Alamo Car Rental Reviews

I was fortunate that the car did not break down however the fact that they would give me a car with a maintenance required light means that they didn't care for my safety. I think that it was bad customer service and the situation should have been handled different. I'm very surprised at how Alamo handled the situation because I never had a problem with Alamo and they always have been number one when it comes down to customer service.

When I returned the car to the Houston Intercontinental Airport location, I was asked by the return representative about my experience. I indicated that the rental experience was great but that I hated the car. She apologized, I said "that's not necessary, it's the car not the company I rented it from" and she promptly gave me a discount on my rental that basically covered the tax. I walked away from that experience a very happy customer and I will rent from them again without any hesitation.

2014, don't remember the date (May I think). Weekend trip with my wife to Miami. I rented a car and did the Skip the Counter procedure online. I was going to surprise my wife skipping all the lines and saving time for our romantic trip!!! The reservation procedure was straight forward with no advice about any problem. I picked up the car at the rental center in the Miami Airport but when driving out of the parking lot I showed my credit card and driver's license to the guard, the system dropped a Don't Rent alarm and I had to park again and go to the customer service. I spent about 2 hours on the phone with a guy at a credit office, who made me pay almost $300 for a tire damage on a previous rental (see case 1). They doubled my rental cost.

May 2015. My wife and I are traveling to Miami but arriving on different dates. Since she arrived earlier, she needs to rent the car but I wanted to be able to drive the car once I arrived. I wrote to the customer service asking what to do. CS wrote me back and told me my wife needs to ask for an authorized driver, not an additional driver. That way I didn't need to show up to the counter. Sounds great! I made the reservation online for my wife but there was no authorized driver option on the form. Anyway, I made the reservation and wrote back to the customer service. They wrote me back telling me that my wife had to ask for the authorized driver at the counter. I printed that email and also a copy of my passport and driver's license (just in case) for my wife to show that at the counter. I also told my wife to decline any additional insurance coverage since we have coverage by the credit card.

When my wife got to the counter, the sales rep told her she can not do the authorized driver procedure because I needed to show up to the counter. And also, the sales rep made my wife take the CDW for $25/day because it was mandatory!!! THEY DOUBLED MY RENTAL COST, AGAIN!!! I wrote back to the customer service and they say I do need to show up to the counter, ask for an ADDITIONAL driver and pay $10/day. I got no answer about the CDW. Is that ethic at all??? That's the end of renting with Alamo for me. You get what you pay for. I'm paying much more than with other agencies and getting very angry and frustrated on my vacations trips. Be careful with Alamo. They play with your vacation time, rest and budget.

She spent sometime looking at the monitor, writing a lot of things on PC and after 20 min she gave me the papers to sign, with a total amount of $802.56. I asked her many times about the cancellation of the one day reservation ($252.47) and she confirmed that would be easy to do it, that I'd have 40 days to do it and could do it when back to Brazil. And the other reservation ($504.00) she was REPLACING it to the new one and we should be reimbursed on credit card! As I was with one year old baby and I never had any problems with Hertz, Dollar, Avis, Budget, I just signed the papers and got the car!!

When I return to Brazil, I realize the cancellation is not easy (or even cannot be done after the rental date) and I was charged on $802.56, but won't be reimbursed on $504.00!! I tried to explain the situation to Alamo and they were extremely arrogant, saying that I should read the contract. But, as one colleague with similar problem mentioned in one review, who will read a long contract on a huge line waiting and on vacation? In addition, how could I know, the agent was not using the original reservation and updating it? In fact she just did an additional reservation and the total I paid now is $1,559.03!! I mentioned to Alamo, "That is crazy! How could I accept an additional contract making the total amount gets more than the double of the deal I got online!!" But they simply disregard my consideration!

Yesterday (Feb 23rd) they offered me $216.30 refunding! It is unacceptable! I just want to pay what was offered to me, but looks like the company is not serious and doesn't care about the customer satisfaction and repercussion of company's name. I'm not sure if something will be done, but I decided to write, showing my consternation and let people aware about the way of this company works!

My wife and I made the rental car reservation in September through Costco for a Jeep Wrangler or similar. We were vacationing with a senior couple and needed a four door vehicle. The Wrangler is available in both 2 and 4 door models, but to make sure, I called Alamo to confirm that my reservation reflected my need for a 4-door vehicle. This call sounded like it was routed out of the country, and the representative could not say if a 4-door vehicle was available but said she would make a note on my reservation.

When we arrived in Kona, sure enough, a 4-door Jeep was not available. This was in of itself not a problem since both Standard Size Sport/Utility and Full Size Sport/Utility 4-door vehicles were available. The shocking part, was that the representative did not move me to the lower class vehicle (Standard Size Sport/Utility Vehicle) for the same price as my reservation, but instead charged me as though I was making a new reservation! This increased my rental cost for a 10 day rental by $500. I have never been treated this way by any other car rental company. My last experience with National had me showing up in Seattle this summer only to find that the class of car we reserved was not available. They immediately offered a higher class vehicle and did not change the rates of my reservation.

For Alamo, it was the exact opposite. We showed up and the requested vehicle was not available and we were charged more for a lesser rental! From our perspective this was a classic bait and switch to avoid the lower rate negotiated by Costco.

We hired a renting car (**) at Alamo Puerto Montt Airport via Sunny Cars (26th till the 31st October included). Pick-up of the rental car: contract to sign only available in Spanish. Delivery of the car outside the airport in the middle of the road without any explanation. Car only filled 1/8th without notice of this, no emergency number available in case of problems, accident after a few kilometers of driving and reaching a speed of +/- 90: car and driving wheel were shaking really hard.

At arrival in Chiloe (5 hours drive in total including ferry), we wanted to drive with the car, but we didn't manage to open the car with the key (no reaction when pushing the button). Opening manually the car did not function neither, since the lock seemed to be broken and badly repaired. The key was loose in the lock. There wasn't any possibility to reach Alamo Puerto Montt on Sundays. Finally we managed to contact Alamo in Santiago. This situation lasted for 2 days, because Alamo simply refused to speak to us, since they told we were not speaking Spanish, which is not true!

The feedback they gave to Alamo Santiago was there was a problem with the key battery and we should fix the problem ourselves (on a Sunday in Chiloe, with no car, having no screwdriver, even if we were able to find a battery??). They immediately told us it would be very difficult to find exactly the same renting car for replacement, to which we did not requested. We told Alamo it was their duty to deliver a car that was well functioning and to take care of possible reparation/replacement. At 7 pm we were still on the phone (with our Dutch tour operator which made the reservation at Sunny Cars) without any concrete solution.

The following day, the same scenario: Phone calls all days with different parties involved, who were all convinced the car should be replaced a.s.a.p. by Alamo Puerto Montt, except themselves. We were still stuck at the hotel room, spending a lot of money doing and receiving roaming calls. After having tried lots of times to open the car, finally we managed, which proved there was no problem with the battery, what we said since the beginning. The cause of the problem was not clear to anyone (could be an interference with electric wires in Chiloe), but all parties, except Alamo Puerto Montt, agreed this car was no longer reliable. Alamo also did not allow us to leave the car open during the last night we were going to spend in Chiloe and could not confirm the car would not lock itself after a while (as some cars).

Around 4 pm, Alamo Puerto Montt suggested us to bring back the car ourselves (hoping it stays open) Puerto Montt, and drive back with another car from Puerto Montt to Chiloe the same day (total trajectory more than 8 hours, meaning return to Chiloe at night in the dark, not being used to the roads), hopefully arrive around midnight, get a few hours of sleep and drive back to Puerto Montt the following morning for drop off of the car. We refused and were supported in our decision by Avila **, Sunny Cars (we also received some calls from them) and Alamo Santiago. And then, Alamo Puerto Montt finally understood they should deliver a new car that functions! They told us they were going to arrive at 4 pm. Then 6 pm, finally we received the car at 7.30 pm, with an almost empty fuel tank (contract mentions 1/8th). They took the old renting car with them with the fuel tank filled more than half.

At drop off at the airport of Puerto Montt the next day, again no apologies and laughing at us when we asked compensation for the fuel tank of the old replacement car since the tank was almost empty when arriving with the old car at Puerto Montt. I think it is not necessary to state that this behavior is totally unacceptable and shocking and is far from being customer friendly, not to say it is very rude!

Because of the reasons mentioned, we asked compensation of following costs: (international and roaming) telephone costs, costs for taxi during our stay in Chiloe, cost for the rental car and the additional driver during 2 days, cost for the difference in fuel (see above). At return home, we sent an official complaint to the broker, Sunny Cars and received an automatic reply with the complaint should be solved within maximum 6 weeks. After 6 weeks, no reaction. We sent a mail again and they answered they could still not give an answer because an answer from Alamo Puerto Montt was missing. Again they are proving they are not only far from being professional, but any cooperation is lacking.

The only thing we ask is THAT ALAMO PUERTO MONTT FINALLY TAKES ITS RESPONSIBILITY AND PROVIDES AN ANSWER TO SUNNY CARS ASAP. This should not be difficult since all proofs (tickets, vouchers, telephone, invoices...) were added to the complaint.

He came back to us and said he did not have a medium sized saloon with satnav, so he offered us a Toyota Rav 4 at the same price as the medium sized saloon. He took my credit card details and then handed me lots of paperwork and pointed to a door to the car lot. I was greeted by the attendant, whom asked if I was a good driver and he said of course I was as I drive for a living back in the UK and had driven many times before in the US. There was never any mention of any additional payment to be paid for the vehicle that was brought for us which was much bigger than the Rav4. I did ask if this car was for us and he said this was what was, and helped put our cases in and after getting a good tip for his help he walked away.

It was not until I arrived back home and looked at my credit card statement to find I had been charged £238 for the vehicle we were given, we had not asked for, but were given. I complained to my travel agent, who contacted the company and they produced a copy of the form I had signed for the medium sized saloon but further down it showed there was an upgrade fee placed on this paperwork that I did not know about. Why would I want to upgrade from a Toyota Rav 4 which was plenty big enough for 2 people.

Alamo have said they will not refund any of the upgrade fee to which I had been told by both the agent at the reception I had a free upgrade for the Toyota and the car park attendant never mentioned that there was a charge for the car he brought us. I am extremely angry at the underhand tactics of this company, as at the confusion at the reception desk. It was never pointed out what additional charges we had to pay. It was only pointed out where to sign, or by the attendant who gave us the car we used on holiday.

Let's face it, you never read all the small print when you are on holiday. You want to pick up your car and start your holiday. I am sure the rental car companies rely on this, to rip you off with charges later when you return home. I will never use Alamo again for any rentals when I am in the States for business or pleasure. Please be aware of this practice.

Here it is January 18th and after 16 phone calls we still have not been refunded. Alamo is basically stealing that original $563. They have tried to blame it on our bank and our bank has not once received any refunds and said that it's Alamo lying to us. We have been through 11 managers with Alamo and have gotten nowhere. Alamo car rental is a scam full of thieves. I highly recommend nobody rent from them!

We also tried to call the customer service for the issue, and they kept repeating: "I am sorry, I don't have any car!" That's the only answer they have! We tried to ask to talk to some manager or whoever that can be responsible for respecting a reservation, but we couldn't be connected to anyone that seems to be willing to resolve the issue. This led to the result that we had to change the plan of the whole trip by delaying the driving for two days so that we can find another company to rent the car.

Considering the busy holiday season and we were trying to rent the car just before the trip, the cost went up twice as much as before! Thanks to Alamo, we had a very unforgettable experience for the holiday season in 2014. I think we learned the lesson on how Alamo does business and we'll definitely avoid doing business with them from now on.

Afterwards, this lady began to talk about me and my family to her co-worker who was sitting next to her. She said things such as "I don't know where they are going to sit the extra person... I guess the little one will be sitting on the floor or she will be on top of them." Then the other lady threw in "Yep, seems like they are definitely going to have such a comfortable trip." I WAS STANDING RIGHT IN FRONT OF THEM WHILE THEY WERE SAYING THIS AND MAKING OTHER UNNECESSARY COMMENTS.

After hearing them go on and on about the situation, I said if there is an extra cost for the extra person, I’ll pay for it. If I have to sign a waiver stating the obvious of me being responsible for the extra person, I will sign. I even went as far as saying that I'll rent another car for my daughter who was staying at the hotel airport, but she would not stop insulting us. I even told her to please stop and she said "What you are doing isn't right. This is illegal." Okay, then why is your manager saying it was fine when the situation was brought up?

She handed us the paperwork and everything, but they continued to make comments. At this point, I was fed up and beyond livid. I had prepaid the minivan, but chose to lose $300 then continue to deal with your employees. I cannot imagine EVER insulting my clients at my front desk while they stand in front of me. When I brought this incident up to my business partners, they also did not have very pleasant things to say about Alamo at this location. Sorry Alamo, but from this point forward Budget will have my business.

Daniel - I am not sure you are aware of the history of this matter, and if not, I request that you look into Alamo's notes and the extensive correspondence on this topic. Yesterday, American Express Executive contacted me, and then conferenced in Alamo, in an attempt to expedite a resolution. Yet, as expected, I am transferred to yet another customer service representative. The long and short of it is that: (a) The Cabo Alamo employee lied to us about the insurance and overcharged us for the rental after poaching us 2 feet out of customers at the Cabo airport, (b) the Cabo Alamo location charged us over $150 for non-existent damage to the first car, (c) the Cabo Alamo location refused to show us the alleged damage on the day the car with the flat was picked up or on 12/1, when the second car was returned, (d) the Cabo Alamo employee who swapped out the cars said nothing about damage to the first car, which he presumably drove back to the Cabo Alamo location without incident; and (e) Cabo Alamo, after over a month, produces a generic picture of a wheel of a VW to somehow substantiate its assertion that we caused damage to the first car. The level of misconduct by your company and franchisee continues to rise.

My patience has worn thin with your company. Your company has been non-responsive, including communications to your executive management. I offered a fair compromise, to which your company has yet to respond. At this point, I request that someone with decision-making power contact me directly or process the refund. I very much do not want to file suit over a relatively small amount of money, but you are leaving me with little choice. As I am sure you are aware, due to Alamo's (and its parent company's) world-wide presence, suit may be filed in Dallas, County, Texas. As I am also sure you are aware, Dallas County courts will send this case to mediation. Economically, this case makes no sense to either side. However, if Enterprise Holdings wishes to use its corporate muscle over less than $500, then I have the time and energy to bring suit to recover the money owed to us, as well as my attorney's fees. I do not believe a Court will be sympathetic to the shenanigans that have occurred on the US customer service level with both Enterprise Holdings and Alamo, not to mention the underlying fraud committed by your Cabo franchisee (all of which is documented).

I also am shocked that your company would subject itself to the negatively publicity over a small amount of money and when your company and its franchisee are clearly in the wrong. Again, do the right thing and live up to your company's customer service mantra. I await a prompt resolution.

However whilst completing the paperwork I was asked if I wanted to upgrade to a premium car as they were on special offer, half price. When I asked how much extra I would have to pay I was told that the difference would be an extra £28 plus insurance. As the premium car was a VOLVO 4x4 and it would accommodate the wheelchair and and luggage better that the Astra I accepted the offer. However when I received my credit card statement Alamo had charged me £726 and not the £126 I was expecting. My complaints have fallen on deaf ears. I would never used this company again and I would never recommend them. Myself and my colleagues here in Brussels regularly travel and hire cars in different countries and we are in the process of ensuring that our organization and our contacts never use this company again.

I will NEVER use Alamo again nor will I use Expedia. (Expletive Deleted) those motherless **!

The gentleman at the counter was very cordial and seemed to be very considerate. Then he asked for our travel itinerary. I thought that somewhat suspicious. We were ushered to our vehicle and I noticed it was strange that a freshly washed vehicle had mud conspicuously spread about the vehicle. For reasons I cannot fathom at this point, I took the ushers(?) word for it that there was just a bit of mud and no scratches on the car. Of course, after driving off and a few rain drenches later, the mud was cleared enough to reveal a rather conspicuous scratch on the right rear bumper! Guess what they said when I turned it in on return? You guessed it - It wasn't there before we checked it out according to their records. I wondered how many times they've pulled this stunt and gotten away with it? I'm telling everyone I know NEVER TO RENT FROM ALAMO!!!!

Original Review: Jan. 5, 2015

I had a terrible experience at ALAMO. Frequently, I have travelled through the world and I used to rent cars at Hertz and Localiza. In this travel, I was on vacation and I decided try ALAMO. I did all procedures by internet including the Check in but when I arrived in the MIA airport, the attendant told me that the CDW protection was compulsory for convertible cars and charged my credit card with the CDW tax. When I came home, I saw on the ALAMO Web Site that the CDW covering was optional. Unfortunately, a big company as ALAMO still uses dirty techniques like that. I really would like the refund of the CDW charge because was illegal. I never saw this procedure in other companies that I used before.

Updated on 02/10/2015

After several e-mail exchanges about a complain of CDW improperly charged, I received the information that my refund would be done in january 8th, 2015. After that date I started to claim my refund, but from this date (january 8th) the company (Alamo) just stopped to answer my e-mails. I mean, I have been fooled first time when the CDW was charged (Improperly) and fooled again when the company assure that the CDW would be refunded. It is simple, the company can just say that will not comply with your compromise.

The counter lady said they had a 15-passenger van, but it was never offered to us. She said I have to speak to their manager... so she called the car pick up location to get a manager on the phone. She called a total of three times. No one answered. So then we had to get on a shuttle to go find the manager ourselves... only to be told "It's not my fault your car got broken into. There is nothing I can do for you. You have the vehicle, I don't." The fact is, their tow truck people had the vehicle. We spent the last day of our vacation in the airport on the wrong side of the security check point, since we couldn't check in our luggage until 4:00 pm. No breakfast or lunch for my family of five. We found some cheez - it's from the little gift shop buy baggage claim. Thanks, Alamo!!!!

I hope Alamo officials really look into this incident. As far as I knew, the rental car didn't have any problem or scratch, and the car was dropped off at car repair and body shop. This really seems like somebody tried to steal Alamo's rental car.

Original Review: Dec. 19, 2014

I came back California from Okinawa, Japan for holidays and vacation with my twin two years old girls. I rented Chevy Impala from Alamo LAX around 2-3 PM on December 17, 2014. I planned to stay a night at my friend's house at Oceanside, CA. After 12 hours flight with twin toddlers, 4 hours layover at Seoul Korea, and almost 3 hours drive from LAX to Oceanside, it was around 8 PM, so my friend and I thought we would be ok parking at the visitor's parking and notify the HOA patrol the next morning. Unfortunately my rental car got towed less than 12 hours I was parking there. My friend called HOA, landlord, and security patrol. We finally found the towing company and its location. The towing company's service agents were very helpful and nice to try to help me to get my rental car back. They told me if Alamo could fax the "Hold Harmless Letter" (which shows I can take the rental car on Alamo's behalf), I could pay the towed fee and picked up the rental car. I called the Alamo LAX office many times from 7:30 AM to about 9:30 AM on December 18, 2014 to ask for assistance.

During these two hours, the towing company service agent and I were pushed around on the phone by the Alamo LAX office people. Eventually the manager Seth ** called the towing company after I didn't know how many "please help" I said. However, he didn't fax any paper to the towing company. After another more than 2 hours from 9:30 to around 12:00 calling between the towing company and Alamo LAX, I found out that Mr. Seth was playing around me and towing company. He didn't send anything to the towing company. He just contact whoever Alamo internally to get the rental car from the towing, and I needed to wait for 24-48 hours for them to contact where the rental car would be when they took back the car from the towing company. I called the Oceanside police because my California DL and credit card were in the rental car. Eventually I got my DL, credit card, and my baby car seats back at the towing company. What will this ends is unknown and scary.

This misunderstanding is easy to fix. Why is so hard to get fixed? I just wanted to have a couple of days vacation with my twin toddler girls at Disney. Now I cancelled my hotel at Anaheim and paid penalty for the reservation. My girls and I was eating only crackers we have left from the flight for the whole morning yesterday. Later on my friend knew I was unable to get my rental car back, she brought back her food at lunch time and took the rest of day off to help me out to get my DL, credit card, and baby car seats back. My friend needs to work tomorrow. So I will just need to wait for Alamo to call as they said yesterday.

Alamo LAX people is cold blooded and no empathy at all. They kept saying "There is nothing they can do for you. They have already done their part." How cold blooded could they be to leave a mother with twin toddlers with some crackers for food, no DL and credit card, and no baby car seats because they were in the rental car from their office?

Do the Alamo LAX or even Alamo company know this incidence could cause a lot of problems? They don't know how many customers they could lose or they might not even care. Not only the customer will be frustrated and disappointed, but also the customers' family, friends, coworkers, even any strangers they may talk to later. Moreover, is this the trend how Americans treat others? Shame on Alamo LAX people, shame on Alamo company as a whole, shame on American society. How can we say we have the best "free" country in the world? Free for American companies as Alamo to trick people's money, free to trick people to get additional trouble from Alamo when there is easy way to get solved, and free to be rude and hopeless when Alamo gets you in the rental contract. It's easy and cheap to get into, but it's extremely hard to get help and out of the contract. That's how Alamo will give your money worth.

I am idiot to get Alamo rental car. All readers, please remember to my experience with Alamo rental car and be careful not get trick by them. I will never rent their car again. There is only cold blooded, rude, no empathy people at Alamo rental car. Please pray for me that I will get out this trouble as soon as possible. If anybody can help me on this, please help.

After a month, my parents have a $714 charge on their credit card. It seems the rental counter stated they needed a credit card deposit of $100 that would cover incidentals and would be credited back upon return of the car. As it turned out Alamo Rental had my elderly parents sign and initial several forms to include an upgrade ($20 a day), collision ($24.99 a day), Roadside Assist ($4.99 a day) and a fuel service option ($46.62) that they don't need to bring the car back full.

Talking to my elderly parents it has become apparent they were not clear of the charges being added because my father stated of course he fill the gas tank before he returned the car. We contacted the rental desk and found they did not even have a standard rental car and forced my parents into an upgrade at their expense. Alamo dealt unfairly with my parents charging for services they believed were covered in the package. They got their credit card information for an alleged deposit but were actually selling products and/or services my parents did not understand were in addition to and certainly not needed.

Received a call two days later saying the car wasn't returned and to call 800 something immediately. That number was a 5 minute plus commercial advising that I had won a trip to the Bahamas. Press any number to continue. A travel agent proceeds to tell me about the travel plans to the Bahamas. Then called hobby to see if in fact the car was not shown as returned and they still say it's not been returned? Not sure where it goes from here but not a good experience.

The seats went completely in the floor for the minivan, which was SO helpful to have the extra cargo space. Extra fees included full coverage for insurance and roadside assistance if needed. I drove 11 hours total, and the van only needed $60 worth of gas. Incredible mpg. Returned the van 11:30AM to RDU airport, and it was painless. The gentleman asked me if I had any problems, about my experience - which were all good - and on the spot, he gave me a receipt for $176. Having experience with other rental car companies, I expected them to have hidden fees (for a one-day drop off; or for extra miles) but with Alamo, there were no surprises. Incredibly happy that this was a straight-forward as it seemed, and saved hundreds of dollars on moving.

Even asking them to switch car in Monterey or Santa Barbara they could not give the wanted, asked, reserved, and paid the category wanted. WARNING! All they want is people to book and paid these popular cars at a competitive price and give them what they have in stock. Look these pages; it is the same all over Europe in any language... http://www.alamo.fr/usa, http://www.alamo.it/usa. Try to call them, they hide like cockroaches when you open the light!

Can Alamo give their convertible amount of car in CA. or give their success/booked ratio for Convertibles in California? Certainly not. Please accept my apologies for my bad English, writing from French Riviera. Is this a huge crookery? Same Issue? Please respond and join. I am making a complaint to FTC and hire attorneys in SFO.

I have been on the phone and online via email with Alamo. They act as if I offended them in some way! I managed to get them to send me a copy of the credit release they sent to the bank and it was COMPLETELY IN SPANISH! It didn't even have my name on it or ALAMO on it or the amount of the charge in USD! I asked them to send a copy of the release in English on company letter head which they did but the amounts that were on hold were incorrect. At first I thought that my bank charged a conversion fee but turns out they don't so I asked them to resend the release AGAIN with the proper amounts and they REFUSED!!!! I even sent them a screenshot of exactly what the bank was charging me and they still refused and basically told me it was my problem. What company in their right mind does such a thing?

I was also told that the car rental would be $295 USD but the amount actually charged to my account was $301. I tried to dispute that just on principle but I can't because the bank actually charges based on what the conversion rate is at the time the charge hits the account. Imagine that! I cannot believe how arrogant Alamo Car Rental is that they would tell THE BANK that they are wrong! Thankfully, I believe the bank felt sorry for me and resolved the issue themselves but I will NEVER rent from Alamo again especially if it is international and I recommend no one else does either.

Folks, that is how they make money on us. They know that once they take your money, it will be hard for you to get your money back as they have this outsourced call center wall between you and the company and you will never reach them....But that is what they want, they want you to give up on your money because of stress that they make you go through, it's just not worth it.

I requested that she take me back to the airport, but she chose to ignore me. I was trying to reason with her and said that Alamo is a company, that one office could not just make up the rules. She called the manager who supposedly told her that I was not to get a car without insurance. It was getting dark, I had landed 2 hours before, and I felt like a hostage and had no recourse but to let her charge me for the insurance. The insurance alone came to $178.55 on my bill. I cannot dispute it because they said that I did hand her my credit card. I feel that this is an outrageous practice and will make sure I tell my family and friends never to use Alamo. My Mastercard bill is $293.39.

Now mind you I had just arrived from a 4 hour flight where I had to drive 2 hours just to get to the airport and be there 1 1/2 hours early to get through security. My wife was tired and I was tired. I told her point blank I am not paying for that. I said I made arrangements for the car months in advance. I paid for the rental in full at the time of my arrangements. I was told because the time of my arrangements was 60 minutes prior to when I arrived to get the vehicle that they did not hold them. So I said that “Excuse me but I paid in full for that rental and you have an obligation to hold it for me.” She then said it was not Alamo’s policy.

At this point I asked to speak to her supervisor. She then made a phone call and her manager then came in from outside. He wanted to show me how agreeable he was and offered me a lesser price. I said no I am not paying extra money for a car I had paid in full for because they had decided not to keep the car I had paid for. He told me that because I had not picked it up at the arranged for time that it was my fault for not contacting them. I then said “Well I paid in FULL for this vehicle and you had a responsibility to keep it until I had arrived no matter what time I arrived to get it.” He said “I'm sorry but that is not the company’s policy.” A broken record saying the same thing over and over. I finally settled on paying 24 dollars extra because I felt hooked and they knew it. I could not get my money back because they said Priceline had it. Overall I was extremely disappointed in how they handled things.

I asked to be sent to someone else, I was...and she again said, "The computer gives the best price available at the moment your reserve." Again I asked about the Alamo Insider discount. She said it was applied. I told her it was not, since I was looking at the breakdown on my screen. So, faced with irrefutable evidence to the contrary, she fell back on "the computer gives the best price at the moment you reserve". Alamo Insider is false advertising. It does NOT give you a discount. Apparently it raises your price to see how stupid you really are.

I unfortunately only discovered this after the car had been returned. Then I understood that the policy was purely optional and was to cover any peripheral items not covered by the built in insurance and that may be drawn from my Pounds 1000 credit card authorisation. The full funds were drawn from my credit card. Only when challenged did they re-fund the overcharge and offered an unacceptable diversionary red-herring excuse. MORAL - Don’t book through RentalCars.com and avoid car hire brokers.

The elderly relative after a long flight from Sydney Australia arrived at the Heathrow London ALAMO counter to be told sign here, we will return your pounds 250 deposit if the car is returned intact. The car was returned on time, undamaged and with full tank of petrol. Inspection of the credit card statement showed it debited with Pounds 455.38. and later for another unknown Pounds 66.99 by a company called EuropCars!! An authorisation for Pounds 705.30 had been made by ALAMO!!! Immediately I contacted RentalCars.com and established that ALAMO had not sought the Pounds 1000 authorisation but surreptitiously sold her a GO-ZEN policy plus other extra and had completely ignored RentalCars.com policy that (albeit unauthorised but paid for) covered the Pounds 1000 peripheral damage liability.

I was advised the Pounds 66.99 was invoiced in error and would be refunded. As for the Pounds 455.38, that I should seek a refund via my card issued from a company called EuropCar who had made the credit card withdrawals. So what was a Pounds 350.00 car hire with turned out to be Pounds 805.37!!! Some 130% more. MORAL: Do not hire from ALAMO or EUROPCAR and refuse and policies especially the GO-ZEN insurance product. They both are more engaged in insurance scams than car hire!!!!! AND Change your credit card when you get back home too.

This was no help at all, as that company was miles away, they had only pick-up trucks, and we had to pay in full (despite having prepaid). The Alamo helpdesk, instead stated that this was a big help. Our travel agency advised us to rent a car through Avis, and collect the Alamo car two days later on Sunday (Alamo is closed on Saturday), which we did. We also prepaid a GPS which was not available; person at the desk suggested that we buy one (no apologies).

My travel Agency has contacted Alamo in July and Alamo promised to repay the rental for the Avis car; which they do not (Alamo has asked for, and received all the necessary information). It has taken four months now. Also Alamo does not respond to reminders (by my travel agency). I also tried to contact Alamo; unfortunately they have computers answering emails, which are programmed to keep you going around in circles. Indeed a very negative experience, we will not use Alamo in the future.

When I went to get the car I asked the customer service representative if we needed to look over the vehicle and write any damage down so we are not charged for it, he told me no and continued to let us out of the traffic control area. We did not go anywhere with the vehicle where it could have gotten damaged because it was not around anybody else. I regretfully am disagreeing with your damages that you are claiming and I will not let you violate my civil rights, as you did not check the vehicle before I left the lot. The customer service representative was talking gibberish and I asked what he was talking about, he stated to me “you probably got hit in the parking lot somewhere.” I didn't know that your customer service representatives are mechanics also?

I am not paying for something that I did not do, as I let the manager Bettina ** and she didn't want to hear what I had to say because her employee was accusing me of wrecking the back hatch. He placed his finger in the lip of where the hatch was and stated see this is not the same on both sides. Bettina ** stated that she was going to call my husband the next day, she never called. I don't know what kind of business you have ran down there in Florida but I am not playing your scam games as there was no damages to that vehicle that was rented by me, nothing wrong with it. There were no damages as any damages were prior or a manufacturer defect.

Bettina refused to listen to me when I was telling her that her customer service representative was accusing me of damaging the vehicle when no scratches or dents or marks were on the vehicle whatsoever. I refuse to have my insurance or myself pay for your explicit scam that you have running out of Alamo. This vehicle was not damaged in my care so no I am refuting your frivolous accusations. I would like this taken to the litigation department of the court. Also, your email address on this letter DRU1@ehi.com that you claim in this letter does not work as it is invalid email address, I have the proof of that also, so why are you asking for a response by email if the person can't even email your company. I also did not sign any damages as I was the one who rented the vehicle and I was not agreeing to sign the nonsense claim when your associates are not mechanics. I will prove my innocence as I can, hope you can as well.

Knowing that France or any other foreign country is not US, there are cultural differences, insurance differences and many other things are different from States. Trying to do my homework ahead of time, I asked Alamo Escalation Support Representative to supply me with the statement with complete information on all discounts and the total fees on my order. The Escalation Support Department send me letter with all confirmations regarding my order. Actually I spoke with them over the phone on 7/28/2014 and they assured me that even if Auto Europe does not honor the discount rate or gives me a hard time, possibly even overcharging me, the Alamo Car Rental Company definitely will reimburse all additional expenses.

When we arrived at Nice on 8/23/2014, the Auto Europe Car representative did not honor the special rate given to me and I was overcharged paying $450, instead of $309, not counting 15% off. The whole overcharge was $196.50. Upon my arrival back in NYC, Mr. Tom ** of Alamo International Customer Care really wasn't much interested in resolving the matter, trying to get the customer any way he can. I have come to experience Alamo's customer service as appalling, and the product and service a rip off and scam. It is pitiful way to conduct business. I would recommend to any potential renters before dealing with Alamo Rental Car Company to thoroughly question every dealing with company before committing to a rental with them. So far I have found 292 complaints against the Alamo by customers on ConsumerAffairs.com, PissedConsumer.com and TripAdvisor websites. I am seriously warning everybody against doing business with this company.

This concludes that Alamo's employees opened my bag to check whose bag it belonged to and then proceeded to take my items out of the eye of the video cameras stationed at the property. The manager stated he reviewed the video but the camera does not extend to the cleaning crew area and therefore can not see what happened. It makes me sick that these individuals are deliberately stealing customers' personal items and that Alamo managers refuse to hold their employees accountable for such devious acts.

While still in the office I called customer services of rentalcars.com (who we had made the booking through) who asked to speak directly with him. He refused to talk to them. Meanwhile the other customer was having a similar row with him over some identity problems - this customer then left in a cloud of invective slamming the door. Your agent spoke with a heavy eastern European accent and the whole atmosphere was quite surreal like being in a Russian gangster movie – there were 2 other shady characters in tracksuits wandering in and out and we still somewhat jetlagged, tired and confused were completely stumped so we left.

Still desperate for a car I contacted the Alamo call center who asked me what type of car I had ordered and said these were available at Luton Airport and that we could present our voucher there. We taxied to Luton Airport at considerable expense to be told that they had absolutely no cars and they got in touch with the call center to investigate and they were supposed to get back to me - they didn't.

After a while I got back in touch with them – by this time they were aware of the situation and it appears we had been wrongly advised. We were informed that the only way we could get a car at the weekend would be to make a new booking but with no guarantee that we would get a refund on the original one. They did however acknowledge the situation, have got full details and advised us to get in touch with Customer Services when they reopened. When we did get in touch, they told us because we booked it through rentalcars.com they would only talk to them. Needless to say rentalcars.com blamed Alamo although they offered us a 20 pound gesture.

Updated on 05/02/2015: In a nutshell we received some very bad treatment at the hands of Alamo and their customer services washed their hands of our initial complaint. However following the review being published I received a very polite offer from Alamo to investigate the matter. They concluded that we had indeed been treated very badly. Appeared very apologetic and offered to compensate us. The compensation turned out to be a time limited days coupon for car hire in USA. Given that we live in Australia I pointed out that this wasn't much use. They then increased this to 3 days.

After an extended email discussion they actually offered to pay us £80 as a courtesy on the 11th November 2014. Since that date the case has been passed between at least 5 customer services personnel who have all been very apologetic and apparently trying desperately hard but failing to make the payment. This finally ended up with team leader in Enterprise Holdings (the parent company) who has just written to me on 28th April 2015 saying that they can't make the payment. Amazing!

On Wednesday, Oct 1, I tried to call them to find out WHERE at the airport they were. No one answered. After a while the national office kicked in. The lady became very angry with me and stated that they had not moved and to return it where I got it. That they would not have called me (how would they have gotten ahold of me). I took it there and there was only security police trying to deal with many very angry people. We had to take it to the National Car rental drop off. They were slammed. Their local number is still giving directions to the old address and there are no signs for Alamo at the Newark airport. Really poor communication with the customer AND their national office.

What I am most angry is that the person I signed the contract when picking up the car lied to me so I signed extra insurance when I clearly said no as I already had that (he said for example I would sign that if I drive too fast I would have to pay the fine). The person I called promised me a bill of cost by email but also did not get that one. I wrote them again today and see what happens, I will certainly not rent from them again. I had rented cars 3 times in Ireland and 2 times in the US with other companies and never had such a problem before.

After walking a mile and finding one particular spot, we could just manage to get the phone to dial Alamo in Bozeman. After explaining to the customer service agent our situation, our location, and the danger of our situation, I quickly explained how I might lose my cell signal at any moment and that they needed to get a tow truck on its way. Instead of having concern for us and the situation we were in, the agent began to question if we had run out of gas or if we had used diesel and so on, implying that we got ourselves into this situation and never once saying they will help and get a tow truck on the way. After repeatedly stressing I could lose my cell connection at any moment, the agent put me on hold for 5 minutes and then again for 10 minutes, which is when I lost my connection. After again finding a cell hot spot, I tried calling the Alamo number for the next 20 minutes, only to get a busy signal.

Since the lackadaisical Alamo agent was unconcerned about our situation and safety, our only hope was for a good Samaritan to pick us up before night set in. Luckily for us, a good Samaritan reluctantly stopped and agreed to give us a lift the 2.5 hours back into Bozeman. I called the agent once we were in cell range, to find out he had never sent a tow truck or anyone else to help us for that matter and he never once apologized for the situation, but instead said that once we dropped the keys off at the office they would send a tow truck to pick up the vehicle. And then to add insult to injury, he proceeded to threaten us with the $600 towing charge if it was found that it was our fault that the car stopped working. Unbelievable!

Alamo customer service saying should be, "We have no concern for customer safety and the customer will always be assumed to be at fault, even if they end up stranded on the side of a remote highway.” This took up a day and half of our honeymoon. The next day we spoke with the manager who was useless and uncaring, the equivalent of the company robot. After calling every day for over a week, leaving messages for the manager and waiting to hear when we would be, at the very least, refunded our rental fee, we finally heard from Alamo that it was a mechanical issue (no fault of ours) and we would be refunded. There was never an apology or gesture by the company for the poor customer service that put us in an unsafe and dangerous situation. Shameful!

Also I would like give a feedback to Alamo customer service, they told Alamo CAN'T return the money, only give 100 $ refund. Don't tell things to the customer's that are not true! Only reason I received the money back was because I did not give up and it should not be like that!

Thank you for the Social monitoring team of Alamo for finally taking care of this issue and forwarding it to executive level.

Original Review: Aug. 14, 2014

We booked Alamo Rental car through Car Trawler. The rent time was 14-24.2.2014. At the desk, my husband noticed that he had only his International driver's license with him and he could not rent the car. Alamo desk clerk told that the agreement with Car Trawler can be changed to my name and after confirming from her superior, told that Alamo will do the change. The car class in Car Trawler agreement was Van/Minivan similar to Dodge Caravan. The agreement was changed to my name and clerk asked how many suitcases and how many people was going to be in the car. After hearing we had 3 big suitcases and 3 smaller suitcases and 4 people, she told us that she will upgrade our car class FOR FREE, no additional costs involved. She also gave us the navigator without asking if we need it. We told the officer that we have our own navigator and we don't need the one from Alamo.

After this, we went downstairs to the garage and when we saw the car your officer almost forced us to take, we went back and told the officer that we most definitely didn't want to have the "upgraded" car - we wanted to have the Dodge Caravan or similar as we first booked (and which is clearly stated in our original voucher from Car Trawler). We received the car we wanted and left.

Afterwards my credit card was charged for the car class upgrade, the navigator and for fuel, total amount of $622. Charging the fuel is ok but we did not have the navigator or car class upgrade. And even if we did have the upgrade, the officer told us many times, when we asked, that everything is paid for and the upgrade is free of charge.

The customer service taking care of this matter in Alamo is a joke. I never get the answer in a promised 5 working days. Last time I waited for the reply over a month and when I asked for an answer, miraculously the "upper management" had just answered and they were offering me a ridiculous $100 compensation. We did not have upgraded car (and even we had, it was supposed to be FREE) but Alamo customer service claims they are not able to make a full refund because I signed the contract. Well, the attachment was done after I went back and told we don't want the upgraded car but conveniently it is now "disappeared" and no copy was given to me. Alamo desk clerk lied purposely in order to have extra sales and the customer service could not care less about this matter. I don't think it is a good customer service to first deceive the client and when the customer complaints, not to give money back for the bogus car upgrade. It can be easily be checked which car we had.

You can see in the pictures. The other clients in line, and there were many, also prepaid, so no one left the line. None of my calls and emails to the "care" department were ignored and/or disconnected and/or transferred to the wrong department. I had a few of those... I will NEVER EVER take Alamo again, even if the other costs more. And btw, I did a pre-registration online on their web site, to expedite the renting process. If I hadn't been so angry, I would have laughed...

I accepted the Jeep believing he was competent enough not to screw up this reservation and refund the correct amount of points back to my credit card. Long story short, Alamo charged me the full amount of the rental and states that Jeep and Mustang are of equal charge. $200+$49= $249 not $400. Alamo seems to have an issue with counting. I travel frequently for business and have used most rental companies; my favorite being Enterprise. I will no longer use Alamo for any of my travels and will make it a point to persuade all of my friends and co-workers to use another rental agency. I will make it a point to post this complaint to as many sites as possible. Thanks again, Alamo.

Basically no matter who we spoke to at SeaTac location or SeaTac customer service said .. "not our problem," "it's company policy," and "don't know why you would pay for someone else anyway." IF the relative had the money for their own trip, they wouldn't have asked me to pay for it. Even more humorous was they couldn't talk to me because while it was my credit card they wanted, the rental car booking was in his name. Totally unsatisfactory from a frequent traveler. They then told me to go try to deal with Orbitz who always screws up. So basically we're caught between two unsatisfying package providers.

Traveled about 100 miles to my sons (who's wedding we had gone over for) and then parked the car up for basically 2 days, used it then for the other 3 days on local runs of about 20 miles each maximum. Returned the car full of petrol and before the booking in time to Manchester and flew home, I then check my credit card and I have been charged 554 GBP in total!!

Rang up and they said that was for the 3515 miles in addition to the 1400 miles free I had done in the car, I queried this and they admitted "it seemed a bit excessive to have driven close on 5000 miles in less than 1 week!!" Started a claim and said I wanted the money back on my card before the bill was due to be paid to avoid interest. Rang back 2 days later and they said, "YES we have made a mistake and the money will be refunded to you within the next 4 -5 days." 6 days later rang and they said the case was still pending. I then informed them that they had admitted error, "Oh Yes I can see that now ". When will I get my money?" "Well the case has been reviewed once but has to be reviewed again before we can pay you back. Maybe in the next 4 or 5 days as we have 10 days to settle any claims you know." :-(

I will NEVER use Alamo again. After accepting that their error had charged me nearly 400 GBP extra they refused to refund until nearly 2 weeks later and then to add insult to injury they said the price was actually 133.02 GBP for the hire and NOT 103 GBP as I had on all my paperwork and this despite being downgraded to a Skoda!! This I'm still fighting so be WARNED out there!!

I took ticket 130 and was thirty places away from being served. After half an hour, no more than ten customers had been served. Agents were ambling around in no hurry; several were at their terminals but not serving anyone. Several terminals were unmanned. After entering in to a discussion with the Manager, eventually more staff appeared and a greater sense of urgency - to some degree - was displayed. I eventually got my car approximately one hour and a half after arriving.

This place needs a good kick up the backside. They have everyone's arrival details so should easily be able to staff according to forecast arrivals. Whenever I see a long queue and the Manager is sitting in the back office, it is a sure sign that things are wrong. I would pay more to use Hertz or Avis rather than go through this experience again.

Really Alamo... you have defined trust by someone's ability to have debt? But I digress, you see the policy on the Alamo website says if we have a return ticket they will accept a debit card. Our next solution was for me to get on the phone and offer my business credit card to pay the $200+ deposit. ** said she could not accept that because they must physically swipe the card. What is this 1995? As my wife sat there and wept with 4 screaming children, I began to come up with solutions with **. I quoted her again the policy saying that if I presented a return ticket I would be allowed to use a debit card. She said it is their actual policy to not allow debit cards, even though their website clearly states it. I offered other credit cards to have people come down and pay it, etc. She refused all solutions. In the end I asked her what I should do with my stranded wife and she responded, "I don't know, because there is nothing I can do for you." Finally a manager called us and told us that he admits the policy is wrong but we should have taken a taxi and there was nothing they could do for us.

Come noon on Monday I had not received a call back so I called a second time to this number. I again gave all my information, she took also my credit card information to charge me for mailing my gps back to me. A few days later I received a package. It was from this office, however it was not my gps, this was a 4" screen Garmin Nuvi. I called again with no answer during business hours so I left a message. I called back the following day (Friday), explained this is not my gps and I would like mine. Carrie acted shocked when I went over the dimension of my GPS again, saying “Wow, that big!" I was told again by Carrie **, “Well would you like to use this one until we find yours?” I told her this is not mine, it belongs to someone else. Carrie's reply was, “I don't have anyone right now.”

I then called the main airport and spoke with Brian from the Alamo car rental place again, explained all again and was told to hold while they got management. A few minutes later the gentleman gets back on the phone only to say, “Sorry management just stepped out, but will call you back.” A few minutes later Carrie called back saying she got an email that I want to return the Gps that does not belong to me, she had not found mine and the car was out again. She said she would try to call the new renter to see if it was in the car. She called back saying she couldn't reach them. I have the receipt for my GPS and told Carrie this is a $269.00 GPS without tax included. I waited again not to hear anything.

ON Monday the 21st of July I called Carrie again but again only got voice mail. On Tuesday, I received a call from Carrie saying the car was returned, however, my GPS was not located yet. This says that between Alamo Employees at the Will Rogers Air Port and the company hired under Alamo by them to clean the cars, there is a thief working. I say this because had the woman who took my rental back upon getting in stated, “Maa’m is this your GPS?” I would have it now, or those who cleaned the windshield you don't miss an object whose screen is 7" not to mention the actual item, mounted to the windshield you clean with the cord hanging still plugged in!!!!! YES... I am ticked that ALAMO CAR RENTAL AND THOSE ASSOCIATED WITH THEM ARE THIEVES AND NO ONE WILL DO ANYTHING!!!!!!!

The fact that something similar happened to my father-in-law & a Google search turns up several similar cases makes this appear to be more than a coincidence or at best, a case of lazy/negligent/terrible customer service. I would not recommend renting through this group of companies (and note that Alamo = Enterprise = National = Eurocar). This has been a very frustrating experience & chasing down $300 that was taken from me inappropriately is not how I like to spend my spare time. And one more note - The billing fiasco is in addition to a few other instances of poor service (was given a smaller car than the one I had booked for the same price, aggressive & misleading efforts to sell insurance upgrades) that had already made me question dealing with Alamo again but wouldn't have led to me filing complaints.

When I received my credit card bill, I noticed that they had charged me a massive GBP 189 extra for this cover and taxes despite these already clearly stated as already included in the original quoted price. This meant that the car hire cost was almost double what was quoted. Despite scores of email back and forth including copies of all the paperwork proving my case, Economy Car Rentals who brokered the rental and Alamo themselves have been totally useless. Please beware when you see cheap quotes from this company - it will end up costing you dearly.

I went there and was told, "Sorry, no cars," and that was why they never called back. I'm a senior woman traveling alone in tears. When I returned the lemon, no Alamo agent around. I filled out a complaint over a week ago and have heard nothing. Never again!

As if that wasn't frustrating enough, every employee that I talked to passed the buck to some other office and refused to take the initiative to perform a normal customer service action of doing something nice for me to make up for all of the trouble this breakdown had caused. Everyone blamed another office and told me I had to talk to that other place. At the end, the turn-in counter said they could not make any adjustments for me and that I would have to waste even more time trying to get relief on this situation by emailing some other stranger who was unfamiliar with the situation.

Then I got the bill -- they had the audacity to charge me $150 dollars to fill the tank of the broken down car at their inflated in-house gas prices! This amounted to a doubling of the entire rental charge! I was so angry with that and the ruined holiday that I took the extra step and emailed the customer service department to try to find someone who would take responsibility for making me a happy customer.

They have so far refused, choosing instead to tell me that they "can't be held responsible for when a car breaks down". This is the preposterous way that Alamo and Europcar believe they should treat their customers. When a car breaks down and strands a military veteran while ruining his family's first Mother's day, not only should I have to waste an entire day waiting for a resolution, the expectation is that I presumably should have been walking back and forth to the nearest petrol station to fill the tank 10 liters at a time while I was waiting.

The Alamo rep entered the information as my sister’s husband driving the entire week as well as my husband. When we explained again that my sister would be driving one day only she seemed annoyed but did reprocess the bill. She never went over the charges, and we were anxious to begin our vacation so when my husband and sister signed the bill they did not read what they were signing. On May 9, the day before our vacation was over I gathered all of our paperwork for the airport and rented car. It was then that I noticed we were charged for an upgrade SUV and Insurance. None of us thought the SUV we got was an upgrade because it seemed the same size. I called Alamo right away and was told they could not do anything until we returned the SUV.

The next morning we were flying back home and returned the SUV. I asked to have the charges removed because we did not ask for them and was told that a manager would call me. I waited all day and no such call came. I then called service number (888)826-6983 and was told the case was closed out! I asked to reopen it and again to speak with a manager. This went on with me calling the service number and asking why no one is addressing my dispute from May 10- 23rd.

On May 23rd I was told by a service agent that it was documented that we accepted the Insurance and upgrade! He even laughed at me and asked why I called the day before the SUV was due back! I was so upset but I explained to him that it was not unusual to gather paperwork the day before vacation was over in preparation to return home. He said the manager at Ft Myers had to talk to me. **, the Ft Myers SW Branch manager called and left a message on my phone to call back on May 25th. I tried several times to call back until I was told by a FT Myers SW representative that management said to tell me that there would be no adjustments to my bill.

On May 26th I called the service line again asking this time asked to speak to a regional manager. The result was another phone call from a FT Myers SW branch manager named **. Again, I was not near my phone to answer so he left a message to call back after stating in the same message that I agreed to the insurance and upgrade and then wanted to change it the day before the vehicle was due back! I continuously tried to call ** back to speak with him at # 239-768-2424 all the way up until June 3rd but my attempts to reach him were all ignored.

We are now stuck paying $174.93 for services that we NEVER ASKED FOR and that is upsetting enough. What is worse is being treated like my only intent was to steal from Alamo. I cannot believe that the Alamo at FT Myers SW airport policy allowed the branch to document untrue statements based on only what the branch said and assumed. I never got to speak to a branch or regional manager. Never in all my life have I seen such poor customer service. And because the booking representative word was taken over ours there is not even a hope of a preventative action for customer service improvement at this branch. We have learned never to trust this business and will not forget this awful experience.

After all this trouble, this company looks like total scam to me. I spoke to Alamo so many times but nothing had been done on their end to resolve this issue so I just opened a case with my bank. The branch I was dealing with is located in Sarasota FL. I was able to find another car rental and ended up paying twice less for the similar car Alamo had offered me. This company is quite overpriced for such unreliable and unprofessional services! Don't go there if you value your time and money.

Upon my return, I told the counter person at the Spokane Airport, location of the issue and showed him a picture of what was hanging down and told him how incredibly unhappy I was. He said he would have the manager contact me the next day. The manager never contacted me, not any day. I couldn't reach him so I went above him. Their customer service people sent them numerous emails for him to contact me, he never did. Finally a month and a half later... I told them I was thoroughly disgusted by their company and their too big to care attitude and I would tell anyone who would listen.

At that point, I was offered 3 free day rental coupons. I told them if the manager had offered that to me a month and a half ago, I would have been fine with it but not now. I could never imagine doing any business with that company again. So disappointed. That is the short version. Really, expecting their customers to crawl underneath their vehicles and fix them. I wasn't the one who took it off road and broke it, but they didn't catch it before I got it for my road trip and I get stuck fixing it? Not right. So much for customer service.

All I understood was that I had to show proof that I was flying in and out from Atlanta in order to rent a car in Atlanta for the weekend!! What in the crap does my driver's license have to do with where I'M coming from?!!! I could have been coming from a different state and flying back there to go somewhere else and my license won't be the same!!! Alamo used to be my number one place to rent a car because they do not charge a huge deposit. But because of this, I am at a standstill with trying to rent a car and the employees are sorry as hell! Maybe if they hire some other races other than **, customers would get better service! Oh, btw, I'm ** myself!

First time Alamo refunded me, while yesterday I was told by the Alamo citation dept that commercial vehicles including rent cars have to pay higher! Anyhow I felt much misinformed! Not happy at all! Also not sure the explanation by Alamo is correct! Still guess they are making money with this! Not sure I will use them again!

Karim said they could not do it and he was just lazy to merge the 2 reservations. One week later, I called ALAMO and they said they couldn't do it because I had to sign a new agreement and that I had to go back to the airport at the end of the first week and drop off the car and pick up a new one! They wasted my time and they ruined my Sunday. I always go with other companies. This was the first and last time I am renting a car with ALAMO. Be careful, their customer service is horrible and very poor!

I have rented for years without ANY problems with companies such as Enterprise (which Alamo happens to now be under, ironically) and Avis, to name a couple. I have never had any problems with my rentals and their post-inspections.... until I used this company at this location. I purchased a deal off of Hotwire, thinking "what a great deal Alamo has." I was even "upgraded" from a Dodge minivan to a Chrysler. I thought, "Wow, this company is great." That afternoon, I took some friends out to MD in this van, had a great evening, and returned the van back to DCA via the late night drop-off (a little past midnight). No damages done to the van whatsoever and I have witnesses. I dropped the keys AND rental agreement in their mailbox-looking thing, double checked the van for anything out of the ordinary, and off I went.

Then, I get a voicemail in the morning claiming they found scratches to the vehicle. Of course, I am surprised, upset, and VERY suspicious. I have never gotten into an accident in my life and my driving record is clean. I denied the damages, of course, and yet they insisted they needed to write up a claim. I go on my honeymoon. When I get back, I receive an invoice of $1000 and an estimate with non-timestamped pictures of the alleged van with scratches. $1000 for scratches!! On top of that, the YEARS of the vehicle didn't match.

Let's just say that 1/2 a year later, I'm still fighting their bogus claim. I've contacted the Office of Attorney General and the Better Business Bureau. Alamo has been uncooperative, unreliable, and, quite frankly, untrustworthy. I've done extensive research on bogus car claims, and, well, what do you know... Alamo shows up. Google it. Learn from my mistake and the mistake of many others. This company will take advantage of you if you're not careful.

Avoid this company at all cost. But if you're one of the unfortunate to HAVE to rent from them, force them to do a walk-around (they insist it's "up to the customer"... other places I've rented did that automatically), sign documents to confirm the condition of the vehicle, take PICTURES and VIDEO inside and out, and when you return the vehicle, take pictures and video AGAIN and make sure you do one last inspection with a rep and confirm the condition. It's a hassle. But, you never know if you'll need the evidence one day, as I've read stories about companies who write up claims even AFTER an inspection.

He, as well, had a lot of difficulty to understand the mistake committed by Alamo, and kept "investigating" about the mistake, but never assumed that the company wrongly charged me for an extra 2 weeks. Instead he told me that the company overcharged me. It was very frustrating to get this reversed, especially because the company was very disorganized and misinformed. Since my credit card is issued in Brazil, there are several taxes and fees that both the card bank and government charge, and because I refused to pay the amount, the card charged me interest rates.

I expressed my concern to the branch manager, Keri **, who sent me the following e-mail: "...Once you can confirm with me that the first issue is clear with the charges, I can credit you additionally for the inconvenience." So, after the bank identified the refund it withdraw the overcharge, but not the taxes and interest rate, so I submitted the card statement where demonstrates all the transactions to Keri, and I got the following reply: "... The statement is not clear and is in Portuguese and to show that these fees were directly due to Alamo, as some of the fees you pointed out appear before, and days after the initial credit."

Amazing and very frustrating response, especially from a branch manager. I have called at least 30 times, we exchanged 39 e-mails and I still have not solved the problem completely, the problem that Alamo created by charging me for an extra 2 weeks of car rental that I did not purchase. It is very frustrating, especially the competence of the manager.

They gave us an email which guaranteed a reply within 1 hour!! Guess what. Never replied, neither did we get through on phone. Eventually had to take it up on return home as that is where we made the booking and by law the booking was with the UK branch. Have put it in writing twice and no one will reply to us. They don't give a dam. We will take them to the small claims court if necessary.

The clerk had convinced her to do an upgrade (Full Size) and told her that the difference would be US$ 25 per day, as showed (and charged) on the rental contract (20 X $25.00 = US$500). So, the "ESTIMATED CHARGES", after all other charges and fees, would be US$ 1,740.09 (IAW rental contract). Well, she had to stay with the car two more days, so, the total rental time was 22 days. Looking at the Credit Card receipt, she paid only for the rental itself $1,875.00 (time & dis 3 X US$625). Did she pay that only because she returned the car 2 days after the day that was on the contract? What rate was that?

In this case, why did she ALSO pay 22 X $25.00 ("CAR CLASS")? I'd checked today Alamo's rates for a Full Size car, for a period of 22 days, and I found US$499 per week. The estimated total (all charges and fees included) came to US$ 2,017.28! Just to compare, she paid the total amount of US$3,434.70! Sorry, but there is something wrong. It's important to mention now that she made the reservation through American Airlines (AA) website (she still has the confirmation e-mail from AA). After the upgrade, I understand that the rate was supposed to be US$32.14 per day + $25.00 (car class change). Well, 22 days X ($32.14 + $25) = US$ ,257.08. Again, she paid only for the rental US$1,875 + US$500 (car class change) = $2,375.00!

Did she lose the American Airlines rate only because she returned the car 2 days late? Nobody told her anything about this. More: the rental contract cannot be changed in this way without notice or without anybody telling so. At least, I think not. More: which car class costs US$625/week? According to Alamo's website, Premium and Midsize SUV cars cost US$699/week. So, I think that the rate she was supposed to pay (AA rate) was lower than the one at Alamo's website. That makes sense, because, once more, the rate on the rental contract was US$ 224.97 X 2 (Midsize car) + $25 per day (car class change). In order to compare, on Alamo's website, the rate for a Midsize car is US$489.00 per week.

And last, but not the least, we cannot forget that some of the PRIV FEE RECOV CHG 10 PCT @10.00% and the SALES TAX are percentages of the total, so, they are wrong too. The other thing that would be wrong is the "EXTRA TI" of US$125 charged. I sent an e-mail to Alamo's customer help. The answer was: "Thank you for your information. I just want to let you know I am having management review this rental. I will contact you once I receive a response. Have a pleasant day." That was on January 14th. I'm still waiting.

Told them that was not fair but again was told to take it or leave it. Had no choice as I was running very late and had commitments later that day 3.5 hours away. So I signed the contract and wrote on it "Signed under protest" and told then I would appeal it to the corporate office after my vacation. I did so and had my claim denied and was told that the car I contracted for was available and I refused it and demanded the larger car. I don't know what I am more upset with, having to pay close to $1000 over what I contracted or being lied to after the fact. Regardless, I will never use Alamo or National ever again and will encourage all I know to avoid renting from them whenever possible.

I think for me to rent again from ALAMO is going to be very hard and I will advise to my Friends not to, base in the last experience with them. Until ALAMO do not revised their policies outside of the States, I will advise anybody I know not rent from them.

Since I wasn't able to reach anyone at Alamo PHL, I contacted Alamo's general contact number and provided the service rep with the details of my lost phone. I was provided with a reference number for that report and was told that someone at Alamo PHL would contact me regarding the matter. I received no return phone call before my departure. I tried to call Alamo PHL again the next day on Nov 28. There was still no answer from Alamo PHL so I left a voice message with my contact information. Still I received no return phone call. I tried again on Nov 29 to contact Alamo PHL, but their line was busy EVERY time I called so I couldn't even leave a message. It seems as if they purposely left the phone off hook!!

I've since contacted corporate and still haven't received any responses. It's really upsetting that nobody at Alamo PHL has bothered to contact me because I'm 100% sure that my cell phone was still in that rental car. I reported it within less than 30 minutes of dropping off the vehicle. At this point, I'm pretty sure my cell phone won't be returned to me. All I can do now is warn other potential customers – DON’T RENT FROM ALAMO!! They seem to have dishonest employees and their customer service is terrible. If you do rent from them, make sure that you don't leave anything in the rental car. Otherwise, it's as good as gone.

I went to the office and I explained to ** (the manager of Alamo) what just happened and he immediately called ** to warn him that we were coming to ask. When my wife and I walked to the parking lot, ** was nervous and told me that the vehicle was cleaned by another employee and both ** and ** agreed that they didn’t see anything in the car. I was extremely infuriated because I’m 110% sure that my phone was in the car and I could not believe that they had the audacity of taking the phone 5 minutes after I dropped it off and LIE TO MY FACE when I know I left it in the car. This is my business phone and not to mention, it had hundreds of pictures from my vacation in Cozumel. I also spoke to the security manager of Cozumel and his answer was “This happens all the time and I can assure you that they won’t return the phone.”

I’m not asking to be paid for the phone or have it returned because by now I already know that’s impossible, but I wouldn't be wasting time from my VERY BUSY day to write this letter if it wasn't true. If there’s nothing you can do, then at least take this as a warning from an honest tourist who had faith that Alamo was a trustworthy company and be wary of hiring deceitful employees like ** and **. I know that I will NEVER in my life rent a car with Alamo again, these 2 individuals have damaged the reputation of your company and I will DEFINITELY tell all my friends about you guys. Choosing Alamo was the worst decision I've ever made. Thank you.

On November 7th 2013 I was checking my account balance and noticed that Alamo had taken another $431.69 out of my account on November 6th. My account was now -$381.52. I immediately called my bank and was told that it came across as a signature debit from Madison, Wisconsin. I asked them to place a fraud claim on it and they did. I then called the general manager of Alamo, his name is Scott. He informed me that I had only paid the taxes on the rental in July? I asked, "Why wasn't I notified of money owed?" He did not have an answer. He then told me that there was a billing error on their part, but I still had to pay it. I then called the Regional manager, Clint and he told me the same thing and he also could not tell me why I wasn't notified of any money owed prior to them taking it out of my account. I then called Hotwire and she gave me a claim number and told me that someone from Alamos headquarters would call me the next day and to give them the number she gave me. No one called me.

I have sent a complaint to the BBB in Wisconsin and to their consumer protection agency. I have checks out that didn't clear. One of those checks are for my 2 storage units. My husband and I are in the process of purchasing a home and everything I own is in the storage units. I will lose everything I own if I can't pay my storage fees. I also noticed that on September 30th 2013 that Alamo had credited me $72.09?

I am really upset that they simply cannot contact the cleaners and/or the people who stage the car to say, "Hey, can you go pull a shirt from the car that was left?" They seriously have no type of communication with the folks who turn over the cars when they are brought back in. I really wanted that custom made Breast Cancer Awareness T-shirt that I brought. I will never rent a car from them again.

Meanwhile we had a flight to catch and the man at the counter was very unsympathetic with our situation. He did not offer to help us resolve this issue in any way and told us that we would need to contact the Fresno branch ourselves. Why would we need to fix a problem that was not our fault to begin with? Why was he not able to change the name on the reservation so that we could resolve the issue right then and there? Following this, as we were in the airport, I called the Alamo # listed on the agreement for help. I was on the phone for at least one hour with multiple representatives, of which none were able to reach the Fresno branch to resolve the issue at that time. The man on the phone said that he had never had a problem like this before. This problem took days and multiple "customer service representatives" later without anyone being able to resolve the issue.

I do not understand the breakdown in communication within your company. It is a shame that the Alamo company would allow this to happen in the first place. With proper training of your agents at the Fresno branch this problem might have not occurred in the first place. In addition, the Fresno branch of Alamo did not have our requested car available. When I initially booked the car rental online, prior to our pick up date, I asked for an economy car, the smallest possible. The Fresno branch gave us a larger car than we requested, calling it an upgrade. I specifically requested a small car because of a parking situation we were going to have in the city of San Francisco. We also wanted the best gas mileage we could get. The hotel we stayed at offered free parking for small economy cars which is what we requested, however, Alamo only had a sedan available the day of our rental apparently.

When we went out to the parking lot we were not given an option for a car, the man in the lot showed us which car we were getting. The woman at the desk said nothing about them not having our requested vehicle class available. This resulted in $120.00 worth of parking fees that we had to pay for in the city of San Francisco because the car was too big to fit in the free parking offered by the hotel. If we had known at the time of the car pickup that they did not have our requested size vehicle available, we would have probably canceled and rented with a different company so we could avoid the parking fees associated with larger vehicles. I would like to know how this happened in the first place, why the Fresno Alamo location is so disorganized, and how the Alamo rental car business can let something like this happen, go on for days, and not have any customer service representative offer assistance that will actually fix the issue. Shame on the company and shame on Carrentals.com for supporting such a horrible business.

My husband spent hours the following day (10/21/13) on the phone with a Fresno Alamo representative, Dave. Dave argued with us during our phone call, and did not believe us when we told him that our hotel in SF offered free parking for small cars. The man is very unprofessional. Apparently your company DOES NOT believe that the customer is always right. He did not seem to grasp why a larger car cost us parking fees and that we requested a small car on purpose. He proceeded to argue with us on the phone that he lived in San Francisco for eight years and never heard of free hotel parking. I told him he can feel free to contact our hotel, The Mayflower, and discover for himself as he did not believe us. This was extremely unprofessional.

Our understanding of the prepaid fuel charge was that we would be billed at the lower price for each gallon below the full tank. However, we were wrong. What it means is that you pre-purchase a full tank of fuel regardless of how much fuel is still in the tank. One should therefore be returning the fuel tank as empty as possible - a nonsensical advice for drivers, really. Despite it clearly being a misunderstanding, the manager quoted the contract conditions and refused a refund.Thus, Alamo had its car back with a full tank and in addition received full payment for filling it up. A win-win for Alamo and a loss-loss situation for us. Not impressed at all with the manager's refusal to reimburse us. So, watch out and do not purchase prepaid fuel!

It was no surprise that he never addressed and corrected the matter, as I was now thousands of miles from confronting him in person. I then contacted the Corporate Office who initially gave me the run around. Finally, I demanded to speak to someone at corporate management level and discussed the matter with them. They too felt there was some wrong done and informed me they would look into the matter, only to refer it back to the rental location's Damage Collection Unit. To start putting the matter to rest, I finally said I was willing to pay a partial of the damage claim.

Alamo's practice of saying "Extra Protection" is really a Third Party Liability coverage is misleading. I recommend Alamo change their rental contracts to clarify Third Party Liability as such and Extra Protection as vehicle damage protection. The common person understands Liability insurance as protection from being sued and Extra protection as protection from possible unexpected damages.

After reading about the Alamo Car Rental problems people are having, I'm glad I chose not to accept at this time. The lady hung up and the phone disconnected. I called back and took option 2 to talk to the AT&T directly and got a recording to call another 800 number. I got this number from 411 nationwide so at this point without putting myself on the chopping block I'm staying away from such a deal. Anyone else that's done this and everything was fine I would like to know. My son is getting married and this, I thought, would be a great gift since its supposed to be totally transferable and that I'm a valued AT&T customer .

For the insurance he stated I had initialed for all insurance. Now I understand I made the mistake of not reading all T&Cs but not all of us do that in a rush anyway. The service attendant on the counter basically told me to initial all the places I had initialed even though I only told him I wanted basic insurance which was $14 a day. Upon my next trip to USA I will not rent with Alamo and recommend everybody not to do so. They only offer apologies and do not understand the loss of money, time and inconvenience suffered. I'm in my last week of holidays here and have been ripped off that I can not afford another rental car for the last week.

Alamo is trying to take advantage of me with this scam and I refuse to pay for damage that I did not incur upon their car. I called Alamo today and their representative informed me that a walk-around did take place according to the Key West location employees. This is a complete falsehood; I parked the car, unloaded my luggage, and personally inspected the car. Next, I spent 30 minutes in the parking lot of the facility waiting in the shuttle bus to go to the airport. During this time the employees never approached the bus to tell me that they had found damage on the vehicle I had rented. That is because I did not damage their vehicle!

When returning to the desk, I was informed that they would be charging my credit card in the amount of 272.29E. I was also told that I should have taken the extra insurance from them that they offered me when I arrived but I had decided against this as I was not intending doing much driving apart from going to and from the airport and driving around the private complex that I was staying at which has virtually no traffic but I required to drive my two disabled sisters around as they were unable to walk very far. There was no instance where I could have sustained this type of damage.

I therefore can only conclude that the damage was there before I took over the car. I did also tell them at the time of collecting the car that I had taken out excess insurance at home. When I asked them for a photo of the underside of the car prior to my taking it out, they were unable to do so. I do intend taking this up with our legal representatives but I am writing this review just to warn others that they need to take extra care when inspecting their car and even get down on their knees to inspect the "underside" of the car for signs of damage (not something a guy, let alone four elderly ladies, wants to do prior to embarking on their holiday). However, at this kind of cost, it is worth doing and I will certainly be doing it in the future.

My husband and I visit Murcia regularly and we always hire a car and have never encountered this kind of problem. We have, however, never booked with Alamo in the past and unfortunately this is not an experience I would ever like to repeat. I am wondering if these scratches were something that was perhaps missed on inspecting of the car after a previous hire and if we, as four ladies of a certain age, have just been the unlucky and vulnerable fall guys?

Needless to say, it doubled our fuel expense. The keys, both sets, were on a ring that had to be cut with a hacksaw, which we did later on because we left them in the car and had to call on Star to open the car and was charged $57.00 for that. When we returned, I complained about the SUV and the way we were lied to. The manager came out and tried to dazzle me by saying he was waiving the Star fee and the fuel fee for a total of about $190.00. When I called him on the fuel fee and reminded him the car was full when I returned it, he kept right on talking like I didn't say anything, so I yelled loudly as I took my receipt and left. You guys are nothing but a bunch of ** grave robbers...

The 3rd time, I called again and talked to Kirk at lost and found. He managed to call me back after finding out that the car was rented out that morning. He proceeded to leave a message to the renters. He suggested to call back in a week when the car will be returned. I called back on the day the car was returned and talked to a manager Joslin, who said she will call me back. Joslin even asked the value of the necklace, which would cost much more now since I had it made by a jeweler 15 years ago, but she never called me back. The day after that I talked to another manager Eden. She said she will put the car on hold and found the car was rented again that day.

No one had checked the car nor put it on hold before for the necklace since I called and notified of my jewelry left in the car on May 16th. Miss Eden said to call back at 5PM on May 30th, when the car is due in. Yesterday, May 27, I got a message from Marilyn saying they don't have the necklace. Of course not, since this was mishandled by all the employees since the beginning. Especially the first guy, Tule, who did not do anything for me. All he had to do is have someone go to the car, which was on the lot that day I left it at noon. It did not get rented until 24 hours after I left it.

Alamo claims they are not responsible for the lost of goods, but this case could have had a positive outcome if the Kahului Alamo employees acted responsibly. I did not lose my necklace. I am seeking for compensation for the stress it caused me and the replacement of the necklace to be made exactly the same style.

1. I was discouraged from taking the Economy car ("I'd like to see you fit into that car"), and then charged me $5/day for an upgrade (okay, at least I knew it was going to cost extra $5/day).

2. They presented a range of insurance options that, after being waived, the default was collision damage waiver at $12.50/day + taxes (I was not advised of the cost at the time - I was too busy initialing "here, and here, and here, and there").

3. They sold me an option to refill an entire tank of gas at a "reduced" cost per gallon (approximately $0.50/gallon less than "local" gas prices, which were actually inflated compared to everywhere outside the county) when the contract stated a flat rate.

4. Actual charges were nearly double the flat rate. There was NO final calculation based on $/gallon.

5. I was told several times that my planned trip to and from Madison, Wisconsin would use a full tank, but I still had 1/3 tank left upon returning.

6. The final toll of 1 mile from the car rental is unmanned and requires exact change ($1.50). Being twenty cents short, I had to proceed and face the consequences (license plate is photographed), including an automatic $17 charge after 7 days, plus God-knows-what additional fees Alamo adds on top for handling the automatic fine.

Why don't they advise customers of the need to have the exact change to return the vehicle to the lot?! More importantly, why don't they install I-Pass devices in all rentals and simply charge customers the final toll rate (which is about half the cash rate) for the sake of both convenience and speed (no need to stop and have exact change every 10-20 miles in Illinois)?

When I asked how to handle the toll charge upon returning the car, they told me that I could visit a website, punch in the license plate number, and pay the $1.50 toll. This is actually not true if you don't own the car and can't provide, and especially not true if you live outside the U.S. (we are from Canada). Result: lots of long-distance calling around (hey, who knew that Alamo does not have any arrangement with Illinois Tollway and that the matter must be dealt with by the customer directly with Illinois Tollway?).

7. Upon returning the car, they were unable to print a final receipt/invoice for me - how much will my credit card be charged?! Did I really want to risk finding out after flying back to Canada? Lots of delays (fortunately, we were early for our flight and not in a rush), but I finally got a printout. Holy jumping Jesus, it was $40 more than the quoted rate I received when I left the lot.

Customer service will listen and handle complaints, and even offer refunds, but you'd best be sharp from the very beginning and try to avoid getting overcharged in the first place. Don't be in a rush. Ask questions. Push back.

I filed the required police report the next day. The other driver did not. I did not know at the time that the American Express car insurance was not valid with my kind of card. I had taken pictures of the damage minutes after the collision, and of the driver, his car, and his license plate. When I protested the ridiculous high repair amount claimed by the local Alamo office, the central office here in the States sent me copies of the photos provided to them by the Santa Domingo office. Extra damage to the front fender and the rear fender have been faked with what appears to be black magic marker.

The Alamo central office in the US told me that since I signed that document saying that I saw damage on the car, that means that they can charge me absolutely anything they want. There are fake damages several inches higher than the scrape along the right side caused by the Toyota compact that the driver at fault was driving. The crooked Dominican Republic office also claimed that the front bumper and rear bumper need to be repainted even though the impact was just along the right-hand side, between the wheel wells.

I have gotten no satisfaction from Alamo in any way. All they say is that their office can charge a customer anything they want since they have a credit card number. I reviewed this on another site, and an Alamo Representative sent me a message through that site saying that they would look into it and get in contact with me. That was just a public relations lie, because her response went on the same page as my review. They've robbed me of $850. American Express also was completely blind to all of the fax I presented about this probable fraud.

We tried to explain to them that the roads in Argentina go from smooth pavement to gravel in a matter of miles and that there was no way we could be responsible for pitting from sand which had obviously been kicked up by the vehicles in front of us. Nope, no explanation was enough to convince them that we were not responsible for the pitting! We tried to explain that this was part of the normal wear and tear on a vehicle, especially driving on the Argentine roads which are a combination of asphalt and gravel all on the same road. They would not listen and we paid rather than be detained in a crappy Argentine jail for non-payment. And then we left and will never ever rent a car from Alamo anywhere in the world!

The rental car pickup instructions on the confirmation document from Alamo clearly states: If you have checked in online, you can proceed directly to the garage where you will be assisted by both a Virgin Holidays and Alamo representatives. This is confirmed on page 16 of the Virgin Holidays brochure: Online check in Fastway to the Freeway! Exclusive to Virgin Holidays, check in before you go! Don't want to queue at the counter, just check in online before you travel and then head straight to collect your car and you're on your way. Dedicated Virgin Holidays area at Orlando Airport with specialized Alamo staff and our Virgin Holiday reps on hand to answer any questions.

At approximately 5:15pm on 8th January 2012 (EST), I presented my online confirmation documents and my own CDW/SLI insurance documents to the Virgin Holidays representative in the box office at the Alamo garage in Orlando Airport. The young lady in question (she was English, not American) gave them a cursory glance and before she could say anything, the Alamo representative took them from her, welcomed me to America and said that he would speed things up for me. He then presented me with a document (attached) which, with no explanation whatsoever, he asked to initial, here, here, and sign here (you can see where the Alamo representative circled the places to sign, but he failed to get me to sign at the top of page two, the section that indicates that I was aware that I may have already been covered via other coverage).

He then took the document (he did not give me a copy of the signed document), pointed across the garage and said, "There you go. Just go and take which ever car you want out of that row." It is my contention that the Alamo representative at the Virgin/Alamo desk essentially took advantage of my tired state of mind, after a nine-hour international flight. I genuinely believed that I was signing merely for the car and a full tank of gasoline. Having supposedly seen my online check in and my own insurance documents, the Virgin Holidays representative took little or no part in this matter. She looked bored and paid no interest in what was going on.

On returning my car on 7th February 2013 at 03.36pm (EST), along with many other drivers, I was greeted cordially, asked if we had had a good vacation and if the car had been okay. I was then issued with a digital print out, thanked and waved off. We quickly made our way to the airport check in, as required, to ensure that we were there within the required three hours. After checking in, finally getting to sit down and relax whilst awaiting to board our flight, it was only then that we discovered that it appeared that we had just been charged $599.70 for CDW from Alamo for the last 30 days car hire. I was shocked, but unable to do anything at that time.

Upon returning to the UK, on the morning of the 8th February 2013(GMT), I made a phone call to MBNA, only to find that Alamo had in fact made these charges against my account. I immediately contacted Alamo direct by phone. I did this on three occasions, each time being promised that an Alamo representative from the billing dept. would call me back; this never happened. I must point out that this section of the agreement, shown below, was not signed by me because it was not shown to me nor was I asked to sign acknowledging that it was not necessary to sign for CDW, etc. as I already had other coverage.

It is now clear to me and our friends the Kemps, who also traveled with us and experienced exactly the same problem, that a deliberate act of deception was being carried out by the staff at the Alamo Depot in Orlando International Airport. For unsolicited CDW coverage to have been added to two separate accounts is unlikely to be accidental. That Alamo appear to be unconcerned by this behavior, when the evidence is clear that we had no requirement for CDW coverage speaks volumes for the company and does it no service. I believe it is highly unlikely that we are the first people to get caught out by this fraudulent behavior.

We have pursued the matter with Alamo as far as we can and they remained intransigent. We decided therefore to leave the matter in the hands of Virgin Holidays in the expectation that we would receive our monies back, preferably before any interest charges started to appear on our credit card accounts, and an apology from Alamo for the heartache caused by the actions of one of their representatives. Interestingly enough, Alamo had agreed to refund the charges made against our friend’s credit card but not mine. The complaint has now been forwarded to my credit card company and ABTA. I'll let you know how we go on.

We headed to the lady in the counter and asked if I could speak to the manager. She replied that she could help and I asked her that in case this happened in the future, if they have a phone number that these people can call who can speak in Portuguese or Spanish? She responded that this country was United States and that the language spoken here was English, that if she traveled to Italy she must learn Italian, in a sarcastic way.

It's sad that you rent a car and have problems with the car and having to deal with a person who has problems of racism. She gave me a discount of $100 and when she noticed that I was a little nervous, offered me another $100 discount. There are companies that offer telephone interpreter service. AT&T is one of them which I mentioned to the lady.

The worst part is that about 4 years ago, I used to rent cars from them on a weekly basis. Refund or not, they have completely lost my business indefinitely. I would suggest that you only rent from Enterprise. Hertz checks your credit rating and can deny you a rental because of it and Alamo has a scandalous way of getting your money with no services provided.

Ten days later, I had not heard anything and tried again. She said he had rejected my appeal. It does not seem fair to me that I should be responsible out of pocket because Alamo used surface mail rather than email to contact me in a timely manner. Worse, their "customer service" has clearly not given the slightest consideration to my complaint, but continues to delay and threaten my credit rating. Their most recent mailing (dated November 10th, delivered December 18th) says they will turn it over to a collector "in 10 days" if it is not settled. This was after I talked with their customer service and made sure they had my email. It also says I am not welcome to rent from them again - as if I would.

We finally got the woman to agree to a lower extended rate for the "extra" days. We still paid about $50 more. Lastly, we booked on AmEx travel site. There is apparently no affiliation or recourse about shady Alamo deals via AmEx. Bottom line, we didn't need to give AmEx my business. We could have gone anywhere. And just because the company name is well known (Alamo), it doesn't mean you won't get ripped off.

I did not do a vehicle inspection because I was in a hurry. The salesperson that was at the counter did not do a walk around with me. I absolutely did not damage the car. I figured they already knew about the damage and I put in a call to the station manager. She could not be gotten a hold of, nor could anyone at the counter. I left a message and no one called me back. Lo and behold, when I returned the car, they pinned it on me stating it was not there when I drove the car off the rental lot. Absolute bologna. I have to rent vehicles constantly for my profession. I will be sure to post a complaint on every site that I can. I will never rent from Alamo again. I will always do a vehicle inspection immediately with anyone I rent from. This should be a mandatory step when renting a car. To save yourself any hassle or situations like this one, please do a walk around. Demand it. I'm on to the next site to write a review.

Sometime after that, they called to say I broke the tail light. I questioned them, because obviously I did no such thing and went to view the vehicle. The vehicle they claimed was the one I returned that had a patch the size of an adult hand right there and obvious to the world. Also, they had moved the vehicle out of a line of 10 or so cars. Why wouldn't they have just left it alone? I had 5 other people either driving behind me or in and out of the trunk with me over that three days. So if for some reason it was there, wouldn't we have noticed that? Of course, we would have. It was not there, period. When we dropped the car off, we were standing around the tail light in question, retrieving our things from the trunk and giving/getting paperwork from the attendant. At that point, it was fine. They either switched my vehicle with another that they failed to make a claim on or they did it themselves and are trying to save their own butts.

The dispute person from Alamo is going to further investigate but tells me the vehicle I rented and the one that has the damage has the same VIN. The VIN is not on the paperwork from when I rented the car. Someone is lying, and it's not me. We will see how Alamo responds, but if it is not favorable to me, they will have a fight on their hands because I will not let anyone get away with scamming me. I will update this when the issue is resolved or there are new developments. In the meantime, I would absolutely not rent a car with them nor would I recommend anyone else.

The following morning, after hours of jerking around on the phone, I was brought a new car and they picked up the disable one at lunchtime. Needless to say, I lost out on my Grand Canyon trip. I contacted Alamo to express my dissatisfaction and to seek a refund, and they said there was nothing they could do for me. I just want everyone who reads this to be wary of who you rent a vehicle from because you could go through the nightmare we did on vacation.

After some messing about with a National rep, we were finally contacted by a less than pleasant local representative. Despite the fact that Alamo had provided us with a defective car/key-fob, she had the gall to demand that we pay for the towing. Even more unreasonably, instead of offering us a replacement car from the local outpost (5 minutes from our hotel), she insisted that we come back to the airport to pick up a replacement (an hour and a half round trip at least).

Frustrated with the Alamo reps increasingly patently absurd demands, we declined getting a replacement, and asked for a refund for the unused days. The local Alamo rep refused to do so. Having to depart for our friends' nuptials, we negotiated the drop-off of the key (on our departure from Maui at the airport the next afternoon), and opted to pick up the dialogue when we returned from our vacation.

The next day, we cabbed it back to the airport, dropped the key off at the Alamo counter, and flew home. On returning from our vacation, we contacted Alamo's National customer service and explained the situation. They apologized for the situation, agreed that the car was broken, agreed that the situation was handled badly, and that we were owed a refund for the unused day(s). The rep said, reasonably enough, that they couldn't refund the amount, as it was through an external travel agency, but that they would mail vouchers for the appropriate sum. Vouchers were received (although we never used them before they expired), case closed - neither party was made whole, but as far as we were concerned, we were all even.

Flash forward a year. We were contacted by Enterprise Holdings, Alamo's junkyard dog debt repo wing. We are being held for nearly $800 in charges related to towing (for a defective vehicle, need I remind) and a missing key (which was returned, as agreed upon, to the rental counter at Kahalui airport. I can't be held responsible for Alamo's sloppy internal procedures for rental returns).

My wife called the listed number and explained to the representative that this matter was settled some time back, but the rather discourteous lady instead harangues, belittles and insults her repeatedly, insisting that my wife is wrong. This was going from patently criminal to nauseatingly inappropriate. I called back, insisted that the matters had been settled, to cease contact, and advised that we will continue taking this up the chain of command should this persist. We, thankfully, don't receive any more calls. Once again, it seemed like Alamo had, internally, come to its senses. It seems, however, that Alamo has no sense of reason or moral rightness.

Another year passes. Alamo seems to have passed the buck onto a collections agency. Lovely. Sadly, this is the level of unprofessionalism that one can expect from the contemptible Alamo. I was willing to hold my tongue regarding Alamo's poor fleet of cars and increasingly poor service, but really, given this sort of continuing abuse, the truth will out. Perhaps it's time that I put my SEO skills to work.

Then, Alamo said that our luggage would not be there. We are two people, each and every one a medium flexible travel bag luggage and a little hand luggage. This suits perfectly in an intermediate car. This is evident from my internet research. This is reflected in your information on your website, but he repeated that these are small cars. In addition, Alamo said that the Pontiac only has 2 doors. This is very difficult for us because we put our cooler on the backseat and a small cabin with our tourist information and our electronics. Alamo went further and further. He said that a real American drives not a small car, but with a full-sized car. Alamo argued further - they said that in the small car, there is no cruise control, etc. In short, I became more and more nervous.

Alamo pushed and pushed. We had a trip of 23 hours and wanted to go to bed as soon as possible. The discussion took already half an hour. Alamo would charge only a small fee to upgrade to a full size. It turned out that it's $231. During the entire trip, I looked at the Chrysler Sebring and the Nissan Sentra. I have asked some owners to open their suitcase. During the entire trip, I had the unpleasant feeling of being scammed and deceived. Fuel service, they charge here $75. This is exorbitant. The maximum that we ever could have taken in the tank was $50.

Airport fee, your website has been reported that the Airport Concession Fee is included in the price. They charged $34 and above. Sales tax, they charge $57 and above. The total amount was over $1,049 instead of the agreed initial $658 with the Greek company. This is an increase of $391, which is 59.4% extra! At a given moment appeared the message "change engine oil soon." The car was thus not ready for renting. I called Alamo road assistance, they suggested to go to a service and have an oil change. Where the hell? Then, she suggested to San Francisco airport, to go there and ask for another car. They refused to make the call themselves to Alamo San Francisco. I had to call the next day.

I called them with a cell phone. The phone has been opened for half an hour, "All our employees are busy. Stay on the line. Thanks for waiting." I went there myself, thanks to the hotel reception, to a Alamo Center in San Francisco. There they said that I could just drive on. Neither the inclusion of the vehicle or on the return was audited. I should say beware of Alamo! They are money-pickers. I informed the Greek company about the problems. They supported Alamo over the complete line. I should say beware of the Greek company Economy Rental Cars.

I called Alamo, but they told me, “You signed the contract, so you have to pay.” My English is not very good and I am not able to read and understand the insurance contract because I don't know the American rules. I have to trust the people who are talking with me. If this people don't tell me everything, I am lost. Never again, Alamo.

When I arrived to my destination (that same day), I contacted the company that originally booked this rental with Alamo & asked for a full refund. I assumed since we did not get a car, we should be given a full refund. Then I was told that I'd have to wait again. It's been 3 weeks & I've written for a fourth time yesterday and still no answer. I'm frustrated & not sure what my next steps should be. I will never rent from Alamo again & will tell all of my friends about this incident.

After the combination of my payment and the insurance payment, I received numerous emails and letters, all with different balance due amounts. One of the letters dated April 9th, 2012 threatened me with collections and said I would no longer be allowed to rent from Alamo, Enterprise or National Car Rental (hey, no problem) unless I paid the amount due of $1,301.11. Keep in mind, the original claim was $1,613.29, I had paid $1,000.00 in March and my insurance company had paid over $300.00.

They acknowledged their mistake, told me I owed $301.11 and had to pay by the 19th of April. They gave me a website to make my payment, which I tried to do this evening, April 17th. The amount due now shows $616.82. This is now the fourth time I have been given a different amount. The frustration level with this company is off the charts. I will never rent from them again.

Upon dropping off the vehicle, my husband noticed the agent circling some items on a sheet and asked about it. It was a claim form and my husband told him at the time that we did not cause any of this damage he was searching for. My husband signed the claim form stating that we did not do any damage to the car and the agent said no big deal, he was just required to note it but there would be no claim.

Two weeks later, we received a liability claim asking us to pay $1,030 in damages. Upon asking for further details, we were sent a few blurry pictures and an appraisal for the repair which included a majority of the labor hours on so-called damage that was not documented in the pictures sent as support. I am frustrated because there seems to be no one to complain to other than their claims/collection department who has no authority. They just continue to send bills with claim forms for insurance every week.

We are very honest people and would have agreed to pay if we did the damage to the car. We have rented lots of cars and have never, nor would we ever have expected to be treated in this manner. We will definitely never rent from Alamo or the sister companies ever again! Someone help us as to what our next steps should be.

When we got the car, as being so tired, we believed him. When we took car back on March 3, 2012, the price changed. It was $249.25. If I known that ** was to take place, I would have taken the car that was there in the first place but Mark keep telling us there was no extra charge.

I am not very impressed with Alamo Car Rental. I think Mark should watch what he’s saying to people. I would have been glad to have the car that was there in the first place as I say not very impressed with Alamo Car Rental. That was $149.25 more than we expected. I also took pictures of inside and outside of the red 2011 Chevy Impala when I dropped it off in Orlando airport. I’m not very impressed with Mark as well.

So I went back to the front desk to call Alamo road side assistance at 1.30 pm and they told me that they will send someone in less than 50 minutes. I waited for one hour with nobody came so I went inside again and called. They left me for 15 minutes and I kept on calling every 15 minutes with same thing. They said they will send someone on 3:53 pm and no one came. Then they said at 4:28 pm and no one came and at 4:57 pm.

At last at 5 pm, someone came who is not working for Alamo. It is someone who is assigned by contract and he said that they one called him an hour earlier, which means at 4 pm and my first call was at 1:30 pm. They called him after 2 and half hours after my first call. I asked him to write that on the receipt and he did. The problem is that when I opened the trunk to get the medication, I took my laptop case thinking the medication is inside and it was not. I was crying on the parking lot because I was going to faint and all the security at the hotel knows about this.

It took them 3 and half hours to send someone to help me. Do you think this is a proper way to treat a customer? They want 57.00 dollars for this fast service. Do you think I should pay that or call an attorney?

Once I gain knowledge of the incident, we returned to the airport within 10 minutes and I requested a refund for the additional insurance advising the representative additional care was not needed. The representative Jemeica was totally rude and denied all allegations of any wrong doing. Jemeica insisted that in the future, to prevent any further mishaps, I should handle all affairs and let my husband stay in the car. I was flabbergasted! Jemeica lack any sense of customer service and told me if I wanted a refund, I would need to go back to the trailer where the car are released and have a manager inspected the vehicle for any damages that may have been caused in the last 10 minutes.

The manager on duty William advised me that because I was complaining, he would cancel the reservations altogether. He insisted he did me favor and my lack of appreciation would not be tolerated by him or his staff. I advised him, as a paying customer, if something or someone does not provide exceptional service or lack competence, then it is my right to express my dissatisfaction. William canceled my reservations and I rented a car through Budget.

I have never experience such service in all my days, both employees need customer service training and time off without pay. Customers are searching for bargains but not at the expense of customer service. I hope Alamo address both employees because they each play such a pivotal role in the company as front line employees. This experience has cost Alamo a customer! I am totally disgusted with Alamo. My time was wasted and the frustration Jemeica and William caused was unnecessary.

The customer service and next manager (Alex) refused to remove charge as they stated that their agent in Hawaii had a sheet of paper (no copy available for me) with initials on it, the same one the agent informed me I was waiving CDW fees by initializing. I had disgusting service from Alamo. Beware and go elsewhere.

So when I took the van that I used inside Maui for one week and and I used to go here and there basically shopping and no major drive, so when I returned the van to Alamo the agent showed me a scratch and damages that I caused the van and she made me sign an incidental report. I was so shocked what she was telling me and I had choice to do and I refused to sign the incidental report.

When I returned, I got a letter from the recovery unit with $1,407 of damages to van. So now, I'm opening a claim with my current insurance and I created a claim against something I have no clue of anything that happened to mini van. All I asked from the state is to monitor this false practice by these rental companies. I need to see a regulation against those companies. I will never rent again.

Upon my return home, I left a voice mail message with the regional manager and requested that she give me a call. I never received a call back. I emailed customer service and received a series of computer-generated responses. Finally, I turned in a dispute with my American Express card and included the documentation showing the reservation rate versus the billing rate. Alamo/Enterprise never responded to the inquiries made by American Express. The company subsequently blacklisted me and put me on their Do Not Rent list without ever responding over a 3 month period to any of my inquiries. Alamo/Enterprise does not give a rip about its customers and is too big to care.

I can't believe that in such a bad economy, that we can't help one another. I can't afford to just give away money. My sister needs me and I had to take the train back home and now I have to find a way back home to see her again. I was so desperate to get home, that I even sent an email asking another car agency to help me get to her so that I could be with her for whatever time she has left.

Please reconsider this fee. I am already struggling to take care of my needs including my home being in foreclosure. I just need a little help.

The customer service agent referred me to their website and proceeded to copy and paste the information where it clearly states that yes this is okay. Wrong! I get to the counter, provide my information only to be told that I could not rent with a debit card and a return train ticket and that the policy was changed months ago. What?

The customer service agent proceeded to get a manager who seemed somewhat confused when I mentioned to him that, per their website, it states debit and check cards may be used when the renter has proof of a round-trip travel ticket (airline, cruise ship, or train) at time of rental. The manager only apologized repeatedly before proceeding to tell me that there was nothing he could do. Needless to say, I have no intentions of renting with Alamo again. Even if I get a credit card, I still won't rent with them.

Luckily for me, I thought ahead and reserved other vehicles at other locations to be on the safe side. I walked right over to Dollar Rent a Car and had a vehicle within minutes for the exact same price. These days, most car companies accept debit cards with a deposit. I'll just stick with them and say no thanks to Alamo.