I got charged for $68.50 earlier this month. Not a huge sum, but my employer will not cover it-so that’s kinda frustrating. The thing is, when I contacted them about it, the first CSR I spoke with held this “blame the victim” company line, which really pissed me off. I kept reiterating that, “Your sales rep made a mistake”, and she kept replying with, “But you agreed to it”- and we went round in circles like that for a bit. I realize now, having done a little research, that she really was just pushing a fallacy to protect this juicy profit center; not the most dignified way to make a buck. Ironically, I was promised, “verbally”, by a second CSR on a follow-up call I made to Dollar, that the amount would be credited to my card. At any rate, I clicked “send” on a message to Dollar customer service about an hour ago. Then I found that NYT article, and your website. So below follows the message I just sent to them which has the rest of the details. (What I would have added if I could, is that I find the language on the RA confusing (even deliberately so) where it says “YOU HAVE ACCEPTED OR DECLINED THE ABOVE OPTIONAL ITEMS”, well- which is it? Accepted? or Declined?) —- Please refer to case #2314927. I was charged for a Loss Damage Waiver which I verbally declined. I never accept such policies because I use an AMEX card which provides coverage to cardholders. I did not take the time to read the entire contract because I had already waited an inordinate length of time in line due to understaffing at this Dollar branch. With 4 available terminals at the rental counter being serviced by only 2 customer service reps, what should have been no more than 30min turned into an entire hour. I had somewhere to be and was now running late- so, no, I was not going to take any more time at the counter to read the details of this contract. I have rented many vehicles, and sometimes I have read the contract, other times I have not- but I have never received an erroneous charge, and if I had- I would expect that the decent thing to do would be to reverse the charge. This is, in my estimation, a “gotcha” charge. Whether your Branch employee misunderstood me when I declined the LDW, or he simply made a mistake while keying in the details matters little. The point is that a mistake was made- a mistake resulting in nearly $70 out-of-pocket expense to me, and it should be rectified. When I saw the charge on my bill, I called the 800 number and was handled by a CSR named Haley U. I explained the situation, just as I have done so here. Haley’s attitude was somewhat obnoxious, to be blunt. She asserted rather rudely, that it was my fault- that I had in fact agreed to this coverage- that no mistake was made by Dollar, and it was only my own ignorance of your policies. She told me that my only recourse would be to contact the staff at the Chicago Dollar branch. When I asked her to provide contact information for this branch, she would not do so. At that point I insisted this matter be escalated, and that she email me the details of our conversation. She coyly agreed to file a customer service ticket, smugly claiming that she’d done nothing wrong, and confident that she’d provided excellent customer service, and had presented Dollar in the best possible light. I ended the call and after a few minutes, I called another, different 800 number, hoping to get contact info for your Chicago branch. I spoke with a different CSR, I didn’t record her name, but after I explained what had happened and why I was calling back, she told me that the Chicago branch had no direct contact info. I would have to go there in person. I think I asked her if she was joking- was she seriously suggesting that I go back to Chicago to address this with the manager of that branch? After all of this, she told me that although Dollar does not generally reverse any charges on rental agreements, in this case my account would be credited $68.50 as a courtesy. I asked her for a confirmation number, and she told me 2314927, which I did write down on my original RA slip. She said I could expect to see the reversal on my AMEX in no more than 3 days. This was on October 7. Having just reviewed my current AMEX activity, I noticed that no reversal has yet been made. I am sure that this is simply an oversight, perhaps the account notes were not recorded properly, or the timing was slightly off, or something along those lines. So I wanted to know when I can expect this charge to be reversed. I anticipate your reply. Thank you. —- SInce it does not state in that message, this was that weekend a couple weeks back when that crazy guy set that fire at O’Hare Airport; I was traveling from LAX to ORD for 5 days from 09/27/14 to 10/02/14. I didn’t notice the charge until it was pointed out to me by my company’s admin assistant. And I suppose this is neither here nor there, but that Chicago Dollar branch is a real dump; straight out of Central Casting. The car was a total mess, I took cell photos of all the scratches, and told the attendant at the exit gate. He appended my RA slip with these notes: “scrther, Fb, B/b All dooks. strunk, rootdend, Q/D’t” The lady who received me the morning of my rental return was a real sweetheart, though. Oh, and one more thing, here is the email I received from Haley:  From: Haley Umholtz Haley.Umholtz@DTAG.Com Subject: case number Date: October 7, 2014 at 1:51 PM To: neil@tech*****.com Your case number is 2314927. The complaint for the charge has been filed, but will stand as is. If you want to dispute you will have to so with the location you rented from directly. Thank you for choosing Dollar. Sincerely, Haley U. Customer Care —- What troubles me here is that the “confirmation” number that the 2nd rep (I wish I had written her name down) gave me was, in fact, the “complaint” number originally issued by this Haley person. But I didn’t realize this because there was a lag time of about an hour between my calls to both reps, and when I finally received the email from Haley. So I suspect that the promised credit was a bunch of baloney just to get me off the phone. Hope this helps!
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