Alamo Car Rental Reviews

Pointed out that the Dodge Charger was a rear wheel drive vehicle not noted for having good visibility out the rear and has a 37-foot turning radius versus the Ford Fusion having front wheel drive, good rear visibility, and an 18' turning radius. Did not feel for my situation that the vehicles were similar. Also complimented them on the Chevrolet Traverse which is AWD, bad rear window visibility, great side view mirror and backup camera but a 40' turning radius. Not a bad vehicle but not great for what I was doing and something I would not have chosen to rent. I also told them if the Dodge Charger was the vehicle listed as the one I would be given for the class I chose I would not have chosen that contract. When you look at the site for Alamo and a few others they do not list what they include in a class but only give one example.

Camden ** has told me they are going to refund the upcharge for the larger vehicle and refund me the fuel fill option so I could return it with any amount of fuel. I still plan on returning the vehicle fully. I just want what I reserved and nothing more. I retract my statement that I would not rent from Alamo. I will still consider them in Portland Maine. It is a shame they do not have the option of skipping the counter in Portland Maine and going to straight to your car. I appreciate Camden's help.

Original Review: Aug. 28, 2016

I have rented from Alamo twice to my recollection and both have not been pleasant experiences. I will not be making the same mistake again. I rented a few years back in Denver, Colorado. I had made a reservation weeks prior to arrival. While standing in line I noticed that it was taking a long time to process the customers and as I got closer the reason for lengthy time was their upselling the customer from insurance to getting the fuel tank fill option to a different vehicle to additional features such as a GPS or child seat. Since I was aware of this when I reached the employee I was brow beaten on each item. "Would you like to buy our insurance?" I was ready for this... I had called my carrier and they had gone over my vehicle insurance and was told I was covered just like my own car. "No, I do not want to buy additional insurance." They brow beat on this for a bit and moved on to the next item.

"Do you want to upgrade?" Here they got me... we were driving into the mountains and they convinced me the car I was renting would not do well in the mountains. I bit and upgraded to a vehicle with a larger engine. Then they got me to purchase the fuel refill. When I went to return the vehicle I looked at the final bill and it was much higher than they told me at the counter. I fortunately had the time to stand my ground and wait for a manager. My up charge went from $400 to $280. I thought job well done on my part but also realized that everything they sold me was not necessary. The vehicle I had originally rented was the same one I saw all over the place driving up the mountain. No need for a larger engine. The hard to find gas prior to returning the car would have been easily solved at the huge gas station right before the airport entrance. I thought... I will not rent from these people again.

Fast forward several years and the fog of time. I had made a reservation through Hotwire a couple of weeks prior to arriving in Portland Maine. We had gotten up at 4 AM to catch our flight and everything went smoothly until we reached the line for rental cars. It was HUGE... like THANKSGIVING huge on a Friday arrival with no major holiday. In all fairness all the lines for all the rental cars were just as long. I stood in line for over an hour... feeling bad... then looking behind me at the twelve other people and then feeling lucky I was as the spot I was. It was taking forever to get to the counter and when I finally reached the counter every other line for every other rental agency had somehow processed all their customers and my line was still HUGE. When I was next in line I realized and remembered why I should not rent from Alamo. The upselling... they were upselling. This is why the line was so HUGE.

It was my turn... "Would you like to buy our insurance?" NO. Then "Are you sure you know what you are doing? Why something could happen and they would take your first born child..." I do like my first born but not the second so I figured if it came to that I would hand that child off and lie bout the birth order. Wanting to throw a carrot to the agent I said, "I will take the fuel option" hoping that they would be happy with this and they were. Then they told me the Ford Fusion was not available and the only choice was a Dodge Charger. I had rented the Dodge Charger from another rental agency and hated it... rear wheel drive which caused problems when driving on wet roads, hard to see out of the back due to the roof design and a terrible turning radius. This coming from a guy who would drive anything but hated the week I had the Dodge Charger. I know why they are in the rental fleet. NO ONE WILL BUY THEM.

Here I am thinking that once again I am stuck in a Dodge Charger and it is raining to beat the band. I grit my teeth... "Do you have anything else?" I ended up paying another $140 to upgrade to an SUV. Now mind you that is not an unfair deal. However... it is not what I had reserved weeks prior. My 4 AM brain took over as I signed over another $140 to rent a vehicle I would have never chosen... except under duress. I could have gone to other rental agencies but I saw a number of people who had not made a reservation be rejected because the other rental companies could not accommodate them. They were now behind me in an even more HUGE line that had twenty people. The SUV I was offered was nice but it is too big... hard to get out of the driveway of where we are staying (which is a narrow drive) and the vehicle has a poor turning radius.

Well I will not rent from Alamo again and neither should you. Cannot return the vehicle to the airport to try and swap out to the Ford Fusion I thought I was getting because where we are staying is four hours from the airport. I saved $13 on the weeks rental over the other agencies. So I guess I am only down $127 for a vehicle I did not want. Note the rental agency was selected through Kayak which showed HOTWIRE with the best pricing. Final Note: When I think back on this experience I felt mislead. Did all the people behind me not have a reservations? Because if they did their choices were a Dodge Charger or something larger. The agent never offered a smaller vehicle over the full size we had reserved.

I have been looking for the past 2 weeks and cannot find a cheaper rate. So I decided I would book with Alamo at that $430 rate knowing I would get an additional 5% off for Insiders. So I tried to book it and it wasn't taking off the 5%. I emailed once again and they said there was an issue and they are working on it for me. Still haven't heard back and now the rental is up to $457. What a bunch of bs this is.

I called Priceline and was told they would straighten it out. I called Alamo and was told it was a mistake and the amount would be returned in 3 business days. Ten dates later, it hasn't been returned, and no one at Alamo or Priceline can tell me what the charge was for or why it was charged when I returned the car. I called Priceline today and was yelled at by the woman who took the call. I was told that if they charged me, I owed the money and had better pay it. The one bright spot was that when one of the workers at the car return saw us struggling with luggage and medical devices and told us to wait as he would take us to the terminal. He did so and helped us with the luggage.

The second issue is with the cleanliness of there cars. I didn't notice how gross the interior when I got the car as my flight was late and I was tired. Today I returned the car that had stains all on the inside. Gross!! I can't have business colleagues in that category. I did inform them of this on return. Also there were no mats.

I explained this to the counter person who was rude and basically blew me off saying that was what I had agreed to. She had no answer when I asked why they didn't specify that trucks were included in the promotion. I told them I could not use a truck, that I needed a car. She said I could have a car but it would cost me $89 more. I said no and asked for a refund on my already charged credit card. I was told I'd have to take that up with corporate.

She refused to let me speak with a supervisor, and then said she could give me a car for $49 more. She again had no answer when I said "if you have the car to give me at a higher price, why can't you give it to me at the price I contracted for." I took the car because I had to leave and didn't want to pay for the car twice and then have to deal with the hassle of trying to get a refund later. The rental ended up costing me $400 for a week, the same amount as my flight from Florida to Boston. I looked up what that rental would cost me for this week (2 days after my week ended) and it was $223. How can a week make that much difference?

When I went to pick up the car, the agent in the garage had no idea what the counter person did. He didn't even know what car to give me. He eventually said "oh, just take that car over there," which was a Chrysler 200. The car was filthy, the seats were all stained, I had to stop the car to clean the inside of the windshield because it had horrible glare because it was so dirty, and there were papers on the floor. This car had obviously never been cleaned when it was last returned. I will never rent from Alamo again! You shouldn't either.

When approaching this new upgrade the car I had been convinced to upgrade to was parked next to the car I was now being offered! In the event I took the complimentary upgrade and went to exit the garage. Driving round to the exit I noticed the model of car I had pre-booked. It was a Dodge Grand Caravan (think Ford Galaxy on a few steroids) which is amply big enough for a family of 4. However I was in a rush to collect the keys to the villa so left the garage and drove to pick up the keys and on to the villa. In the morning I went back to Orlando airport and downgraded to the car I had pre-booked. The guys in the garage could not have been more helpful and they refunded my $350 that I had paid for the upgrade.

At that point a new invoice was provided which explained I could return the car empty and it was covered by the "fuel service option". First thing... you don't need this and it will be cheaper for you to refuel before returning the car (it will be cheaper). On returning home I checked my credit card bill and found a charge of $221 rather than the $66 I was expecting. I then phoned Alamo and explained that at no time was I told the sat nav would be an extra cost (I was expecting this for free as Alamo couldn't offer me a car with a built in sat nav). To be fair Alamo did, eventually, return this money to my credit card but I just feel as if they were trying it on every time you interacted with them.

I certainly wished I had found this site and checked up on Alamo before flying. This is the first review I have ever left in over 50 years of holidaying and hope it allows others to look out for some of the tricks Alamo try and pull when you pick up a car from them.

UPDATED ON 08/12/2016: Quick update from my last review. Checked my credit card bill today and found I had been charged $34.30 for tolls whilst in the USA. When I took the car I was told that it was a maximum of $19.75 for the duration of the rental and I have one of Alamo's flyers confirming this. I have been in contact with Alamo again... Watch this space!

I want you to investigate on this immediately and take action asap to avoid further legal action against the company. I want all the video recordings and I will gather all evidences as well and put an end to this SCAM. Send me a reference number immediately for this case. Let me know if you need further information. You will be on social media as well as the news for this SCAM soon and all your associates are liable for this fraud. TAKE ACTION IMMEDIATELY!

I was a little confused as I thought we had paid for an SUV a jeep big enough for two adults and two children plus our four cases. When I questioned him on this he confirmed this was not the case and I needed to follow his advice. It seemed like he was really helping us out. A little dazed from the whole encounter and tired from the flight I pondered all of this over on the drive to the Mystic Dunes Resort. 600.00 dollars gone for the upgrade from our holiday spending money. It continued to play on my mind so I wrote to Abbie our very helpful Kenwood member of staff to ask for some advice and also for confirmation on the car we had booked. I was horrified when she wrote and confirmed I had booked and paid additional for a SUV jeep described by Alamo in their literature as a "Grand Cherokee" when I had booked the holiday 8 months earlier.

We are now taking this up with Kenwood Travel and Alamo Car Rental. I saw when writing this review (the first review of this nature I have ever written) that Alamo received an overall rating of just over 1 out of 5 from 572 reviews. I am not surprised. Please please be very careful when dealing with this company and don't allow them to do to you what they did to us. I have also written to trading standards in the UK on the basis of their mis-selling behavior and a lack of corporate integrity and professionalism. We may well end up having to chalk this one down to experience but that won't prohibit us from sharing our experience with as many people as possible to save anybody else being exposed to the same thing.

Then she proceeded to tell us that they are booked up anyway and that we can go to Avis or Budget because they may have cars available, which we did and the customer service there at Budget couldn't be any better or more professional and we were able to get an upgrade to the car we had originally booked from Alamo at no additional cost. Plus Budget car rental could not believe that this woman her name is Kylie would not let us change the number of days to our reservation, this is not standard practice in the industry. So Alamo lost a sale that day and her rudeness and total disrespect to her customers, treating us like we were a piece of ** is disturbing, then we found out that she was the manager of this car rental place. Not good, not good at all. I mean she does not smile to greet people, makes no eye contact, and absolutely unpleasant.

They walked me out to the lot and said "take your pick..." 60 cars in the area I paid for and the keys were inside already, I checked out at the gate and I was off. On the way back I was so scared of hidden charges. I filled up the tank before I showed up, they have valets pick up the car as soon as you get back on the lot. They quickly inspected the car and handed me a final receipt for the original 42 dollars I paid in taxes previously. Completely blew my mind how painless and cheap it was. $146 dollars for a week unlimited miles, and 42 dollars in surcharges, no deposit, no hidden fees... I honestly am totally in awe of the Orlando sanford airport Alamo staff, bravo! If you seriously believe that every good review here is fake, you can feel free to search for me on Facebook, I'll gladly reassure you... Cheers. :)

So, Alamo the company earns a few stars, Alamo at Chicago Ohare airport, not so much.

Original Review: July 19, 2016

Why are people jerks for some short-term minor gain? The rental agent lied to me. He said I could not pay cash on Illinois toll roads but you can. You can even pay online after the fact. After I returned the car they added almost $10 to my bill for gas fillup even though I filled up the tank a mile from the airport.

I sent the mail and a picture and the information on us and our rental. No response until a few days later saying. Well, thanks for renting but we did not find your GPS??? So what that is basically saying is either they have thieves or they didn't believe us or they did not even bother to check. And this is not the first time. This time the item was more expensive. Why bother contacting Lost and Found if nothing is even being put there. Sorry but I am just upset that after being nice I get a piece of garbage response after days saying thanks but 'see ya later'.

What happens if the car rents tomorrow? I just feel there should have already been a phone call to me letting me know that they have our items. I would think they would have cleaned the truck some time today since we turned it in at 12:30 this afternoon. I am very concerned about this and would like for someone to call us and let us know that they have our items. I know for a fact that our items were left in that truck on accident. I want to be able to communicate to someone at the Omaha Alamo location about this ASAP.

The truck is still there. It's as simple as walking out and getting our items out of the truck and turning them in to lost and found. I will pay for any shipping costs to have my items sent to us. The truck rental was under my husband's name, Scott South. If anyone can help with this, I would appreciate it very much. As far as any help given to me by Alamo in regards to this... it's pretty much none. I just cannot believe that you cannot get a hold of the people at the Alamo Counter in Omaha Airport. That part is disturbing to me. Somebody please help me get my items back.

I will not do business with Alamo again and if I am renting a car it will be directly at the counter and not via an online promotion because they refuse to make changes to online reservations without charging you massive fees to do so. My request was simple: change the drop off location of a rental vehicle. $300 fare increase. A rental car that cost me $300 to rent for the week now costs me $600. "Promotions" are really sneaky and end up costing you more in the long run. Avoid Travelscape promotions and I highly recommend avoiding Alamo and Orbitz also.

I asked, "Where is the Rav4?" She said, "There was no Rav4 and you can only have Chev Equinox so take it or leave it." Later I figured it out why she would not give us the Rav4, because someone just returned a Chev Equinox so she wouldn't even bother to give us another car, the Chev equinox is unwashed so it is very dirty inside and outside, it also has very smell inside. The worse thing was the car has only half tank of gas, but we were told to return the car with full tank. So I have to went inside the building again and ask them to fill the tank. I wasted anther 10 min for that. Because the car was unwashed and it has only half tank of gas, I knew someone just returned it and Alamo just want to get rid of people ASAP. The worst part is about the rude and careless attitude of that female employee, she did not like questions at all!

When I asked her if we can get a Rav4 instead, she pointed at my girlfriend's father and said, "he is the one who rent the car" (She means my name is not even on the list so stop asking question and shut up.) I was here to make her day easier because my girlfriend's father cannot even speak English, but her action was very unprofessional. I understand Alamo is known for its budget price for rental car, but I do not think any business can treat people with such an awful service. Alamo, you just lost a consumer forever, and I will tell everybody I know about this, so they may think twice about using your service.

Update: After I wrote a complaint letter to this business and they wrote back, they said would be more than happy to discuss this situation with the renter’s daughter and they would get in touch with renter’s daughter directly. However, 14 days passed, NO ONE called or email us about this. SHAME on you Alamo, you are such a liar!

When I called them I got all kinds of lip service and concern, but when push comes to shove they have not done anything tangible to show that they are sorry for A) renting us a defective car that could have blinded my child and B) keeping a car on their fleet that has a poorly designed trunk (when opened fully the tip of the trunk is less than an inch from the back glass). I have paid your replacement cost. I hope that having me pay the $300 replacement is worth how I am going to share this experience with others in hopes that they will reconsider doing business with you. I am sincerely disappointed that all you care about is money and you could not show that you are sorry by taking action to make this right.

Well, long story short, Hotwire charged me 74.99 per day and then Alamo charged me an extra $79.99 per day. This was back on March 21st 2016. Numerous calls and a reference number later I am still waiting for someone to step up and fix this. Very frustrating trying to deal with Alamo customer service. I was even hung up on once. No one returns calls and I feel like I am just rehashing the story for new ears each time I call. Yesterday, I took it a step further and opened a BBB complaint and will update this message when there is new information. I would never recommend Alamo to anyone. The upgrade is a money making/commission based sales scam.

I know that they charge an arm and a leg for the smallest damage which is ridiculously high. Word of ADVICE, always take a video/pictures of the car before leaving the lot. If you find any dents/damage "That was NOT DOCUMENTED BY ALAMO" report it immediately. Wish I would of taken a picture of that dent before leaving the rental lot and would of had proof against their accusation. They should have half a start as a review option for Alamo.

Several weeks later I received an estimate of repairs for $893.07. Of this estimate $259.25 was for admin. fees, loss of use, diminishment of value and taxes. No invoice for the actual repair work was ever submitted. Despite my repeated correspondence disputing their claim, Alamo continues to send form letters demanding payment. The phone number listed on their letterhead has been called several times but has never been answered. There are many rental car companies at the Honolulu International Airport. Based on my experience and the unsatisfactory and unprofessional response of Alamo I would recommend that any of them would probably be an improvement over Alamo.

Thank God the person working next door for Thrifty offer me a mid-size, brand-new 2016 Volkswagen for a little more money without GPS, because it was a last minute rental. I was at least grateful that person help to resolve my problem because Alamo was not interested in helping me. I was very disappointed but I guaranteed I WILL NEVER rent from Alamo again, as they are not reliable. DO NOT RENT FROM THIS PLACE. THEY ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE NOR RELIABLE!

Nearly 3 months later, and numerous e-mails to the company, I still cannot get my refund back. I have tried phoning them but this is a joke. The desk at Cork Airport has not got a number for them and the number on the website does not exist. I am now considering taking legal action as I have been charged for a service I did not receive. I am really annoyed and I would entreat anyone, thinking of using this website, not to. It is nothing short of fraud.

Original Review: May 10, 2016

On 27 April, I rented a car from Milano Malpensa from Alamo Car Rental working through Locauto Rent. The car had a few scratches, including one on the tyre but when I highlighted them, the agent said that "We do not write them." On 2 May, I returned the car back in exactly the same condition which I took it, but was shocked to find the agent objecting to a scratch in the tyre! Please note that the tyre was inflated, the alloy rim had no dents, and this was the exact condition in which I received the car. I settled my balance of 26 Euros and left. Then 2 days later was shocked to find that I was charged 418 Euros extra for damages!!

This car rental company frauds customers from their money because I pointed out the scratches to the agent on taking the car and he said they were not important as long as the tyre was inflated. There was absolutely no dents in the alloy rim, to charge me for replacing it! The tyre was inflated and intact, and there was nothing wrong with it. Please find attached the pictures of the car to prove that the tyre was inflated and alloy rim was not dented.

The customer service agent who dealt with my complaint was to say the least rude and unprofessional. She kept repeating herself again and again, and finally stopped responding to my emails!!! My dispute No ** has not been resolved. Because of the outrageous service, I sought legal advice. It is terrible that such a company should fraud customers out of their money, and play with their credit cards, and deny liability when every shred of evidence confirms that. Thank you.

Updated on 05/13/2016: I wrote a review about my car rental, and got a response from the company, requiring that I send them a detailed email to care@alamo.com, quoting this reference number. I did that repeatedly, but every time I get this feedback: "Your message was not received. The email address you are using does not match the email address on the original request. In an effort to protect customer information, responses must be received from the same email address originally used to contact us. Please respond using the email address from your initial inquiry and we will be happy to assist you." Please note that I AM USING THE SAME EMAIL IN MY RESERVATION, COMPLAINT AND ALL CORRESPONDENCE. Why is the system refusing to accept it although I sent it 10 times? Please resolve this issue.

Finally had someone call me back but they still could not help. The lady explained to me that because the contract period was closed they could not correct the name on the agreement. I asked her if she could provide me with a receipt since I had paid for the car under my credit card and she said "no". I find this horrible customer service. That they cannot fix a name on an account of someone that just rented a 20,000.00 vehicle, even if it is after the manner. Wouldn't you want this corrected for liability reasons? So here I am with a credit card statement that shows I rented a vehicle but no contract from Alamo that states my name ever rented a vehicle.

Original Review: May 9, 2016

We have rented from Alamo several times over the past few years. The duration has been anywhere from 3 to 5 weeks. They are fairly high priced, but comparable with other companies and the service has been pretty good. We always rent the Jeep Wrangler and they are usually in pretty good shape, although kind of run down due to being a rental vehicle. In March 2016, we rented from the Kahului Airport on Maui. They encourage you to pick out the vehicle you want, which is nice as we like to pick out the cleanest one. We picked out a Jeep Wrangler, 4 door and checked it out fairly well to ensure it was clean and there were no dents, etc.

When we got it loaded and pulled up to the check out counter, the attendant said we should pick out a different one as that one was due for repairs. So, we parked it and unloaded and went to look for another. Another attendant drove up in the same type of vehicle and said he had checked it out and it was good to go. So, we loaded it and headed off. During our stay, we noticed a dent in the bumper, but we were not too concerned as we didn't cause it and it looked old.

When we returned the Jeep 5 weeks later, they did their vehicle check and noticed the dent in the front bumper. We advised them we hadn't been in an accident and the dent was likely old. We always leave their vehicles in better shape than when we pick them up as we wash it several times while using it and clean out the inside. So, we were quite shocked they were going to blame this dent on us. An attendant took our insurance information and said someone would be in touch with us in about a week.

A month later, we received 2 notices in the mail indicating we should contact our insurance company to start the claims process. Well, we have no way of proving that dent was there as the attendant brought the vehicle to us and said it was inspected already and ready to drive. Also, we did not get in an accident, although someone could have ran into the Jeep in a parking lot while it was under our care. For the amount they charge for the vehicle rental (which was almost as much as we paid for the condo for 5 weeks), they should take into consideration customer loyalty and give their better customers a break when it comes to something minor like this where they have no proof of determining fault. We will definitely consider renting from a different agency in the future.

If that were the case, why have a procedure to return the items to a Lost and Found Department? They should clearly publish their policy as follows: "We reserve the right to keep your property if you leave it in our vehicle". I contacted them numerous times and gave them ample opportunity to do what was right and compensate me for the sunglasses. Clearly they have put profits above honesty and integrity. They obviously do not hold their employees responsible for following procedures and couldn't care any less about the customer. I would highly discourage anyone from using Alamo Rental Car or any company associated with them (Thrifty and Enterprise). I hope this helps you to avoid a similar situation. I have made it my mission to do whatever it takes to convince any consumer not to patronize such a dishonest, unethical, and irresponsible company.

The next day I received a hostile phone call from someone at PurCo, in Utah, wanting to know about "the event that caused the damage to the vehicle." I was confused, because there had been no event and the vehicle was on record as already being damaged when I picked it up. I was informed that a letter about the initiation of a claim would be forthcoming. I solicited the help of my daughter, who lives in the town in Montana where this took place. In phone calls and a personal visit on her part to the Alamo lot and rental car counter at the airport, we consistently were told: "No one at Alamo is able or willing to discuss this with you or to look at the vehicle together because it's all been referred to PurCo. Our company policy now prevents us from talking to you about it."

When the claim packet arrived it contained photos that purported to show a small, shallow dent near the ground between the wheel well and the back door on the passenger side. The spot was circled in red, but is not actually visible on the print versions of the photos that I received. I am now in the following situation: although I did nothing to cause any damage, my car insurance company has paid the damage claim, less the deductible. IF I had been given a car in the category I had originally reserved, my credit card company would be paying the deductible, the loss of use, and the administrative fee. However, since Alamo issued me a truck, my credit card company will not cover the "gap" costs.

I feel I have been completely duped by Alamo, as the company has apparently taken advantage of my age, my gender, my flight schedule, and/or my insurance company, to advance a claim that would help to pay for a previously damaged vehicle. The claim appears to be an attempt to get money from me to repair existing damages that had previously been unaddressed and/or damage that was sustained after I returned the car to the lot and the keys to the counter. I used Alamo's website to convey this feedback and was promised that further communication would be forthcoming from the local office and/or the regional customer service office.

Eleven days passed with no word and I started receiving letters from PurCo threatening to "escalate" the "matter." I made one final attempt to contact the local agency (in Bozeman) and after several hours the manager called back to justify everything that had happened, accuse me of lying about my daughter seeing the car on the lot when she came by to get information about the claim, blame me for not talking to him sooner (though no one had offered to connect me with the manager when I made initial inquiries), and tell me that I could pursue "mediation" on the loss of use and administrative charges with PurCo. (My insurance agent had already tried that and was declined.)

Here's what I learned: hold fast on not accepting a class of vehicle you did not reserve and don't want to drive; don't accept a damaged vehicle; take a comprehensive and clear set of pictures when returning the vehicle; once a claim is filed against you, do not expect to be treated with courtesy or respect; don't rent from Alamo/National.

I obtained the car at about 2am March 31st and did nothing more than drive it to my parents' house where it stayed parked in their protected driveway for the duration of the visit and then drove straight back to the airport on the day of my return flight. Nothing at all happened to the car! No collisions, no scratches!! The only stop I made was to obtain gas. There were 60 plus mile per hour winds on the drive and at the airport. When I arrived back at the airport I tried to find a close spot to return the car and have it inspected and bring my luggage in without enduring the crazy wind for too long. I parked in the car rental return area in a numbered spot and failed to see a tiny Hertz sign -- but when I went to the counter I was very specific about where I had parked the car and was told it was ok. I went out to get my luggage and was then just given a receipt and told everything was done and to have great flight. Yey!! That was simple right? No!

After 12 plus hours of traveling back to Alaska--getting home at 3am--trying to sleep-- there is a phone call and a message from Debbie ** at Purco Fleet Recovery Service with a snarky tone about where I had parked the car and wanting to know how the damage happened to the left rear side. What?!!! I returned her phone call and stated that nothing had happened to the car when in my possession. She continued to be snarky about where I had parked it as if I was really stupid not to see the tiny Hertz sign. She would not tell me what damage she was talking about and then proceeded to hang up on me after saying I would receive a bill in the mail!! I called Alamo customer service and the person I spoke to seemed disturbed by my experience and assured me my complaint would be sent to higher management and they would contact me.

A week went by with no contact, so I tried again and was given a number to a Bozeman Alamo Manager office but the number did not work. So I have contacted the Montana Attorney General which referred me to their Office of Consumer Protection and I have to file a complaint with them. This means making copies of 20 pages of the ridiculous document with color pictures of a tiny scratch which are not time stamped and mailing this in to the office in Montana. The document contains an estimate from a body paint shop in Missoula Mt, for $519.00, for work that has not even been done according to the shop when I contacted them. The car is NOT at the shop - out of service - as asserted by the documents!!!

And now I am still waiting for that credit to come back to my credit card to get another car from Memphis airport counter. It's now my 2nd day waiting in Memphis with my family. I had booked hotel in Chicago and New York for this visit and I have aboard flight from JFK Airport New York. All of money that I lost is due to problem in Alamo website service and poor authorization release of cancelled funds back to customers credit accounts. What is the compensation or we need to file against the negligence of company?

So I paid $240.99 for $84 car. They are holding my money hostage and essentially robbed me of about $160 dollars that I could have used on my 1st vacation in 4 years. I DO NOT recommend them. Stay as far away as possible. Also National car rental because they are essentially one in the same. I know I never will use them again.

Original Review: March 14, 2016

I returned an Alamo rental to Logan Airport in Boston after a one-week rental. Immediately when I pulled in, an agent said "You have a damaged rear bumper". Yes, there was a tiny ding on the rear bumper, the kind you wouldn't do anything about on your own car even if it was brand new. Since I never hit anything during the week, it was either pre-existing or something that happened while the car was parked. Bad-cop agent told me it would be forwarded to the damage claim department, good-cop told me it was probably nothing, not to worry and told me to go catch my flight. Four weeks later, two letters in the mail. They claimed there had been frame damage in addition to the bumper ding and are charging me $833 for body work. Blurry photos were included, one showing (barely) the ding, the others showing the car in various stages of disassembly at the body shop. As far as I'm concerned, this is a scam. I recommend NEVER renting from Alamo.

I asked how he was going to investigate the matter. He got snippy with me and said "I already said I am going to investigate it and if you can't have a normal conversation, then you have to leave." I responded "Am I allowed to ask you a question to further understand how you will investigate the matter... I mean, are you going to look at the surveillance." Sarcastically he responded "Yeah sure I'll look at the surveillance for you!" So I got pretty upset at this point. "You're a ** idiot." Then I left to my vehicle. Maybe not a smooth move, but I was pretty upset. He followed me out telling me that he would call 9-9-1 for talking to him like that in front of his customers.

I told him that I would call 9-9-1 for belittling a customer like that in front of everyone else. He said "I'm calling the cops for not getting off the premises." I called the cops myself as I was leaving the premises to make sure I had done nothing wrong. They assured me that this is a customer-business issue and that I was okay in this matter as far as not getting into trouble. I'm sure this story was a little entertaining to some, others will disregard it, but perhaps it'll save someone the hassle of dealing with a business like this.

Updated on 4/27/2016: This is my second complaint posted to this site. After first complaint someone named Christopher responded to my post and left a Web address for me to contact. It is not an active Web address. My husband and I have called Alamo 18 times to resolve an issue dating to January. We are assured that one of the two parties at the Las Vegas airport location we need to speak with will call us back. They have never done so. We have filed 5 complaints with Alamo corporate office. No relief. Agent took cash payment when we rented vehicle then used credit card on file to charge amount as well.

It wasn't until I got home and saw the charge on my credit card that they had charged me the full $598 USD over and above the $460 I had already pre-paid. When I tried to contact them to resolve this issue all my voice messages and emails went un-replied. I tried to dispute this charge with my credit card company but they sent me copies of the paperwork I had signed at the airport showing this amount. I tried to explain I thought this was only going to be the difference of the 598 minus the 460 I had already paid but they said they couldn't do anything more to help me. So I am now posting warnings on all the websites I can find to warn others NOT to rent from ALAMO as they are scam artists. I will NEVER, NEVER rent from this car company again!

In addition, they printed a receipt in English, and I discovered everything I had declined had been added to the bill. Roadside assistance, accident coverage (which my CC provides). Everything except tire coverage of course. Which is the one thing they know this car needed. I've rented all over the world and never been scammed like this. It's sad really that they are so blatant about it. Would have been quicker to hop a shuttle then wait for their slow process, and then for them to rip me off like that. Yes, I know, I should have learned Spanish before renting a car. But then again, probably the twentieth country I have rented in, only place I've had a problem.

Now, also keep in mind that there is no other customer there because of the terrible weather. It's a damn blizzard out there. So the ** says the 4-wheel drive GMC it's not clean and he can't give that to me. I said, "I don't care if it's not clean. I wanted because it's safer for my family." He said, "No," then I said, "Ok, then refund my money back. I don't want anything else." The other guy says if I gave him $40, he would give me the 4-wheel drive behind the managers back, the same suv that the manager won't give to me.

It's the worst experience I ever had in a rental car company. I will make sure and do everything I can to tell as many people that if they turn a customer on a day like that down, they shouldn't be in business. Shame on them. So I walked down the street and rented from the Dollar Rent a Car and they were terrific. Loved the people and service. Very helpful. They even gave me a better deal when I told them what just happened to me with Alamo.

On the date I originally reserved the car, I was contacted by Alamo and told that they now considered my reservation as a "no-show" because I had not canceled it. Really, after all my calls? I contacted them once again and pointed out the numerous times I had called and that call was somehow disconnected. I also contacted Hotwire again and they continued to take the position that Alamo had to refund the money since the money originally went to them.

After all of my calls to Alamo, and after being told by my own credit card company that I was now too late to dispute the charge, I called Hotwire again on 1/4/16 and they put me on hold and called Alamo. I was told that Alamo had now processed my refund request but it will take another 2 billing cycles (months) to get the refund and I was given another case ID #.

It has now been 5 months since I cancelled my reservation and I am still out the $519.56 and paying interest on it on my credit card. I have to wait until at least March to receive my refund IF in fact, it has been processed. I have been told numerous times that my refund was coming and yet I have received nothing. This type of treatment seems unfair and unethical. I am still waiting

In replacing the damaged car (without reducing the price) they gave a much smaller car, considering there were 4 children and 2 adults, that created an uncomfortable situation. Alamo (OLECRAM S.A) Uruguay billed the renter (myself) for the damages!!! As if the renter was at fault. See the first paragraph above that a renter assumes a certain level of maintenance on the vehicle. 1850$, so how could Alamo (OLECRAM S.A) Uruguay have the audacity to bill me for?

Considering the potential for injury or worse caused by the negligence of Alamo (OLECRAM S.A) Uruguay, I'm well within my rights to seek some sort of monetary compensation for the inconvenience and potential danger my young family was confronted with. Had the unthinkable happened, Alamo (OLECRAM S.A) Uruguay would have faced a whole lot more of expense and aggravation. So a request for modest compensation for the travail of this rental is certainly within the bounds of appropriateness.

This was mid December and still no information from them. Then I get my credit card bill and they had automatically added $500 to my charge without ever telling me! Now questioning it they say that it was for my deductible to cover the damages!!! I was never told anything about this! I have been on the phone for over an hour with their customer service and the local office... trying to figure this out... and they all give different information!!! I have never experienced something like this before!!! I was never told or consented to this charge, clearly being told multiple times that I would be billed later, after the assessment was done. (My credit card and insurance if necessary will cover the damages, so there was no need to be charged up front on my card without telling me!!!). In my opinion this is FRAUD!

When I talked to Jessica at the Reno Alamo...I was told that Alamo does not guarantee an all wheel drive car for rent. Her snippy reply was.."you are free to put on chains on the car." Which she repeated twice to me. Instead of lying at the Reno Alamo when I asked if it was all wheel drive, why couldn't they be honest? If they had told me it was only two wheel drive I would have either requested an all wheel drive or gone to another car rental agency. When I asked, they should have said "no, it is a 2 wheel drive vehicle." I will never rent from Alamo again.

I scheduled to pick-up the vehicle at 6 pm, and I arrived at 5:30 pm to ensure a smooth process, since I was aware of Alamo policy stating that any changes or later pick up/drop off time would accrue additional charges. At 5:34 pm I was assisted by rental agent, Tara **, who confirmed my reservation. When I asked her to confirm if my vehicle had all-season tires, she informed that it did not. I then asked why I had been misinformed, since I needed to reach Reno that night. She told me that only SUVs or 4x4s had all-season tires. I explained to Tara that when I booked the vehicle, I had initially intended to rent an SUV, there were no SUVs or 4x4 were available, so I had to book a car instead.

Tara then called Wondy (not sure if that is his correct name; that was the name he wrote on a business card since he refused to provide me with his business card or worker #). Wondy then indicated that they had an SUV available without all-season tires, but that it would be at an additional cost of $50/day. He also informed me that snow chains were allowed to place on all vehicles, however, if any damages occurred, I would need to cover those costs. His demeanor seemed condescending and with an air of superiority.

I told Wondy that because I had been misinformed about the all-season tires and about snow chains not being allowed on the vehicles, I was placed in a tough position by potentially driving in unsafe snowy conditions with tires that are not equipped for that terrain. I also informed him that if I would have known this information sooner, I could have been able to weigh out my transportation options better. Wondy did not acknowledge that a mistake had been made since I was misinformed initially, nor offered me any other option.

I agreed to rent an SUV at an additional $50/day and requested for my original reservation to be cancelled. I also requested that the amount from my original reservation be applied to this new reservation. Wondy informed me that that would not be possible, since the transaction would take 3 days to cancel. Wondy then informed me that I would not have priority to rent the SUV because I did not have a reservation and only customers with reservations have priority. I indicated that I did have a reservation. He then said that because this new rental vehicle would be a new transaction, I would not have priority.

This made no sense to me, because I already had a booked reservation. I asked if he could make an exception since I had a current reservation, plus I had been misinformed in my previous call with customer service. He refused. I was left with no other option, but to cancel the reservation. I was not going to risk a car accident by riding in a car with tires not equipped for snowy terrain. Also, it seemed that Wondy had mockingly offered the possibility of the SUV, only to quickly rule it out as an option. I requested for Wondy to cancel the reservation and to provide me with his business card, as well as Tara's. He instructed Tara to not take any action and leave the transaction as it was, while ignoring my request for the business cards. I had to ask Tara to provide their business cards, as well as their supervisor's business card.

Tara then left to get the business cards and Wondy walked away without communicating that he would be assisting another customer and that he would return. I felt like I was requesting a free service, and that he could treat me as rudely as he would like. He proceeded to assist another customer who was there picking up a vehicle an hour early. I heard him tell her that he would make an exception in not charging her for an early vehicle pick-up. Now he can make exceptions? Tara returned only with her and her supervisor's (Joseph **) business card. Once again, I asked Tara for Wondy's business card and she said she could not provide it for me and that I would have to ask him to provide it himself. Why was she allowed to provide her supervisor's business card but not Wondy's?

I patiently waited for Wondy to complete the transaction with the other customer. In between his interaction with the customer, Wondy asked what I was waiting for. I became frustrated at his rudeness that I just asked for his business card and figured that I could call customer service to cancel my transaction. Wondy still refused to provide his business card. He said that he did not have one. I asked him for his last name. Again, he refused and in a rude demeanor stated that he did not have to provide me with his last name. It was pretty obvious that he was avoiding to provide any identifying information about himself. He only wrote the name Wondy behind his supervisor's business card.

I was appalled at this whole experience. This type of behavior towards customers is unacceptable. I do not plan to visit Alamo anytime soon, and cannot say that I would feel comfortable recommending Alamo's service to others.

I do not want this person (Wondy) to be reprimanded negatively, but simply re-trained for some time on how to provide genuine and courteous customer service. I also request that the policies about vehicle rentals be clearly reiterated to all customer-facing employees. Misinforming customers causes confusion, wasted time, and wasted money for both the customer and for Alamo. Once customers have an experience like this, they will seek to rent vehicles from other competitors instead. I highly recommend that you look into resolving this issue that I encountered.

Fast-forward from driving across two states and at the end of our 6 days of having the vehicle journey, upon drop-off to Oakland & the final inspection the bill had been hiked to a horrendous $1,231 instead of the prepaid amount stated on my original contract of $215 for the week. When comparing the bills next to each other, the daily rate goes from $11 per day rate to $40 per day. Even, the gas mileage rate goes up to $4.99. WTF?!

After a call to the Alamo Customer Service 1-800 number line and another to the Sea-Tac branch hoping to speak with the manager, I received a call from the rep attempting to resolve the matter minutes later after our call convo. She had been authorized from her branch manager to refund up to $500 only. The branch manager wasn't available at all. Seriously?! Instead, I declined the settlement while on the call. Now, I am waiting patiently for the Sea-Tac Alamo branch manager to make this right by at least returning my call. Stay tuned...

Alamo had someone drive all the way from Flagstaff to drop off a very nice Hyundai and pick up the Nissan at no charge and we were thrilled. Cut to a month later, I receive a call from Alamo stating I need to open a claim with my insurance company (I didn't pay for additional rental insurance from Alamo because I already have it). I tried to explain that I did not have an accident with another vehicle or object, the car just started malfunctioning over the course of a long drive. The woman said I still needed to open a claim, so I did just that.

Turns out the company wants to charge me over $700 to repair the car, even though I've seen no proof as to what the damage was. Apparently, since the car was in my possession when the problems occurred, it's my responsibility to pay for the damages. I can understand that to a degree and my insurance company did all they can. What I don't understand is that they keep calling my parent's house and sending letters there when I've clearly stated multiple times that I haven't lived there for years and please send everything to my current address. The woman handling my claim will not return my calls, and the bill that my parents had to mail to me from their house does not have all the information necessary to make my payment online.

I feel like I'm being punished for looking out for my own safety when I was in an unfamiliar and potentially very unsafe part of the country. Was I just supposed to keep driving a car in the middle of the desert with little to no cell phone service that was slipping gears? I was not informed of any charges when the cars were swapped, and if the company was upfront about that right off the bat, I may have worked something else out. As it is, I'm not going to be using Alamo again if they are fine with putting paying customers into unsafe, unrepaired vehicles and then sticking said customers with the bill after the fact.

Original Review: Jan. 3, 2016

Husband rented a car in DAL, 4 Sept. 2015. Returned on 8 Sept. to DAL. No damage noted, but did not get a slip. Was in a hurry to catch a flight. Letter was sent to address that we DO NOT reside in, from Damage Recovery Unit, dated 2 Dec. 2015, that we owe $783.59 for damages. No itemized damage, no pictures (including admin. fees, loss of use, and diminished value). Mystery is the address was not the address listed on his driver's license when he rented the vehicle. I am forwarding this to the Texas Insurance Commissioner.

Because of where we were parked the vehicle had to be moved so once again back into the infested vehicle. Alamo promised a vehicle would be delivered to us and they would pick up the infested vehicle. Needless to say we are still waiting three to half hours after the vehicle was picked up. In the meantime I received a call back from Alamo ask me to call the manager at the facility I picked up the vehicle. I did so and 17 minutes later into the call was asked my number for the manager to call me back as he was too busy to talk to me. Have not heard from him at all.

It's obvious that Alamo can care less about the quality of their cars let alone putting their customers in harms way. I would never recommend this car company to anybody. To top it off I just received a call from a women in Kentucky who insisted she didn't call me even though I picked up her call with her telling me that I am going to incur all the towing charges. I never even asked them to tow any vehicle! This company is insane. Once again I am on hold for over 15 minutes for a manager but they don't even have the decency to take the call. Run away from this company. They should not be in business!!!

It was only after my husband made a huge stink, and the fact we were traveling with my daughter's service dog, that we were able to get a car after an hour's wait. Totally unacceptable and I will never use Alamo again. A similar thing happened with Budget rental car so this is a developing pattern with second tier car rental companies who overbook and screw customers and the Better Business Bureau and Consumer Affairs ought to raise a stink about this and stop it. Absolutely no concern for their customers!

We were surprised with all that because Last April happened the exact same thing and we got in touch the company who said that charge was wrong and immediately reimbursed us for the extra charge since it was not a change in the class of the car. We relied on Alamo to fix that again, and also to check what is happening in your Miami office. My feeling, for the way I was treated the last two times I was there, is that they are not being trustworthy with their customers, especially us, that rent with you all the time. But this time, Alamo did not give us any response.

My father also goes to Orlando, at least, three times a year and he is never had a problem like this, and every time he rents brand new towns and countries with all the perks and everything and he's never faced such situation in the Orlando office. We would like to know if this is the condition Alamo is renting now in Florida, especially in Miami, so we can decide about our future rentals. And also, to have the money that was wrongfully charged from us reimbursed.

Original Review: Dec. 30, 2015

I rented a car at Alamo, Asheville, NC airport. When I returned it, there was a very small hole on the driver's seat for which they forced me to leave a $250 deposit, promising that I would hear from them with a few weeks regarding the price for the damage (even though I had auto insurance to cover the damage). Fast forward 2 months later, and I still haven't heard from them. I have called 5 times and they say they will return my money, but still haven't. Don't ever rent a car here!!!

I explained to her what just happened and asked if she could connect me directly to the local office. I was put on hold for about 5 minutes before she came back on the line thinking I was a new caller. I explained again who I was and that she was supposed to be connecting me to a local office. I was put on hold again. After another 5 minutes on hold, my call was disconnected!

Just for laughs, I called the local number again and sure enough it put me right back to the same international customer service line. At this point I just asked for a supervisor to speak with. The rep was reluctant to put me through, but after a few minutes of back & forth I was put on hold for another few minutes before a supervisor came on the line. I explained the situation I was in and she added the booster seat to my reservation. I asked why the first person I spoke with couldn't have just done that and she had no answer. I reiterated what a terrible experience this was and she just said, "thank you for using Alamo". Oh OK, wonderful.

In addition, every person I spoke with could barely be heard. I must have said, "can you speak up please" about 10 times. Between the low volume and heavy foreign accents, it was very difficult to carry on a productive conversation. This was about the worst customer service I've ever dealt with, apart from Comcast. This is a big company with lots of competitors. Just couldn't believe how shoddy their operation is.

The next day I noticed that I have been charged $890 for the wifi tablet. I thought this is not right. So we tried emailing Alamo about this and got no real answer and got told to go into the Lax where we hired the car and speak with the bloke that hired out our car. (Alex his name was). I did just that waited in line for about 1hr and got served by him. I asked him mate what's these charges here? He said that's the price of the upgrade. As you could imagine I was seeing red. I said to you told us you would upgrade for free if we hired the tablet? His response was "no I couldn't upgrade you for free." His a ** snake! I was so pissed off that if he had of said at the start that it would of been charged that much we may of thought about the upgrade but we are on a hoilday budgeting as well and this sliming ** snaked us! I would never use Alamo Car Rental again.

Original Review: Dec. 18, 2015

My name is Thais and I live in Brazil. I have rented a car in BWI on Nov 27th at 11 AM and returned in Washington, D.C. (Union Station) on Nov 29th, at 2 PM. I prepaid USD 94.99 for 2 days rent before picking up the car. As I delivered the car, I received a notification that my credit card was charged an extra USD 190.25. I cannot understand why I was charged this extra USD 190.25 as I prepaid USD 94.99 upon reservation. At check-in I was explicit that I did not want any collision insurance (CDW), as my credit card already covers insurance. I don't understand why the customer recovery fee charged was of USD 23.53. In my reservation the amount charged was already USD 7.77.

And also other charges such as Veh. Lic. Fee, Sales Tax, Trans. Fac. CHG. When I asked at BWI airport I was told the extra fee was of USD 6.00 per hour only. And when I delivered the car 2 hours late, as well as the 2 extra hours, I was charged 1 full extra day of GPS and the CDW! Sorry but this is not a transparent attitude with clients. When you charge everything in your order, and charge it again when you return the car you are misleading the customer to believe that all taxes and fees was already charged only to charge again and more when he return the car. If I knew it was like that I would choose another company because Alamo wouldn't be the cheaper company.

It is the first time I have used Alamo and I am disappointed with the treatment I have received from their staff. I asked for explanations of 2 employees at Union Station and no one could help us (me and my husband). Also, I wrote an email to Alamo and I received a very absurd email saying that they couldn't do nothing for me as it is in the contract. This is not transparence! This is a trap! Ok I should have read the small letters, but I never thought that after repeating 2 times that I didn't want the insurance, this would happen to me. Again, this is the definition of a trap. I am a frequent Hertz customer, having rented with them in several occasions and I never had a problem of this sort.

Afterwards, they told me that they needed another credit card (AMerican EXpress, MC, VISA, etc) to put on file in case I decide to keep the car for longer, or add any other incidentals, which I had no plans of doing, but nonetheless, I said OK, and gave them my AMEX card. But when they tried to use it, their system wouldn't allow them to add the card because it did not show me as a flight passenger flying in or out of the airport. OK, that made sense, because I wasn't flying in or out, I just came to pick up my rental.

So long story short, they refused to give me the car, which really messed up my travel plans, and upset my husband's plans because he had to drive me to my destination, which was a 6-7 hr drive. And they told me that one option I could try was to contact the Carrentals.com (who does everything via email mind you) and ask them to transfer my reservation to a different car rental agency... and of course my thoughts were, "Are you out of your freakin mind? Who the hell has time for that?" But desperately needing my vehicle, I attempted, but there was no way to contact them w/o writing an email and hoping they'd get back with me w/in a few minutes... which we all know that's impossible. So needless to say, they didn't give me the rental, but Alamo made sure they took the prepaid amount from my account.

Fast forward to today (17th, Dec 2015), the one person that managed to help me get my money refunded (much thanks to her), explained that the guy at the counter was wrong, because AMEX cards are always accepted by Alamo. And she also said that I didn't have to be flying in or out of the airport, and that he definitely should have given me my rental.

But the problem is, they did not refund all that they took, because they claimed that I cancelled the reservation by not picking up the car... yeah, the car they refused to give me. I thought, "WHAT THE HELL." I came to pick up the car, Alamo refused to give me the car, and I wasted an entire 40 min (or more) trying to get it, and even attempted to follow their stupid suggestion of trying to contact carrentals.com and ask them to transfer my reservation to a different agency ... but all to no avail. And yet they want me to pay for a cancellation that they made, after not giving me the rental that I had already paid for. How retarded are they?

I am still fighting with them to get back the remaining amount of money they so greedily took from my account -- while trying to blame carrentals.com -- and are giving me the biggest hassle to get it back. Multiple un-returned phone calls and voice messages is what I've been dealing with from Alamo. Ignorant people who are truly illogical, and refuse to try and help resolve my issue. And the ones that say they're going to help, and even admit that Alamo was wrong, still never returned any of my calls. One guy even told me that it was up to Alamo if they wanted to refund the rest of my money. HOW INSANE IS THAT! It's my money, wrongly taken, thus Alamo is not entitled to any discretion as to whether or not I should get the rest of my money back. It's mine, you took it, so you owe it back!! Whatever you do, you'd be wise to avoid them (Alamo). They are awful!!!

Next morning we placed blankets over the folded rows, filled it up with boxes, and drove off. At this time I 100% forgot about the ripped seat. When I returned the vehicle and opened up the seat I seen the rip again and mentioned it to the man that checks the vehicle before you leave. He showed me a long scratch under the front bumper, but I wasn't worried. I didn't hit a single thing or did anyone hit me. I received 2 invoices by mail, none that I understand. Mentioned items that aren't in the Yukon like (2 and 3 Bucket Seats) they had row seats. Showed pictures of a Beige flooring completely filthy, while the Yukon I had was very dark grey or considered Black with Floor Mats. There is too many to items to mention. I spoke with Tracy from the BRUI but she didn't answer any of my questions, just said she will send me a copy of the original contract.

Original Review: Dec. 17, 2015

Rented a full sized car from Alamo during our trip to Gig Harbor. When returning the car, my daughter left her iPhone either in the car. As soon as I found out about it (approximately 30 minutes) I immediately called the local office and told them that it was in the car and needed them to call me ASAP because I had 2 hours until my flight left and I could retrieve it. She took my name, number and a description of the phone and told me she sent emails about it and they'd call me if they found it. Needless to say, NO PHONE CALL and NO PHONE. Apparently there isn't an honest, or caring person that works there. So disappointed. BTW, the car, was a scratched up mess, made my daughter take pictures of the car before we left the parking lot. Of course it's not going to matter now because they have her phone. UGH!!

We emailed Alamo to request the refund of our deposit/overpayment. We have now had numerous emails which suggest that they are not looking at the evidence we have sent them. They keep asking for the same documents we have already sent and it is clearly a stalling process. They are pretending that nothing occurred before we collected the car. As the booking was ready and waiting for us at the airport, we know there is a relationship between Airport Rentals and Alamo, ie the online booking was passed through to Alamo. I was surprised to see how many complaints are online about Alamo. I thought they were a reputable company. Clearly they are not.

Original Review: Dec. 11, 2015

Hi, I just received a letter in the mail from Alamo saying that there was damages done to the car that I returned. The letter was very vague, there were no pictures or statements of what type of damages were found in the car. I rented the car on 11/12/2015 at Alamo DFW airport. Picked up at around 7:30pm. The guy showed me the row of cars and said any car with the trunk opened is available. So I picked one and found a huge set of keys in the door pocket and returned to the employee and drove off. Went to dinner then checked in at a hotel.

Next morning, I returned the car at around 8:00am at Dallas Love airport. The guy walked around the car and gave me a receipt. There was no damages when I left the car. So I called up the phone # on the letter to the Damage Recovery center. I spoke to "Connie" and asked her what type of damages. She said there were damages to the hood, the grill, the handle and roof. She did not go into details, so I asked her for pictures. I called today, 12/10/2015 at 2 pm. Now, it's 10:20pm. I still have not received those pictures. Seems like they do not care about the customer's concern. She just said to file the claim with my insurance company and credit card company asap. Now I have a feeling that they are trying to scam me. If these damages were true, the guy that walked around my car would of seen those damages if they were that severe.

This was my first time renting with Alamo. The reservation desk were smooth and very professional. Answered all my questions. I thought, how great and would use them again. Now, never again will I ever rent from Alamo. They are so quick to send a vague letter of damages but not send me pictures of the actual damages to the car. I am extremely disappointed. I hope they are not making scratches on the car now, just to show me proof that it was damaged.

And when we told the service desk staff about the situation, she was very indifferent about the whole thing. We then asked to speak to the manager, who was in fact, as rude as the service desk person, and she dismissed our situation and offered to give us a smaller, lower grade vehicle with no compensation of either the time we wasted or the money we paid for the cab. She then told us that they do have two same grade vehicles but they have to reserve those to the customers later in the night. Desk staff, Jessica, and Manager, Bridgette, were very rude and not helpful in the whole process. Ended up paying $200 more to rent from another company. Ruined our vacation and ended up getting 3 of us sick. Never rent from Alamo again!!

When I call customer service, the extremely rude lady on the phone decides to act like it's my fault that Alamo ran out of cars. When I ask her to call around different locations, she refuses and tells me in a very rude tone that I do not have to rent the car If I do not want to from Alamo and I can choose another company. This is the dirt level customer service that I have received from Alamo. This is not the first time Alamo has done this to me, the previous year, Alamo ran out of cars and decided to give me the runaround to different Enterprise locations to find a car on my own.

My question to your company is, if a customer is making a reservation that far in advance and has families depending on leaving on time for thanksgiving, your company would just rather say "sorry, we overbooked you so you're going to be spending Thanksgiving at home." I will never be using Alamo again and will recommend everyone who is considering using Alamo to stay away as well because Customer Service and Reliability mean nothing to Alamo.

Since then, we have yet to get a single phone call from ANYBODY. My friend and I have called on an average of twice a day (that's 4 phone calls a day) for the past 2 weeks. All we can get a hold of is the useless Customer Service line - WHY ARE THEY CALLED CUSTOMER SERVICE?? Alamo could not give one care about their customers and they represent everything that is wrong with customer care. It looks like we'll have to cut our losses for the $181 rental and the $165 out of pocket expense. ALAMO IS A COMPANY OF DISGUSTING LIARS. I have patiently waited over 2 weeks for a response. I am now going to every website possible to warn anyone who might consider this awful company, including Better Business Bureau and TripAdvisor. We are also disputing the charge through my friend's credit card and have 45 days for them to acknowledge the dispute. Absolutely atrocious. Alamo, you should be ashamed.

Apparently when the car is returned and if you didn't take additional insurance on it, when it's returned they automatically send your information to their Loss Recovery Unit which blatantly sends out a form letter that "damage was done" yada, yada... False, False, False. I have denied it on 2 separate occasions indicating the facts only to get "We'll pass on the information." This is an ongoing situation and so I am advising anyone who rents from Alamo, National, or Enterprise at JFK airport to take their camera, get a signature by agent indicating any small flaw you may see and do the same thing when you return the car indicating that No Damage is seen. Shame on them. I have referred the matter to the NYS Attorney General as well as their corporate offices.

I explained my husband had put all of our very heavy luggage in it and since this one had been offered I felt that he should give us a comparable vehicle. He pointed across the isle to another van. I expressed that it did not have the leather seats that the van that had been offered and I felt under the circumstances, we should receive a van with the same upgraded seats. The representative looked nice in his suit but he obviously lacked the skills to be in the position of authority, and I use that word lightly. A suit does not make a person a good representative.

Maybe Alamo should worry more about how their representatives handle a justified complaint than how they look. This man's pompous attitude was appalling. He needs to go through a new training seminar because he obviously didn't learn much from the one he went through. I took pictures of the condition of this vehicle and will be posting them online. You would have to see it to believe it. We will definitely do all that we can not to use Alamo again due to their poor customer service.

I have always rented from Enterprise and 1 other time when I left something behind, they had the whole office involved in helping me locate my item. Obviously, Alamo doesn't give a ** about anything once they have your $$. I would hate to see what would happen if God forbid you ever broke down in their car. You would be on your own. DO YOURSELF A FAVOR, DONT RENT FROM ALAMO IF YOU DONT WANT TO BE STRESSED!!! They don't even deserve 1 star but I couldn't submit this review without stars.

Alamo rep was very nice, refunded the $5.00, and issued me a day's free rental if I ever book with them again. (He said the number was definitely an issue and was high-tailing that up to management immediately PDFed a copy of the reservation cancellation form and attached it to an email so he could see it firsthand.) I might or I might not but after the shenanigans Dollar & Thrifty pulled (they're the same company, all owned by Enterprise by the way), I'm not sure I'll ever book a car online ever again. I always trusted Alamo until this happened.

No one knew anything about any luggage. How could you not find a huge piece of luggage that was left a few hours ago. Still do not have my luggage. Lost and found is a joke. The lady in charge was no help whatsoever. She continually blamed me for the entire incident. The manager on duty could not find time to speak to me so I had to stay in a hotel in hopes the luggage would be found the next day. Still not found. Never seen a company so disinterested in a customer's problem. The gentleman at the exit gate said that he would give me an extra date for the problems but just checked my return date and guess what it is the same as before. I will NEVER rent from National or Alamo again and I am telling everyone I know and some I do not know what happened. Beware if you use either of these rental companies. If you leave something you forget getting it back.

IT IS NOT THE FIRST TIME THAT IT HAPPENS TO ME IN THIS LOCATION, BUT LAST TIME THE DIFFERENCE WAS U$20, so I didn't bother that much. The attendants there are not honest. They cheat to sell extras that the customers did not want to. They took advantage that I was tired after a long flight, didn't speak English very well, and forced me to pay extra 200 dollars for my rental. I will never rent a car with Alamo again.

Warning 2: The car had dents all over it, I pointed them out to the staff and they took a piece of card and said if the dents are smaller than the card it's OK. I asked they record the dents, they were not interested so I took photos myself. Warning 3: The hire car I had was half empty of fuel, I pointed this out as well and the staff just said bring it back half empty. So slack and unorganized, or should I say uninterested.

Now, here is the best bit. Visiting the Hollywood sign I got a parking ticket for facing the wrong direction. OK it's a violation and I accept that. Even though it is a stupid violation and serves no real purpose except to exploit cash from tourists who come from countries where parking in the direction of traffic is not a violation, but I digress. I attempted to pay the fine online in my hotel but for some reason it just would not take the payment, I attempted to visit the enforcement office but it had closed down and the nearest one was an hour away.

And now to my real GRIPE... I paid this fine on return to the UK, it must have been processed to Alamo despite my paying or the timing was off, whatever. I have a receipt clearly stating FINE PAID (see below). I sent this to ALAMO and still they took the fine from my credit card. I emails, I explained, I proved and still they took the cash from my account. Never again will I ever use Alamo. This is my last stand.

This company has no morals, this is bullying because they can, no thought for customer service, no thought that they might be wrong. Just take the cash. BE AWARE. THIS COMPANY IS NOT HONEST. THEY WILL RIP YOU OFF, LEAVE WELL ALONE. Take the advice or not but don't moan when you realize you could have got better service from another hire car company...

After checking my credit card that was charged I checked my Debit card and that was charged too. Called to reverse the charge on card. Told me they could not find it. Wow double charged. Extra fee. Refused to serve me by two workers. No help from call trying to get one of the double charges back. Lied to twice. Bad experience.

It's not about the money, it's a company who want to steal money from any customer who rent a car from them. Probably they said we are renting with a small price but we going to make the money afterwards. So if somebody is so stupid to rent a car from that stealing money company it's going to pay big in the end. I read many reviews before and I now this is going to happen but I go further because I was attracted when I see the price for rent. So if you want to rent a car and in the end to pay almost 3 times use this rent a car company. I try to make complains to talk with somebody in this matter but the only answer was "we are a small company and we want to survive and this is the way we do business."

I suggested that they go pull security camera records at the airport location to see the time I returned and look for any sign of flat tires and if the vehicle was driven by their employee after I returned it and I denied to pay ANY claim against me. I was simply told that it would then proceed to small claims court. I will stand my grounds and not let this fraudulent company win.

We raced back inside the terminal while other people were trying to get answers from the poor woman driving the shuttle. My sister and I split up going from one car rental agency to the next. Only Avis had cars left and they only had three SUVs - that was it. They were expensive SUVs. I had no choice but to rent their car or be stranded halfway across the country and miss what we'd come for. So rather than the $171.56 I already Paid Alamo, I had to use my emergency credit card and pay $1,076.28.

My sister and I had scraped together for this trip dollar by dollar and what we spent in total was less than $3,000.00. We never could have dreamed of spending 1/3 of our money on a car. This was my first vacation with just me and another adult. It was our dream. I tried to get this resolved that night by calling the 800 number. After 45 minutes trying to explain this with someone who wasn't fluent in English I was cut off. We called again on Friday and after two transfers and lots of time explaining the situation to people who didn't understand me. I was supposed to get to talk to a supervisor, but again the call was cut off. I didn't have $1,076.00 to spend on a car or I would have. So I filed with their online complaint department.

After getting no response, my sister called on her lunch break and spoke with someone who promised they'd personally follow through. Instead, we received a copy of a statement she sent on to a different department that really wasn't complete. So we made more calls. Andre from the Portland office did call me back and leave a message. However, he oversees three different rental car agencies that are all under the parent company at the Portland airport and is not at his desk often. So I tried the District office; they were closed both times.

We stated specifically that we did not want a refund of just the prepaid Alamo costs, we wanted a refund of the Avis car at a minimum and both if they were so inclined. We were offered a refund of only the Alamo portion and a free day rental with Alamo. This is not acceptable after being stranded so the lady who emailed me the offer sent it up the chain. And we made more phone calls. Today I came in to a notice from my credit card company that I'd had a refund posted to my account. Alamo refunded $161.56, not even the $171.56 I paid in June! I have sent them copies of my receipts and it should be in their computer how much I paid them. I didn't just jump to a negative review. My sister and I have made many, many attempts to handle this. They just don't understand how to be an ethical business. My advice: Never Rent From Alamo. I will now be posting this to Yelp, Google, BBB in OR and CO. Reservation number: **.

On 08/27/15, my wife and I arrived in Memphis, Tennessee. We had booked an Alamo Car Rental 09/01/15 through a third party. The representative at the counter identified that we could get a better deal through her. We were grateful to get a better rate (even with the insurance she added) as well as a larger car! 08/28/15, we drove to Nashville, Tennessee to see Music City. A local officer of the law welcomed us to the city by pointing out to us that the passenger rear turn and brake signal was not working. 08/29/15, we called Alamo to report the defective vehicle. The person we spoke to at Alamo was extremely understanding and told us to return the vehicle to the Alamo location at the Nashville airport and they would give us another vehicle that was in full working condition.

We asked if there would be any additional charges for returning the car in Nashville instead of Memphis. She advised us that since the working condition of the vehicle was their fault there would not be any additional charges for returning the vehicle in Nashville. They said they would have the vehicle fixed and returned to Memphis. We specifically asked if there would be any additional charges to us for this situation and were emphatically told no as this was their fault. We asked where we should return the replacement vehicle, Memphis or Nashville. We were told to return the replacement vehicle to Nashville as that was the pick-up point. As our flight was to be out of Memphis on 09/01/15, we had to change flights to leave out of Nashville, in order to comply with Alamo's direction to return the car where we picked it up. There was a charge through United Airlines for the flight change.

09/01/15, with no further issues, we returned the vehicle to Nashville Airport Alamo (as instructed and still feeling ok about how Alamo had handled the situation with the previous defective vehicle) with a full tank of gas. Then came the charges. Instead of the $349 we contracted for, the charges came to $588!!! We were charged for dropping off the defective vehicle in Nashville, despite being assured otherwise!!! We were charged for 12 gallons of gas when the tank was full!!! Both airline tickets had been changed, at a rate of $150 each, leaving Nashville instead of Memphis due to being instructed to return the second vehicle to Nashville.

We attempted to address these issues with the Nashville Alamo counter person. He was rude and condescending! He told us there was a cost to Alamo to return the defective vehicle to Memphis (not our issue per Alamo on 8/29/15). He also said he would have to contact the vehicle check in to verify the vehicle was returned with a full tank of gas (which he did not do). He told us we would have to take up our issue with the Memphis office. When we told him we would dispute the charges and will address with Alamo Corporate, he handed back our contract, vehicle return receipt and would not help us further. His representation of the Alamo brand was an embarrassment. Obviously Customer Service is not his forte.

We contacted Alamo at 800-462-5266 (where they helped with the defective vehicle) to initiate a dispute of charges. We were told to email a copy of the contract and receipt to them and they would review and contact us back. We provided all that was asked from us. Having not received any reply from Alamo, we made numerous other follow up calls, having to restate our issue each time. As of 09/08/15, we have major frustration due to no help in resolution, just run around and unfulfilled promises.

When I verified for him that it was "IN TERMINAL" as represented, I discovered it wasn't. I cancelled the reservation and had to book elsewhere with only 9 days before the rental begins. Needless to say, it is now costing me $180 more due to booking so close to the date. Personally I think Alamo should be reimbursing me the difference that cost me due to the misrepresentation. When I requested email confirmation that the reservation had been cancelled, I was told by "Abdul" that wasn't possible. When I persisted, he said he would try to send me an email cancellation notice. Needless to say I haven't gotten it. If the entire rental car process does not occur "In TERMINAL" than at no point, anywhere should it be represented as such!

Original Review: Aug. 31, 2015

I've just paid $673 for renting a Kia Soul with Alamo for 14 days at Miami International Airport from Aug 8 to 21. Does it seem a big deal for you guys? This is what happened. I reserved an Alamo car through Expedia for 14 days and prepaid EUR 335.43 ($368) for that. When I got to Alamo desk on Aug 8 to pick it up I was told that that the car that I had reserved was too small for me and my family and baggage (3 people + 2 bags). At that moment, after a 15-hour, double flight from Europe, I did not remember correctly that I had reserved 3 months earlier a Nissan Versa or similar car, that can easily fit 3 people + 2 bags. Even though I have rented many cars worldwide in the past 30 years, and I know about sales pressure and tricks of the business, I made the mistake of not arguing with the representative, that was giving me misleading information. So I agreed for an upgrade. I was given a Kia Soul, for $305 on top of what I had already paid.

Indeed, that makes $673 for the whole rental. I complained with Alamo, but the company denied any wrongdoing, even though the customer care was not able to confirm that a Kia Soul is worth much more money than a Nissan Versa. Next time I will be much more careful when picking up a car. And, of course, I will never rent a car with Alamo any longer. PS: If I would rent now a Standard vehicle from Alamo at MIA for 14 days I should pay $334.92, that is roughly half what I actually paid. I just got this rate on Alamo website.

The next morning, when we were ready to leave, I realized the tire indicator in the dashboard was flashing again. I checked the tires and with the light of the day I could see the poor condition of them. One of them had a crack of approximately 3 inches, so I took the car to a tire shop to have an expert opinion and they told me that the car was in no condition to be used, all the tires needed to be replaced. It was obvious the tires service was overdue.

I took the car back to Alamo and told them about the situation. Martin ** (who seems to be the manager) took no responsibility for the issue and told me they will send the car to their tire shop and they will give it back to me in a couple of hours. At this time it was already noon. At the tire shop they recommended to have the 4 tires replaced which they supposedly did.

I finally took the car and started the trip. I, later in the week, found out the Alamo decided to only replace two of the tires and rotate the other two to the back. During my return trip, I had a flat tire that I needed to change myself. My trip needed to be extended by a day because of this, so I couldn't returned it myself (by this time, my weekly schedule was already too messed up and I needed to get back to my work). A nephew, who was an authorized driver, made the return. I asked him to put in a complain about the whole situation.

Martin (the manager), again took no accountability for the situation and told him that I was going to be charged for the whole time. At this point, I didn't care about the total cost of the rental, but their attitude towards the condition of the unit and the lack of customer service. The service has been the worst that I have ever received (I am a road warrior, I travel every week), but I think this is almost criminal. Imagine this happens when you are driving at 60 miles per hour in the highway, it could have caused a fatal accident. Anyway, it didn't seem they care about that.

I am suing them legally. I took pictures of the conditions of the tires at the beginning of the rental agreement, at the tire shop, during my trip and while changing the tire. I am not only looking to get my money back but also for an apology for their lack of professionalism and putting my life or somebody else's in danger. If you need pictures, I will be more than happy to provide them.

She then informed me that they did not have any other standard sized vehicles. She said she would give me a smaller vehicle, however, with 4 adults and 5 pieces of luggage, we could not fit. She then told me that all other vehicles were "reserved," and in order to give me a reserved vehicle, I had to pay an upgrade fee. She also said that because I reserved from Boston, she had no choice but to charge me the Boston upgrade fee (apparently higher than Bangor). I asked her if any reduction / discount could be made - she told me that only Boston has the discretion to adjust Boston rentals, and gave me a phone number to call in Boston. No one answered in Boston, we were routed to corporate and corporate said they could not help - they told us to leave a message with Boston.

Emily said that "her company" (which she later admitted was still Alamo, but which apparently has "local policies") could not do anything. She then said she needed to take care of "her customers." I'm not sure what I was, given that I paid for an Alamo vehicle. Then, a group of ladies turned up and declined their rental (an adequate vehicle for us) in favor of a larger car. I asked Emily if I could have their declined rental, given that it was now seemingly available. She again said that because it was an upgrade, I would have to pay "significantly more." In the meantime, Alamo's technician examined the vehicle and confirmed that it was his belief that the fan for the a/c was broken. Alamo / Emily remained firm - either pay more or leave in your car. So, in 84 degree heat, I drove back to Stonington and will have to spend the rest of my prepaid rental, and trip back to Boston in a car without air conditioning.

How can your corporate policy be that even if the car is broken, unless we have the same car or lesser quality, we won't exchange it? What's worse - this idea that each store is franchised - Bangor can't alter Boston reservations?? Bangor desk can't call Boston desk? Yea, because it's completely unlikely that a rental car will be driven outside where it was rented? I am utterly shocked that a company could be this poor.

My husband was a mechanic and changed the tire and headed to the Alamo. We called and explained our situation to the night manager... a very nice helpful Indian gentleman who very graciously stayed open a bit late as we raced there. The next day we had a very nice day and saw some amazing things. Waterfalls, best botanical gardens I'd ever seen, and volcano... all made possible by his helpfulness. I hope his supervisors realize what a gem they have in him and reward his work ethic. Nula you saved our day... Literally.

We have been loyal customers of Alamo for over 7 years. And, because we were accused of not returning the car on time, and our bank account was erroneously charged, we feel that proper restitution would be a free rental.

Two days later, we received a letter in the mail explaining the claims process and requesting our insurance information. There was no information provided as to the alleged incident or estimated cost of the damages. We are very reluctant to provide our insurance information as this seems like a total scam. We have since seen numerous reviews on this site, as well as their business Facebook page from unhappy customers with similar situations. Is it possible that Alamo can blame several customers for the same scratch since they don't inspect their vehicles with the customer prior to driving off the facility? Is it possible that scratch happened while sitting at their lot in between rentals? Did they stop renting this car until the damages have been repaired to ensure no additional damages? I doubt it. I even read that it is possible Alamo pays its employees commission based on the amount of money collected as a result of damage claims.

It's one thing to deal with complaints such as... They didn't have the car I reserved, or the car was filthy, or the employees are rude and not helpful (all of which I have seen). But it's another thing to scam large amounts money out of customer's pockets and insurance agencies. My insurance company agreed that this seems like a scam. Although we haven't made much progress, we remain in contact with Alamo representatives to dispute their claim. We posted to their Facebook page, received a generic response the same as every other post on there, and provided all the pertinent information they requested for upper management review. I will never rent another car from Alamo after this experience.

When we get to the Alamo via shuttle from the airport to pick up our car, we are informed that they would not take the card and that there was nothing they could do. I explained the conversation on the phone and the fact that their representative had assured us that using the card would be no problem. They only explanation they gave was that it probably was new person. When I told them she actually put me on hold to make sure the card would be okay for the rental they told me that the representatives and managers don't always know what each rental office will accept for payment. We were in town for cheer nationals and had two teenagers with us with the intention to rent at O'hare airport and drive the Grand Rapid, MI for the competition.

The people at the desk were rude - would not help us and left us there stranded for 6 hours at the airport with leaving me and my daughters' friend scared and crying. We offered to put a deposit down for the car but were refused and advised them we have used this very card on several occasions to rent cars. We were advised that they could call us a limousine to take us to Grand Rapid for about $1200.00.

We contacted another cheer family who agreed to put the charge on their card. We were told by the front desk they could use their debit card but they would need to be on the agreement as well. We were fine with that. After they cancelled dinner plans to come help us we were advised that Alamo would not rent to them either because their flight itinerary did not match ours. We were leaving back for Phoenix on Sunday and they were leaving on Tuesday. The girls had not eaten and were very tired. We ended up having to stay a night in Chicago because we did finally get a rental car in about 10 minutes from another rental car place but it was too late to drive after such a horrible ordeal.

I most upset because was advised the card would be okay to utilize for the rental and the fact that they acknowledged they have had that happen but have not provided any training to their reservations people, or come up with a solution when people like me are misinformed. I will only use regular debit or credit card going forward for rentals but will never utilize Alamo. Their customer service lacked greatly and we suffered for it.

So after day 3 of attempting to send this form I call back to Alamo, of which I sat on hold for one of their agents in India for approximately 35 minutes. I tell him the situation, he then say "Oh ok. Here is the direct line to the San Diego location." I think ok finally maybe after 3 days I'll get somewhere with this. Yeah, right, I call, he has given me the phone number to Enterprise rent a car!!! Are you kidding!!! I call back, another 40+ minutes on hold and I explain the situation again and he asked for me to be put on hold again while he calls the number I was given... Seriously, do you know the number to San Diego or NOT.

This place is an absolute Joke. After waiting another 10 minutes on hold, Andrea is connected on the other line asking if she can help. She is unaware of the situation so I then again go thru the entire story. She is somewhat helpful and says she is just in the call center and the people I need to speak with don't come in until 9am. She takes my number and says someone will call when they get in in the morning. I am writing this as I sit and wait for them to call me back... believe me when I say I am not holding my breath, history shows their customer care is horrible and I will never rent from them again and I suggest you don't either and if you do, good luck in finding any answers should you have any questions or concerns.

Several days later (after I'm sure the car went out again), I received phone call from one of my friends who had been contacted by a businessman who had just found my iPhone in his rental car when returning it to the lot. Since I had filed a claim with Alamo, I would have thought they would have thoroughly searched the car upon its return. He had dropped his pen and found my phone under the seat with his pen. He graciously got hold of me, shipped my iPhone to me via UPS and insured it. So glad there are still honest people out there. Alamo flunked. Won't rent from them again.

Pick-up of Vehicle - On July 2, 2015, after checking in at the rental counter I was directed upstairs. I showed the attendant my rental agreement, he directed me to two cars, in the rather huge lot of hundreds of cars, to choose between two cars, a red and white one. He stated the keys were in the vehicle. He gave me a slip of paper and told me to sign it if the car was alright. He performed no inspection whatsoever, he didn't even walk us to the vehicle. He just turned around and left the area. I've rented from many different rental car companies, Alamo, Enterprise, and National included, and never had an issue in the past. As a result, I really thought nothing of it, especially since the employee did not inspect the vehicle or with me, nor did he request to. It wasn't until later that, once we were on the road I really noticed the interior issues. It wasn't until we parked two hours later at our destination that I noticed the exterior issues.

The car was very dirty so seeing any dents, cracks, paint chips, etc. would have been very difficult. The outside of the vehicle was replete with dirt and mud. There were no floor mats. The car was filthy inside with a thick coat of dust. The car wasn't clean at all. That is the fault of the location. I was given the choice of a red car and a white car. Yes, I chose the white car over the red car. Why wasn't I provided with another choice? I was left with the feeling that I had only one choice of a vehicle. I found a slip of paper that states the Quality Service was provided by Denis. It appears he and his direct supervisor did not do their due diligence in providing a properly maintained and cleaned vehicle. Why not make sure the car is ready when the customer wants to pick it up? Isn't that a fair expectation?

Since the area where the vehicle was parked was dimly lit I couldn't really see much of the interior or exterior. Yes, the car was white and I saw some dirt and mud on it, but there wasn't anyone around to speak with about the issue. Yes, there was a red car, but my mother did not want to drive in a red car and wanted to get to the hospital to visit her frail brother, my uncle. Why not provide more light so a customer can actually make an informed determination of the cleanliness of the interior of the vehicle? That is the fault of Alamo, not me. Why has the onus now been put on me that didn't tell anyone?

Return of Vehicle - I returned the vehicle on July 7. On the Express Incident Report, RA #**, states, "Previous Damage" for Description of Damage. Under Customer states, "Dent in the Quarter Panel, Right Side." This makes no sense unless, employee #**, meant the opposite for the areas where he wrote the notes. But alas, that is not the case. The issue is that there was damage to the vehicle but not due to my fault. If there was previous damage to the vehicle as the Express Incident Report indicates, why is Alamo coming after me for money? What about a prior rental? What about an employee moving the vehicle from one location to the next without informing a superior? There are far too many questions!

Call of Monday, July 27. The conversation, or as I felt, adversarial discussion, was most unproductive. The information provided was nebulous and ambivalent. No information was provided about any sort of discussion concerning the damage. I wanted to see an actual written estimate of the damage. No information was provided. I asked if and when the vehicle has been inspected and repaired. No information was provided. I asked when the vehicle was put back into service. No information was provided. I heard on more than once that the reason for the call was a courtesy call so I had the opportunity to notify Visa of the issue. I didn't even use a Visa card. Yes, I used a Mastercard, but everyone knows that MasterCards start with the number five (5). To me, the representative should have been able to answer the questions of a concerned consumer.

All I got, on multiple occasions, was an associate would contact me at some point in time in the future. I requested the name of the associate. No information was provided. I requested on multiple occasions to speak with a person in a position of authority. I was told that Summer, the supervisor, was in a meeting. I requested that she call me back. The representative assured me that Summer would call be back in minutes. That didn't happen. It wasn't until later in the conversation that I was able to share my concerns about the vehicle that was provided to me. I explained the issue. She stated that a risk manager would contact me in 7-10 days. Was the call recorded? If so, could I please be provided with a transcript?

I find it odd that Alamo doesn't care that I received the vehicle in such poor condition. If the opportunity has been provided, I would have gotten another vehicle and this entire mess wouldn't be an issue. But alas, the opportunity didn't exist. Once I was pointed to my choice of two vehicles, there was no one to be found in the area to speak with. Throughout this entire ordeal, there has been a complete lack of customer service. Why call if no answers can be provided? From a company standpoint, that makes no sense at all. Unless it is more about the revenue received from the damage. The damage was not $825 worth of damage. From my understanding, it more likely less than $200, using a rubber mallet from behind the back passenger wheel well. This entire issue has far too many questions, and, to be honest, no answers at all. There seems to be complete apathy of my questions and issues.

All I got out of this mess is that I am leaning towards not using Alamo, Enterprise, or National as my rental car company until my faith is restored that Alamo does its due diligence and resolves this issue expeditiously. I will advise others not to use any of the rental car business entities as well. Why should I or anyone I know do business with a company that appears to be apathetic to customer/consumer issues?

Original Review: July 27, 2015

I specifically reserved a (SUV) vehicle from Alamo via Hotwire. After waiting 2 hrs. and being notified that no SUV was available, I took the suggested extremely large Ford T3MP. While being extremely upset I left Alamo without doing a solid inspection and being eager to get to my daughter's military graduation and pick her. I returned the vehicle and the attendant pointed out that I was lacking a hubcap, I suggested to the attendant that I would pay for the missing hubcap. Not certain if it was missing before rental and he stated I would hear back from Alamo, and most likely I would have to pay for replacement. After waiting multiple weeks I received a bill in the amount of $1880.05. Listed below is a breakdown. Damages - $1292.12, Administration Fees - $100.00, Loss of Use - $358.72, Diminishment of Value $129.21. All this for a hubcap, what a ripoff.

2nd issue: the girl suggested I pay my tolls on my credit card, never informing me that there is a $3.95 "convenience" fee attached to this. Basically I paid $4.95 for a one dollar toll that I could have paid in cash had I known. I also wrote to complain to the FL Toll Highway administration. This is a deliberate lack of public disclosure. 3rd Issue: don't let them convince you to prepay your gas. They charge a high rate and as it turned out, due to rain and flooding, I was unable to drive to planned destinations. I could not return the car "empty" as planned. I will NEVER rent from Alamo again. Will rent off airport and take the shuttle. There are also gas stations nearby off-site so I can fill up right before return.

When I returned the car at Alamo San Diego on May 30th, I explained the situation to the manager, and he said that Alamo would send me a refund check in 5 days. It has been about 7 weeks, and this check still did not arrive. I have called Alamo San Francisco about 20 times in order to solve the issue. Every time I call the manager says that he will be solving it and the check will arrive soon. I am so frustrated with Alamo's service, because besides losing one day of trip and go through all this, I still do not have a real answer and I really need this money back as soon as possible.

I drove the vehicle to and from Atlanta. No damage whatsoever occurred to the vehicle, and I returned it at the Memphis airport. There was attendant to pick up a car and he point out a small damage happened to a car but I told him it was there when I picked up the car. He said that time, "Ok that's fine." That was it! 2 weeks later, without a phone call, I received a letter in the mail from Alamo's "damage recovery unit" claiming I owed $1505.87 in damages to the vehicle, with 2 pages detailing all the extensive work that would need to be done, which was absolutely ridiculous. I know that no damage occurred at all, and I feel like I was taken advantage of. I feel like it was the employees responsibility to inspect the vehicle or at least ask me to inspect it upon check-out. I've never had such a problem with other rental car companies.

Upon further research online, I've found that this sort of scam is common with Alamo, as many consumers have been ripped off and scammed into fraudulent "damage" charges. I can't believe this company is allowed to carry a business license. My case is still under discussion with them since I refuse to pay these fraudulent charges. I'd just like to warn other consumers about Alamo and their scamming techniques. Be careful and avoid this company at all costs!

I requested the Hyundai and he said that I would have a hard time fitting in. I said "I have driven them before no problem." He asked how many in my party and I said "Two adults and two twin toddlers in car seats." He replied and said that we will all not be comfortable and we will not get all our bags in the car. At this point, I realized he was so focused on up-sale and not on what I was telling him. I replied "I get your warning, I still want what I reserved." At the same time the other agent next to him was doing the same to my father-in-law right next to me. After one more final warning from Aron about how he assures me that my baggage will not fit in the car, he handed me the final copies of my agreement and I left to get my rental car.

The lady at the door pointed me in the right direction and also said I do not know why he is telling me that. Both my father in law and I grabbed the Hyundai and the Nissan and loaded the family and all our bags without any problems. We also had room for a few more bags. I wanted to go back to the front desk and show him all the room we had since he kept assuring me it will not fit. We left for our drive to Denton and check into our Hotel.

On Sunday July 19, 2015 we returned our rental cars back around 1830 hours. The weather was really hot and humid. We returned our car and as we are given our print receipt we realize our price went from $68.77 to $97.06. I quickly asked why our price changed. He said for our pre-paid fuel. I showed him our agreement from the desk on Thursday and he said someone must have added pre-paid fuel after they gave us the agreement. We both walked back to the front desk and asked to speak to a manager about this nonsense. This agent Aron and the person next to him that morning changed our agreement after we left to get commission. After he failed to get us to upgrade the car, he added prepaid fuel after we left to get commission is what it seems like.

I vented to the manager Jason on duty not just about the game his agents play with customers, but the fact that my 83 year old grandma and my twin toddler boys are sitting in the heat outside by the shuttle stop in this 95+ degree weather that evening. It took about 30 minutes to fix the problems these two agents caused and left my family in the heat outside instead on the shuttle back to the airport. Jason walked with me back outside where he witnessed my family sitting there waiting for me to solve this mess.

I send this complaint to help you understand what this little silly joke of trying to make extra money hurts the people you are trying to provide service to. I have been in the travel industry since 1995 with the Airlines (Alaska & Southwest). This is not good for Alamo or any car rental agencies. I guess we will have to consider our choices next time we travel and need a car rental. He also did not enter my Alaska Airlines FF number after he said no problem. Thank you.

We arrive Sunday July 5th, only to be greeted with "You are late." We apologized, our flight was delay... not sure what we could have done... Gave them our reservation number along with my debit card Only to be told no "You need a credit card!" I said "No, we called and I was told I could use my debit card." He said "Yes you can but we need credit card on file." They said only way we could get our car was if they "hold" 500 dollars and I put the car rental over 400 dollars (which was a completely new price from my online reservation) on my debit card. I told the gentlemen helping us, "That would leave me 500 for my whole stay in Costa Rica. What if there is an emergency?" He didn't seem to care, he said that was their rules.

Two hours later, stranded in a foreign country, he tells us he could lower the car rental price to 374! I told him "The problem was, why was I not told I needed a credit card? I called twice!!" Having 500 dollars frozen, scared me! What if there was an emergency? I told him I could pay cash for the car, but that I didn't feel ok with putting it all on my debit card. He said "Oh well yeah you can do that". At that point I was furious, two hours of sitting outside with no water, no food! He tells me I can pay cash! We took over 1000 cash to cover food, tours and gas since our house rental was already paid for and so was our hotel.

Alamo, has horrible customer service.... You ask question and even they don't know the answers. Management did not seem to care that we were tourist visiting and that being in a foreign country was scary. Dropping off the car was just as bad, as we had to wait 20 min just to see someone and then over 20 for the shuttle to take us to our hotel. I will never rent from Alamo again.

First, we were told we would have to have a 500.00 deposit that was never mentioned. After much negotiation, the deposit was lowered to 250.00. We were willing to settle for that as we wanted to get our much deserved vacation started, only to find out that they would not take the deposit nor the balance of the car on anything but one single credit card. Mind you, we had over 700.00 cash plus two different credit cards, totaling 650.00 plus a debit card with 1400.00. They wanted one credit card that would cover the full amount.

We asked to speak to a manager who basically told us he could not do anything, that Alamo had changed their policy effective July 1. Note, we made the reservation on June 27. The manager informed us that all car rental companies were the same. We left Alamo with my daughter in tears and me, way beyond angry. We headed to Avis just down the street where we were met with the nicest friendliest agent that put us in a car using a DEBIT card within 10 minutes. I will never refer Alamo to anyone. I will send everyone I know to Avis. Way to go Avis with customer service.

At the Alamo station, several staff checked the car. I am sure they also checked the gas level. We were ok'd and handed a receipt. I read the receipt when we were waiting for our plane and found it was a FSO receipt. I called Alamo customer service immediately and the service lady canceled the charge. I still feel unhappy with the car rental company. They should not have tempted us to their gas gimmick program and should not charge us for gas when the tank was full.

Almost as bad as the made up damage in Ottawa with Enterprise Rent-A-Car (a small cut on bottom of front bumper... total set up!). DO NOT, I repeat DO NOT EVER rent with these guys - I will pay double to rent with any other company.

I eventually found that Meta Rent-A-Car had a car available but for double what I was scheduled to pay at Alamo!! If I had known that Alamo would not have any cars available and would not honor my reservation, I would have booked a reservation elsewhere earlier when I could have gotten a better deal. This sort of unprofessional behavior is not only inconvenient and expensive but frankly appalling.

Weeks later I was contacted by the Disaster Recovery Unit intending to get almost $900, including a fee. After 4 and a half months of disputing the claim, I managed to get this reduced and insurance fortunately covered some of it. The individual I spoke with towards the end was polite, but obviously his job was still to get me to pay up. I cannot in good conscience recommend Alamo Rent-A-Car. I will certainly give it considerably more thought before using their services again. If you do decide to move forward with a rental from them, you may want to be very mindful of the quality of the car from the beginning. Also, make sure you get anything the customer service reps say explicitly down in writing.

I have NEVER - EVER - experienced such a lack of customer service as this company neglects to provide!! Disregarding my quote!! Disregarding NOT INFORMING me of a deposit!! I have a Priceline quote of $144.00 for the week, they jacked the price up to $496.00!! I said, "No, no, no... I have a direct quote!!" THEN they tried to say I needed to pay $398.00!! I said, "NO! NO!! I have a QUOTE!! I have rented from car rentals before and NEVER EXPERIENCED THIS INSANE B.S. BEFORE!! I have NEVER dealt with a car rental that scams so badly!! So, please, please, DO NOT EVER EVER rent from ALAMO!!!

When I get to Savannah, my credit card is declined at several locations so I think all the times the man at Alamo had tried to use my card, it probably had a hold put on it. So I use my debit card. When I take the car back on 6/6/2015, the return man could not get his handheld scanner to register the car so I have to go to the counter. Apparently, on the computer, they had me returning the car to Sanford, Florida on 6/4/2015. I had my original e-mail showing my reservation. The woman had to call her manager. They had charged my debit card $812 for not returning on 6/4/2015 to Sanford, FL. They put $562.21 back on my debit card, but in those days I was in Savannah charging my debit card, I was over drafting my account. I now have over $200 in overdraft fees. Plus, they had $279.30 held on my credit card. I called customer service who said they would leave a message for the Atlanta manager. Needless to say, he did not call back.

It's pretty interesting (read: annoying as hell) when a company that you rented from over 6 months ago is still charging you from time to time for your rental. I am honestly debating getting a new credit card number just to stop being harassed by this location. Upon calling regarding this most recent charge, I was informed that it appears to be another parking violation...yet it has the exact same citation number as my first with an asterisk symbol. Alamo was unable to tell me what that means, but obviously it is not a separate parking violation (I only had one parking incident, and the citation numbers are the same). My guess is that it is a late fee imposed on the fine, which Alamo is responsible for paying because I already paid them an administrative fee to handle the ticket; if they are late that is not my responsibility.

Upon discussing this, Alamo told me to go get proof from NYC and then return to them. Basically they told me that it is my burden of proof and to go screw myself. Currently I am disputing this charge with my credit card company, who is disputing it with Alamo. This company is probably fine to rent from as long as you have no incidents, but with me they have been not at all transparent and downright unprofessional.

I called the number and spoke with a rep who told was able to check where I left the camera and stated that there was no camera there, but the vehicle had been processed a few minutes earlier and while it wasn't in the lost and found, it might be turned in later. There is no doubt the camera was left in the car. Whoever cleaned the vehicle has a nice camera now. The rep said she had my phone number from the call I made and would contact me if it showed up. My bad for leaving it in the car, but I will never rent from Alamo again, because of the theft of my property, and their losers weepers, finders keepers attitude.

Security fee $2.00 (I certainly felt more secure), Florida Surcharge $2.00/day (I didn't know at the time, but it seems the BEST Vacations have hidden fees), Tire/Battery Fee (I guess somewhere in the fine print, your rental car didn't come with those installed), Vehicle License Fee 64 cents a day (and here I thought I needed a license to drive, it appears not) and my favorite.. Airport Access Fee!! 20%! Price per unit 88.98.

The only thing missing from my Remember the Alamo experience was an alley and a gun in my back, Never again. When I called Alamo to get it fixed they have cleverly outsourced their customer service to hours of hold music and thick enough accents that I had a hard time communicating at all. After a transfer and more time with the hold music I managed to get an email of the charges. It is too late for me, I have already been Fleeced by these Highwaymen. I just hope this review saves another weary traveler from the same pain and suffering.

The following day we found a local rental outlet and was told the car was unsafe but we still had to return it to the airport. We did this and complained about the inconvenience, extra toll charges incurred to get there in the quickest time possible. They didn't seem bothered at the comments about cleanliness and unsafe comments. The replacement car had less miles so was in better shape but the interior was still filthy.

This is the second time we have used Alamo (due to a package deal), the last time was 10 years ago. Both times the experience was terrible, car maintenance substandard and both times the car had to be returned. The first time we assumed it was just bad luck, this time we can see it's just a company that does not care about its customers or the safety of its drivers either. I will not be using these people again. The life of my son, and a safe journey is more important.

I return to another representative an hour later to ask her how many cleaning stations Alamo have. This lady named ** ignored my question and asked me for my receipt. I ask her again and at this point she said "O Lord". I walk over to ** desk to ask again, when I heard her said "The vehicle went out." I then said “what you mean the vehicle went out?" ** replied "They rent it". At this point I flipped.

How would they rent this vehicle knowing I am sitting for an hour and 30 minutes waiting for an answer? This vehicle should have been placed on hold at the minute I approach the desk. I contacted Alamo 1800 Customer Service to report the incident because I ask for a Manager (**) who came and ask to give him one minute and he will be back to talk to me. Well, it took him 30 minutes to return, he began apologizing. Apologies I did not want to hear because the procedure was unaccepted. A representative for lost and found was contacted, he returned saying he did not find anything. He suggested to locate the person who rented the vehicle.

Well, I stayed until 9:45 pm waiting for someone to go find the new renter ,who stated when he called that my cars keys was in the Nissan Altima I had return. This make me know they did not clean or inspect this vehicle after I return it. I also had my house keys and this same key chain. My cars keys replacement is a $200 value and for this reason I had to stay to get my keys returned. My 9 yrs child who was hungry and I stayed at the Alamo from 6 pm to 9:45 pm. This incident raised my blood pressure beside that we were extremely tired today because we pass our bed time. This is horrible and poor customer service. I was not treated well. I will NEVER again rent form you guys and I am also posting this in BBC. I will also share my experience with every person I know.

Yes, I should have checked but come on, she was so convincing and who would lie about that anyway. That was my first mistake. Second mistake, whilst being rushed out of the vehicle, I forgot my IPOD. I have been trying to fill in the lost item form on the website but it wont let me! I called and spoke to some woman that I could hardly understand and was chewing on chewing gum so loud I couldn't put phone that close to my ear. She started rambling on about nonsense and had no record of anything being found the she couldn't find my reservation, then she did and said I have a ipod but it's bluey black and silver… Mines is black and silver, so I asked her if she could switch it on and I shall tell her the music that was on mine and she could say if it was the same… she refused :(. So I’m still waiting on her calling me back.

I will never hire from this company again. They are so unprofessional and it worries me that other renters may not take out full cover and get tricked by this scam. I also have witnesses that know my ipod was in car as we were listening to it on way to airport, and it’s just because I was being rushed, I forgot it. So, they also have thieves working for them as if it’s not there, then one of them has taken it. And it has sentimental value to me, that's what's worse. Please don't rent from these people. I never shall again.