I have been renting cars for both vacation and business for over 20 years, and have been fairly faithful to Enterprise and Avis even though their prices are significantly higher. Due to a rare event I was unable to obtain the vehicle size needed from anyone but Dollar -AKA Thrifty. Basing my previous experience on the aforementioned, I did not review Dollar ahead of time…what a bad mistake! I reserved my car online at Dollars own web site two weeks ahead of time and was quoted a final price as well as a Toyota Rav 4 or similar mid size SUV. Three days before picking up the car I called Dollar to confirm my reservation and asked if they were 100% certain I would be able to obtain a mid size SUV. She stated that if I gave her a $100.00 deposit right then over the phone she would promise I would have no issues. I agreed. Upon arriving at the airport to pick up the car I was informed on the spot that no mid size SUV’s were available and i would be gettin g a compact size. I asked if the price I was quoted would reflect this, and was told the price would not change and I would have to pay the higher original price for the much smaller car. Due strictly to time restraint, I had no choice but to agree. I was then told I need an additional $100.00 deposit on top of the first $100.00..which I again agreed. I have full coverage insurance and they called my insurance company to verify this. I then denied each and every up-sale option presented, and was then told the final price would be 4 times higher than what I was quoted online even after the forced downgrade. If this were not enough, a couple was at the clerk next to me asking why they were charged for every option they denied when dropping of the car.I have rented cars at least 30 times and have never ever seen anything like this. With no shame at all, they not only lied directly to me over and over, but then proceeded to scam me well above and beyond the most extravagant imag ination. If you rent a vehicle from Hertz/Dollar/Thrifty you will certainly regret every aspect. After checking the BBB, it turns out they literally have thousands of unsettled cases both in and out of court. Several class action law suites have been filed over the last decade for unauthorized credit card charges months after cars were returned in the same condition with full tanks of gas. The scariest part of these peoples tactics is that they will not stay out of your bank account once they have your card number. I saw dozens of cases where cards were charged upwards of 8 separate times even after all dues were paid. Deposits are hardly ever returned, and in the rare event they are, it’s a small portion of the original deposit.
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