Wow, it's REALLY rare to find a business with 40+ reviews that are 100% 1-Star. I think a Chinese Restaurant could serve patrons a hairy rat on a plate and someone will rate them 2 stars because they thought the rat was cute. So KUDOS to Budget Truck Rental, aka SC Enterprises for setting a new low bar for customer service and business operations.
Moving from one state to another is a stressful situation, and to have situations come up just makes it all the more so. This was a bad rental pickup experience, and ended up costing me money.
For my July 6 move, I specifically requested pickup at 8 am knowing that if I had requested 7:30 am when they opened, I might experience delays with others standing in line for the open. I arranged for my truck loaders to arrive at 9 am knowing that'd give me plenty of time to get the truck and allow for a little traffic to get to my home to meet them. I called the night before to make sure the local facility had my reservation and was prepared for my arrival the next morning. The rep that answered the phone had no issues finding the reservation and said the truck was already there.
I arrived at 7:45 am for my 8:00 am reservation pickup. Even though the sign said opening at 7:30 am, there was nobody there. 8:00 am it was still dark inside and door locked. 8:30 I finally pounded on the door thinking maybe someone was in the back. A man walked out who obviously was just woken up, and unlocked the door and seem confused, and said he overslept. Weird!
I let him know I had a reservation. He walked outside to where all the trucks were lined up. Then he came inside and said he didn't have a truck for me. Huh? I explained I had even called the night before. I asked what all those trucks were for, he said people with reservations. I explained I had a reservation. He got on the phone and called someone. He was speaking in another language, but from what I gathered, this guy was a relative of the owner, and he was just babysitting. He hung up and said someone was going to bring a truck over from another location.
I explained I had loaders arriving in 15 minutes, because at this point it obviously was going to run over. About 8:55 am someone else who worked there showed up, and acted like none of the above had happened. I was so livid at that point, but they refused to do anything. I called my loaders and they said they'd have to charge an extra hour of labor at $110 since they showed up on time and by the time I got the truck and got there I was nearly an hour behind schedule.
I get it the whole franchise locations thing is what it is, but Budget needs to step up and take a bit of accountability for situations like this. I should have known better when I read the Yelp review and they had received an unheard-of 1 out 5 stars from EVERY review on their listing.
Please learn from my feedback.... it's a) unacceptable I had to go through the experience I went through, and b) unacceptable that I have to bear the cost of Budget's local franchisee's incompetence.
Often people say that if you go cheap, you get what you get... but like an Airline, just because you buy a economy ticket for cheap doesn't give the company the right to treat you like garbage. You're still entitled to a reasonable amount of service and the product you paid for. read more
