National Car Rental

I returned the car and the next day I realized I left my cup phone holder in the rental so I couldn’t talk to anyone at the Midway location. Called the number on line and they said I have to put in a claim and someone will call or email me in 48 hours which never happened. On day 9 I went back to the drop off location for them to tell me that the car was cleaned out but nothing was turned in which leads me to believe that the person who cleaned it out kept my item. But what pissed me off the most is the manager told me that if they find it they will let me know. I said, "What you mean it’s been 9 days since I’ve returned the car so if it’s not in your list and found one of your worker took it."

I asked her to please go in the car with me and show me where did she seen any signs of someone smoking in the car. She walked me to the car and pointed out some white dust on the driver floor rug. I told her we had the car for a whole week and visited many volcano sites and geysers and that might be from the sulfur but once again she was not respectful nor professional. She just continued to speak another language with her colleague. She ended up charging my card for 309.00 for a deep cleaning and smiling. I have always picked National/Enterprise as my number 1 option when traveling for business or pleasure but after this experience I have to think about it twice.

We get there and this office says there is no note because they are not connected to the same system. The only other car that had AWD was their luxury BMW. Our original car rental was about $1200. Any other time we've used National and they did not have the car we requested, they would just upgrade us for free. They did not do that. In fact, they charged us. Our car rental went from $1200 to about $4500. So we just resolved to call National when we got back to the USA to resolve this.

National's HQ policy agrees that they should not have done that and given us the car. They opened a case for us and said that this branch needed to respond and propose a resolution. If they proposed a resolution National HQ did not agree with, HQ would be able to override it. This branch knows how their system works and has just not responded at all so it can't be overridden and we cannot be refunded even though National HQ says that we should be. We now have to dispute it with our credit card company. Our trip was in July 2021 and it is now October 2022 and still ongoing. We have recordings from the National reps who say we should be refunded. Total nightmare. AVOID THIS PLACE AT ALL COST.

I reached out to National twice, the first women had a baby with her and told me she's looking at my account and my car definitely wasn't towed- "maybe it was stolen" she said. I hung up and called another women who accidentally disconnected me. I called a third time, this morning and spoke with a women - Dominique who was very helpful. Yes she confirmed National did tow my car, here are the details she gave me: tow was completed by: Airport Automotive Center Inc (310) 670-8266 Towed To: ** Rental Agreement: **

She was trying to get a replacement vehicle authorized, but she told me that National - Burbank Airport closed out the rental ticket, so she couldn't do anything. She told me to call National and try to get to Burbank Airport. I have since called National an additional three times, (yep thats six times this morning). The first gentlemen told me there's no way to reach an airport directly he would have to email the manager.

He told me I manager should reach back to me this morning. I've called two more times and either get the run around, or get someone telling me they can't put in another message to Burbank, I just have to sit and wait. Or go to the airport to resolve it, (Burbank airport is roughtly two hours from my current location). So here I sit with no car, no response and an immense sense of frustration and all things lacking in service and what I've paid for. YOU GUYS ARE THE MOST INCONSIDERATE, UNRELIABLE CAR RENTAL COMPANY, how are you in business??? DON'T RENT FROM THIS COMPANY.

Original: I rented a car online for 1781.54 CAD. When I arrived at the airport, the clerk entered 2 different return dates on my long-term rental (5 weeks). When I got home to France, I realized I had been double charged (1873.33 CAD and 1413.03 CAD), neither of which corresponded to the online quote. If I add the amount I paid and subtract the quoted price, the extra charge comes out to 1504.82 CAD. After 1 phone call and 4 emails, I still have not been refunded the total amount. I did receive a refund of 378.10 EUR (the equivalent of 496.35 CAD), but they didn't explain why they gave me that amount. Each time I contact them via email, I receive an email from a different agent, promising to help me. We're going around in circles, and I'm extremely frustrated. They still owe me 1008.47 CAD.

I figure she is going to walk over and try to help me... but no. After waiting about 5 minutes and seeing she is not coming over, I end up calling customer service on my phone and get my confirmation number from them. I drive back up to the gate (already delayed about 15 minutes) and I give her the confirmation number ... she says it is not valid. What??? After she takes three trips to speak to the manager (across the lot), she tells me the confirmation number has already been used... by someone else who happens to have the same last name as me. Wait - how could someone else rent a vehicle with my confirmation number? Only way they can fix my problem is to make another reservation and rent the car to me on the spot. As they are making the reservation they did not offer me any explanation as to how this could have happened.

After much discussion, it turns out that Sam ** rented a car on my confirmation number. It is not like our names could be confused - my name is Philip **. Finally got on the road 1 hour and 10 minutes after arriving at the rental facility. I have called twice to the customer service number. Both times was told that someone would call me back to discuss this issue. Got some money back after the second call, but that is not the issue - the issue is that this should never happen - how could someone named Sam *** rent my car - didn't you check his driver's license?

There should be controls in place so that something this simple cannot get fouled up. Maybe there are controls? Maybe somebody in Sacramento needs a little nudge to follow the controls? Worst part was getting the feeling from the Sacramento staff that I had done something incorrectly (I hadn't). I made the reservation - my confirmation was in the system, but they initially treated me like I was an idiot for not having a valid confirmation number. Then asking me to back up so others could depart - and not helping me once they had departed - really??? Need someone to call me back and discuss how to prevent this from ever happening again or I will have to jump ship to Hertz.

Additionally, I have had significant rental history with National. A good majority of their vehicles are never properly cleaned in the interior. I have gone to a vehicle just to find someone's shoes, shoe boxes, and random trash in the vehicle. Not to mention used cups or drinks left behind. This says nothing about the pre-existing damage on most of their vehicles. Body panels popped out, scratches, dents... etc. On one vehicle the splitter (on the bottom of the vehicle) was just bearly hanging on. I have no doubt that if they miss the original customer (or caused the damage themselves) then they put it back in the lot and hope the next person won't notice so they can try to charge. Next thing you know they will start filing police reports (claiming vehicle stolen) for vehicles that have been returned. They are acting like Hertz.