National Car Rental
Reviews and Complaints

Dear Sir or Madam,

I acknowledge receipt of your email of 7/30/18 and confirm having reviewed the information attached thereto. To enable me to finalize my response to the subject claim, please may I have your comments on the following matters:

1. There was no walk-around or other inspection of the vehicle with an agent at the time of pick-up, thus the condition of the vehicle was not recorded. The agent led my wife and I to a row of cars, volunteered he had graciously given us a free upgrade, invited us to choose a vehicle and said the keys would be in it. We selected the Chevy Malibu. The agent turned to leave but I called him back and asked him how to deal with tolls and operate the cruise control which he did.
2. There was no walk-around of the vehicle with an agent at the time of returning the vehicle. While I was still in the driver's seat (A) an agent recorded the mileage and fuel with me (B) another agent came to ask me to look at the alleged 'damage' to the right front of the vehicle of which my wife and I were completely unaware. Such alleged 'damage' appeared to us to be a grill that was hanging loose. It is noteworthy no photograph of the alleged 'damage' to the grill was provided prior to its being removed. There was no evidence of any 'damage' such as a dent, scratch or other impact that might have resulted from a collision: indeed, as stated on the repair invoice 'Point of impact: Unknown'.
The foregoing circumstances beg the following questions:
3.1 Why did the agent not conduct a walk-around or other inspection of the vehicle at pick-up and record its condition?
3.2 Why did the agent not conduct a walk-around or other inspection of the whole vehicle with me at the time of drop-off and record its condition?
3.3 Did the agent conduct such an inspection without me? If so, why?
3.4 Why was no photograph of the alleged 'damage' to the grill provided prior to its being removed thus leaving no record of the actual condition of the vehicle at drop-off?
3.5 In light of the 'Point of impact: Unknown' could the alleged 'damage' not have (a) occurred during normal driving (b) been a manufacturing defect? If not, why not?
3.6 What was the precise cause of the alleged 'damage'?

In accordance with advice received from a Service Advisor at a Chevrolet dealership I have copied this email to NCR Customer Service as a complaint so that the appropriate Corporate department may be notified of the circumstances and have the opportunity to improve their procedures throughout the organization to include a complete walk-round of every vehicle at pick-up and drop-off in the presence of the renter with the condition of each vehicle being duly recorded. This is the practice followed by the Service Advisor whom my wife and I met and whose inspection records were impressively comprehensive, including as they did diagrams on which to note any imperfections of the vehicle.

Sincerely,

Christopher Warren-Smith
[protected]
[protected]@gmail.com

On July 23, 2018, I rented a car with National at the Atlanta Airport. When I checked the car in the garage I noticed a scratch on the rim, but that's all I noticed since it was kind of dark. Around 6pm on the 24th, I noticed there was an air bubble in the tire. I proceeded to call the Customer Service Number. They informed me that I would have to call the next day since I wasn't stuck on the roadside and I would need to trade the car out. I called the next day to see if they can pick up the car and trade it for another one and they informed me that I would need to bring it in to the nearest location, which was 30 + miles away. I told them that I didn't want the tire to blow out while I was driving and they said this was the only option. So I drove 30+ miles to the location to return the car. When I arrived, I waited for 20 minutes to trade the rental. When I got the new rental it had less than a quarter tank of gas, I asked them to note the gas. The one I returned had almost a full tank. So I filled the car to over half a tank. Upon returning the car to the location before boarding my flight, they charged me a fuel fee even though I returned it with a half a tank which was more then I had when I picked it up. This was one of the worst customer service experiences, I've had with a rental car company. I travel 6 times a year and usually use Enterprise and now I know why.
The people I talked to in person were okay, it was just their process and the overall customer service that troubled me.

On July 24, 2018, I flew into PHF and attempted to pick up my reserved car from National, confirmation # [protected], only to be told that there were no cars available and I could either wait for one to be returned (with no idea when that might be, already after 9pm), or I could check other locations and/or rent from another company. Earlier in the day, I received an email that my car was ready and waiting. I called customer service and was told the same thing, that nothing could be done and nobody would assist me in any way with getting the car that I had reserved. It was "escalated" to a manager who gave an insincere apology and said I could rent from another company but that she would not do anything for me. I rent with National at least once per month, and up until today I have been very pleased with the service. Now I am absolutely horrified. I made this reservation far in advance. It is National's job to make sure that they have enough cars for the reservations. Instead, this was turned into my problem, and nobody at National would agree to do any of the leg work to rectify the situation. They wouldn't even call the next closest airport to see if there were cars available.
Honestly, I don't know what would fix this situation. I would feel better if I received a call tomorrow that a luxury car was waiting for me, and that National would cover the cost of the Hertz car I had to rent. I would also feel better if I could be assured that this kind of lack of customer service would never happen again and if my future reservations could be upgraded.
There is plenty of competition, and I am happy to take my considerable business elsewhere.
Elizabeth Laws, MD
Executive Elite (doesn't feel very elite at all) [protected]

RA # [protected] Car rented in Victoria, B.C. Canada
767 Douglas Street.

June 4th 2018. When I rented a vehicle, a black Dodge Caravan. It was
inspected by a person who was about 5 feet 2 inches tall. It was a quick
'walk around'...a perfunctory inspection. ( I rented this vehicle for one day only)
When I returned that same evening the manager came out. He was aggressive and
was about 6 feet + tall.
He spied a small pock mark on the upper part of the windshield. I believe he
knew it was there and was looking for someone to pay for it. He selected me ! !
The person who inspected the vehicle could not possibly see this pock mark...it was high up on the windshield. ( a dodge caravan is a relatively high vehicle)
I was charged for it and am disputing this charge. My visa was charged $259.00
over the usual rental charge for ONE day.

Ralph Gover [protected]@gmail.com

On 07/13/2014, I returned a car to the Hartsfield Jackson Airport location. Once home, I realized that my wallet/ purse was missing. I searched around and realized that Id left it in the rental car. A report was filed and within hours, an email was sent letting me know that it had been recovered. However, upon picking it up on 07/14/2018, several of the items were returned (a passport, two credit cards, receipts and an insurance card) while all of my money was not. Over $100 in US and Cuban dollars had been removed from the wallet. I was very upset that my souvenirs as well as my person money had been removed/stolen. I would have felt as if the company and its workers were trustworthy had every item I'd lost been returned. Because my items were not returned in the form they were lost in, I feel violated. All of my cards had to be canceled due to fear that maybe the person who rummaged through my wallet/purse had copied all of my card info. I am very disappointed by this experience.

Firstly I'm extremely disappointed because nobody at your location can answer the phone whenever you try and call. Second when you call customer service they make you wait 45 minutes to answer a phone call.

Second my name is Arsal Bhatti and rental agreement # [protected] and I dropped off the car at Pearson international airport last night at 930pm and was charged in invoice for dropping it off until this morning 645 am. Why ? When I dropped the car off at the agreed time why was I charged an extra day ?

Third, please don't waste my time and keep me waiting for 30 minutes when I have to drop my car off. There was nobody to help and when I went to your desk you directed me to an agent who was occupied by 4 people. Just demoralizing and absolutely ridiculous to wait another 30 mins to process my return. I almost didn't make it to my flight for your mishap.

I work for TELUS health and we have a special account with National for all our staff and you can almost be certain I will take this issue up to with highest person responsible for all mess. You sure are not committed to providing good service at all.

Get back to me because I don't want to be playing a mouse and cat chasing game trying to find someone who can ACTUALLY help.

Arsal Bhatti
[protected]
Learning specialist I -THPS pharmacy solutions

It is absolutely amazing that no one at any of your locations can ever answer the phone. More frequently my husband travels to dallas for business and I always take care of any issues he has. He has a corporate account with national so it is why he always uses them. Any time there is an issue and it involves dallas no one answers the phone at the desk located at dallas love field. It is the most frustrating thing in the world to need assistance and your employees just do not care, not to mention they are hard to find when you are actually there in person.
Today I called customer service to try and change credit card information for my husbands rental since his company card was breached. I requested cs to warm transfer me since dallas never answers. After waiting 45 min for this transfer to happen, with no cs in between telling me they are still trying, I had a woman answer to tell me that my husband had to go in person to change the info. This is something the cs rep at the 800# should have known so I would not have had to wait on eternal hold.
National seriously needs to have classes for their employees to teach what customer service actually is. All that matters is the bottom dollar. Since I too am in sells in the meantime of trying to help my husband I have lost a potential sell that would have been worth $15k to my family.
It is sad that your slogan is: when you're ready, we're ready. You are never ready to answer the phone and assist clients when they are ready for the assistance. Maybe you should consider changing it to: when you're ready stay ready because we will help if we feel like.

Arriving in Honolulu today, July 2, 2018 at 1pm, I headed to National emerald desk. The manager there told the woman helping me that I should be charged a daily fee for not having a reservation. That this fee is discretionary up to the woman helping me but the Manager said she should charge me $200 extra per day. The woman opted for $100 extra, on top of the $66 daily rate. I walked away and will never rent from national again.

I rented a car from the Atlanta National Rental Car at the airport. When I returned the car on June 3, I left my I phone x in the trunk by accident. When I got on the car rental shuttle to the main airport, I noticed it was gone so I went back to get it. I wasn't gone more than 10 minutes. I got back and they said the car was already brought down for washing so they would check the lost and found ect... It was not in the lost and found and when I asked the manger to use his find my Iphone to track my phone, we saw it had been removed from the airport site by one of the workers. He said that he would file a police report for the theft of my cell phone. After filing a police report, I returned home and had to spend the entire Monday getting a new phone which cost me $800. I called National rental car to find out the details of my stolen phone and to also seek remibursement for the $800 I had to pay since one of your employees stole my phone. I have yet to hear back from anyone and have called numerous times only to be told they have no new information for me. I would like my $800 refunded to me for the new phone I had to purchase. I have the receipt for the new phone if that is needed to complete this transaction. I was given a reference number of [protected] for my complaint. I am very unhappy with the run-around I have been given by National Rental Car.

Thank you.

Jenifyr Bedard

I booked two trips, one to Kona Hawaii and one to Indianapolis Indiana. The original Fees were in the 300-400 dollars. I have the original screen shot of the full bill for Hawaii. Two days before I travel, I see that the prices have changed, insurance has been added, and I now am paying over 700 dollars per trip! I had to cancel all my reservations and re-book for both trips. I am very concerned that I was going to be charged hundreds of dollars more per trip and that it was randomly added in right before my travel dates. This sounds similar to Wells Fargo insurance.

Kona Hawaii: Original reservation number that had to be cancelled: [removed]
New: [removed]
Indianapolis: Original reservation number that had to be cancelled: [removed]
New: [removed]

I would like a response to this issue please.

[removed]

We rented a convertible mustang as we thought, , we double checked the car was at the airport they said yes a convertible, we arrived there was one lady on cars were flying around everywhere we asked for our car we haven't got a convertible, here we go I said, where is it it's gone, we have others I'm REALY busy take one of those, we were tired from the journey, the driver brought the vehicle round it was the size of a tank nothing like a convertible she said that's all there is we couldn't go anywhere for three days we didn't want to insure the car as we couldn't drive it being to big, we phoned the company about 5 times no joy then we asked to speak to a manager she called us back sorry about yr inconvenience extra I'll deduct the first three days of yr bill . The driver arrived with the mustang, without insurance yet again swapped the cars over, had to drive miles to the airport yet again to sort insurance out because no one had checked the car befor delivery so another day was lost still hadn't been anywhere. We complained about the service yet again at the counter, then we had to pay all this extra as they didn't explain things to us about how much we should pay for insurance well you need this that we'd had enough by now we didn't sign the declaration as we thought we'd been wrongly advised and treat badly, the last week of our journey the convertible broke down, we had to call the state trooper to get us of the highway 70 He helped us contacting your breakdown team eventually after an long wait stuck on the highway for over an hour trying to contact the relevant people so the trooper got highly annoyed with someone and sorted it all out if it were not for him we would of still been there stuck because your company didn't seem to care at all, we had to get dropped of at a service station by the trooper as you didn't get anyone out to pick us up Trooper Richardson got in touch with you eventually arranged everything for us and made sure we were ok thanks to him we were kept safe, now that we're home I've looked at my bank statement there was no discount as promised just a massive amount you have charged so it's pending with my bank, but hope you will look into this matter and resolve it ourselves and maybe keep your good name in full hope to here real soon P. LEIGHTON

We flew down to atlanta ga and rented a car from you from may 29- june 1st. First they wouldn't take my debit card then they took my daughter's but charged her double because she was 21 then they didn't have a car seat for my 1 1/2 yr old grand son that I asked for so he ended up with a booster seat! We drove 3 1/2 hrs to columbia sc for my sons graduation from basic training and because we had issues with our flight down to atlanta the air line changed our flights and changed the location. So we called right away to explain what was going on and the "gentlemen" we spoke to hung up on us 3 times and also refused to help us out so indeed charged us another $207 to return your car to you. That makes absolutely no sense. It was the worse experience we have ever had in our lives and will tell anyone and everyone to never rent a car from you or any of your entities.

Placed request for rental on Sat may 20th for 2pm at pitt greenville airport 1165511220

I had to modify the reservation to 4pm due to heavy rains in the area .

When I arrived at the airport I was told by the agent she thought I had been called and advised that they were over booked there no more cars available. She was expecting a 4pm flight and had cars moved up from Jacksonville to accommodate the flight.

I explained no one called me and queried her as to why the National and or Enterprise systems don't communicate and update the front line staff and she said they just don't.

For some reason that doesn't sound believable that your systems have no interoperability. I don't understand how you could run a successful business with the proverbial right hand not being aware of what the left hand is doing.

She told me that if any cars were available after the 4pm flight she would call me and took my number. When I had not heard by about 6pm, I called her she advised that she had my number and would call me if she had a car that would be available for 2 days.
This was interesting to me because my rental was for 24 hrs only.

I have rented from This Enterprise and National location many times without difficulty. I am very displeased with the lack of customer service recovery and knowledge of your front line staff
Sincerely,
Cathryn Blackmon
[protected]
The incident occurred on Saturday May 20th around 330. There was only one staff member working the counter. I do not know her name, but I would like to.

Three months after I rented a vehicle for four days in Kalispell, MT, I received an invoice for $983.90 to replace a windshield - for a chip that was less than 1/2" wide. It was not a star, and it was not in the driver's line of sight. I received no contact prior to National completely replacing this windshield, nor was I ever contacted to discuss the "claim" or how to handle it. After receiving this ridiculous bill, I requested a quote from Safelite - it was $310.00 - compared to the $874.90 invoice from Safelite that National provided me as part of their documentation.

I rent cars multiple times a year, and AS STANDARD, upon this car rental, I was told to report ANY damage LARGER THAN A QUARTER. This tiny chip was not ! See the attached photo. The damage was not incurred during my rental period.

I contacted the third party company National utilizes for claims, they did not answer and I have not received a return call.

Dear service support

On 16 April 2018 recived SMS from the bank of dedication of 414 USD from my master card. I don't understand why such a professional company with excellent global reputation dediect an amount from my credit card with out prior knowledge. I have been dealing with National rental car since 30 years and never ever such dedication happened during this period. Therefore I demand refund asap. Your prompt refund and reply will highly appreciated

Customer details

Mohammad Alajaji
Emerald club member [protected]
My Mobil number is +[protected]
Email m.[protected]@oshco.com
Email [protected]@gmail

Best Regards

On February, 15 this year I rented a car (Jeep Wrangler) from National at Yellowknife Airport (NT, Canada).
Car Licence Number: RE4798
Rental Agreement Number: YZFT1-[protected]

The car provided had a mechanical problem which caused the front wheel to fall off right while driving on the highway 4 about 20 miles north of the Yellowknife and created potential life-threatening situation.
Since I did not have a cell phone with me I flagged passing car and ask the driver to call the towing company. Later I and my family had to spend the rest of the night (around 4 hours) at -35C in the middle of the highway in a remote area waiting for towing truck to arrive. The towing company person confirmed the failure was due to wheel nuts not having been torqued properly (by the mechanic who installed the wheel). I do have this person's ("DJS Towing" driver) contacts as well as photos of the wheel confirming aforementioned statement. I paid for towing services with my credit card.

The next day I was given a replacement vehicle and the person at the counter requested me to send the towing company receipt and my credit card information by email in order to make a reimbursement (which I did the same day). It has been almost 2 month since then and I have not received any refund of towing charges. All my subsequent emails to Yellowknife office went unanswered.
This is very disappointing situation for me since I have always rented with National in many locations in Canada and the US before and have never had any issues.

-Serge

I've been in Puerto Rico performing disaster recovery work since October 10th. Back in December I had a rental vehicle stolen and did everything I could and beyond with the risk management team to insure everything was covered. Stayed in communication for weeks while we awaited the police report to be finished so an insurance claim could be made with my company carrier. During the claims process the vehicle was recovered once again I stayed in communication and do everything the detectives and courts asked from me. Mind you during this process I was entered on a Do Not Rent list and still 2 months after I'm told I would be removed from the list. Richard the risk manager will not provide me the damage report information or return a phone call/email. This is a prime example of how people have a major affect on cost to consumers sit back collect top company wages and not do his job. I have list so much respect for National Car Rental and there choice in management.

Hello, I've been an emerald Club member since 2009 and have been renting from the LAX location and other locations when I travel for quite some time now. I was not very pleased with the fact that when I got to the Kiosk I was informed that a $200.00 hold would be placed on my card (which never happens at any location that I've ever rented from). Its extremely annoying to have my money tied up on a reservation that I've already paid for. Further more, there were no signs up indicating this change at this location or nothing listed when I reserved the car through the app. What differentiate National from other rental car places now? No Credit card hold is what kept me for so long. Its truly inconvenient.

Hello,
I am a loyal National customer. I flew into Houston for a meeting. When I got to the gate to checkout, they told me I was on the do not rent list and that I had to go to the kiosk to get it sorted.
I went to the kiosk. The attendant took my drivers license and tried to pull up the issue. After several calls he could not find the issue. He said I had to call [protected] to get it sorted. I tried to call the number. It went to voicemail. Eventually he let me leave with the car but it caused me to miss a very important client meeting that I had flown in for.
I finally called today and got it sorted. They said there was a mistake in the case that was attached to my account and that the non-payment wasnt from me or anything associated to me.

January 26th I had flown out of Daytona Airport very early in the morning before National was open. When I returned my rental car I tossed the keys in the key return box when I realized I left my brand new jacket in the back seat of the car. I couldn't get anyone to assist me since it was so early so I flew out on my 640am flight. I had a connector into GA and I immediately called National Daytona since they were open then. The girl that took my call said they indeed had my coat and I asked if she can ship it to me and I provided my mailing address name and credit card info and she assured me she would send it right out to me. A few days later someone from Enterprise (Matt) called me saying they now had my jacket but didn't have my credit card info to ship my coat
I again gave my information and they assured me they would send my coat to me. Another day passed and I again received a call from Christina at Enterprise saying she now had my jacket but needed my mailing address. I again gave my address. She told me my jacket would be shipped to me. A week passed and no jacket. I called back National and they said my jacket was shipped. So I again waited another week. Still no jacket. I called Daytona National again and the woman that picked up said she remembers me because she took my original phone call. She apologized and said she was going to give my jacket to her manager and make sure I received my jacket and again took my credit card info and mailing address. Another week plus has gone by and no jacket. I am so utterly frustrated and disappointed in the lack of responsiveness I have received especially for the fact I have been so patient and use your company very frequently for all of my work travels. I do not have my brand new Michael Kors jacket that I wore once to Daytona and have missed many days I could have really used my jacket along with my gloves that are in the pockets. What do I need to do to get my coat back? PLEASE HELP! Thank you. - Krystle Dancer- Longo