3rd.
Phronk: Vermont hates nobody. They love teh gays
Does Vermont hate Nova Scotia or something?
a seedy dockside bar from the 70s – That’s hot. Like The Blue Oyster.
Thank you for this post. The nightmare of holiday weekend car rental (sorry about that, btw) is one of the reasons I own a car.