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To say that the experience I had with Dollar was abysmal is being generous. It was shockingly appalling. I'll try to summarize here. I rented an electric car in Burlington, VT on 9/9/23. It was only being used for one day to move my daughter into college. The next day, the airline cancelled my flight and couldn't get me out of Vermont for several days (and other airlines and other airports had full flights as well), so I decided to drive home. I called Dollar to ask 2 questions: (1) can I swap out the car for a gas car, and (2) can I drive the car 17 hours to Tennessee. The agent I spoke with twice, assured me that I could go to any Dollar location and change out the car. After looking at the map, I called him back and told him I was going to the Albany, NY airport to swap out the car. The agent changed my reservation, charged me $94, and told me to make my way to Albany. When I arrived at the Albany airport Dollar location, the agent behind the desk, who was the only agent on duty, refused to take the electric car, and refused to provide me a gas car, in an extremely rude manner. Again, rude is being generous. I've never experienced someone so mean and unhelpful. He refused to even pull up my contract number in the Dollar system. After pleading with him for 10 minutes, and breaking down in tears (this was 8 pm on a Sunday night and I had 15 hours to drive- and he walked away from me), I starting calling the Dollar phone number. There was no other agent on site to speak with. There were plenty of cars available. It took more than 30 minutes to get an agent on the phone. When I spoke to an agent, he apologized for the issue, told me he was escalating the issue to a manager, and would call me back in 15 minutes. I never received a phone call back (not to this day- 5 days later), so after more than 2 hours, I walked to the Budget counter and told them my plight, they happily rented a car to me, and I took the Dollar car over to the drop off for rentals and told the woman who happened to be there what I was doing (dropping the car off and leaving because they refused to provide me with a gas car). The next morning I began making calls to Dollar to explain what happened and let them know I had dropped the car off in Albany, and had not been able to obtain another car from them because the agent refused to provide one to me. I talked to at least 3 people, and had to explain the story to every person. I finally spoke with a supervisor who gave me a case number and told me someone would get back to me in 24-48 hours. No response. EVER. A few days later I started receiving calls from Dollar about my "critically overdue vehicle" that was not turned in at the Nashville, TN airport. I explained multiple times why I had no car to deliver to Nashville, and that I had a case number. No one could do anything with my case number, and I was shuffled around between departments- roadside assistance, new bookings, etc. Eventually I spoke with someone higher up, told my entire story again, and he said he would send me an email about my case and the issuance of a refund. No call back, no email. Nothing. I have spoken to at least 12 agents over several days, I have to retell my story multiple times, and I am repeatedly told nothing can be done with my case until I return the car to the Nashville airport- which is the entire reason I have a case number in the first place. Dollar has exceeded the lowest possible expectations I ever could have had for a company and I will never rent from them again (and will do everything I can to alert others to this company that mistreats its customers).
Desired outcome: Full refund of Dollar rental. And a firing of the employee (African American man, 60s, wearing a baseball cap and jean jacket) working the pickup counter at the Albany International Airport on 9/10/23 between 8-10 pm.
