Humans are selfish. When we think of the happenings going on in the world we always think how they affect “us.” It’s natural. Our world revolves around what is happening in our life. So, while there are many things exploding in the world, I must still take a moment and complain.
My grievance is the treatment I received from the car rental place, actually I should say the website for the car that I rented as I was misled.
You want the story in a nutshell. I’ll give it to you in a walnut, that might be big enough. I traveled 1200 miles to see my sister who is not well. We are both in our seventies, and I don’t know how many more times I can make this trip. I normally drive, but it has gotten too much for me, so I flew into Toronto and rented a car.
I made all my arrangements online. And when it came to renting a car, I did the same thing. I figured the drive from the Toronto airport to her place in Orilla was easier to make then the drive from my home in Kansas to her home in Canada.
There are always hiccups in the road aren’t there? So, when I rented my car in August the Internet website handled it very well, I foolishly thought. The printout that I received stated that I could drop this car at the Best Western Plus Hotel at the airport and take their shuttle to the terminal if it was after hours. The fee was $10 to $20 to me. I felt the extra fee well worth it as I would have to drop my car off at 05:00am in the morning as my flight home was leaving Toronto at 8:30am.
Here comes the hiccup. Before I left the car lot, I stated as a question that “I could drop the car off at the Best Western Plus Hotel as I was leaving at 05:00am on September 22nd and take the hotels shuttle to the airport.”
The car rental staff person looked at me like I was foolish and stated that “No I had to bring the car back to the lot and put the keys in the box and call a taxi or Uber to pick me up and take me to the airport.” Let me say that this lot was in a very industrial, busy area 15 to 20 minutes away from the airport. This business expected a 71-year-old woman to come to their lot at 05:00am, sit in the dark, call an Uber or taxi, and hope that they arrived in time to get me to my flight.
My big concern was would I be able to sit there safely, let me say that again, safely in this car while I waited for some unknown person to pick me up and take me to the airport.
I was dumbfounded. I said to the guy that the printout said that I could leave the car at the Best Western Plus Hotel after hours and catch their shuttle. He said, “Show me” at which time I pulled out the paperwork and showed him where it was printed from this website that I could catch the shuttle and leave the car at the Best Western Plus Hotel at the Toronto airport. The staff person said, “No that is wrong, you have to bring the car back here.”
Believe me had I known this ahead of time I would not have rented from Zoom or used the website that I used to rent the car. I would have gone a different route.
If there’s anybody out there who has ever driven around Toronto on the highways, you will understand my upset and fear at the thought of trying to return that car at 05:00am in the morning. The traffic is horrendous and there are lanes of stopped traffic all along that route.
I was in a state of shock. Here I was far away from home in an unknown area upset that now I had to figure out a different way to bring this car back or bring it to the lot and figure out how to get transportation at 05:00 o’clock in the morning back to the Toronto airport.
The Toronto airport is one hell of a busy place. You must be there very early to get things done. I spent my whole time with my sister worrying about getting that dam car back to the lot.
My final decision was to return the car a day early and stay at a hotel the night before. I cut my vacation a day short and spent $364.83 Canadian on a hotel room that I stayed in for seven hours to drop this car off in the daylight and feel safe that I would be able to get to the airport on time. The car rental place did not even refund my early return. And then they balked at even taking me to the hotel as it “wasn’t at the airport.” he said.
Their suggestion was that the shuttle person could take me to the airport, and I could take a taxi to the hotel. I am not kidding you. They wanted to drop me at the airport and leave me to find my own way to the hotel. What terrible people!
Let me say, as it turned out, the hotel was only about 10 minutes from their car lot. There I stood in their lobby with tears pooling in my eyes over the fact that these cruel men would expect me to find my own way to the hotel after driving through horrific traffic to return my car a day early.
Finally, they decided to take me to the hotel as there were five new clients coming into the lobby to rent cars, and I am sure they did not want an old woman standing there crying over the dilemma she found herself thanks to them.
Now, I’m not looking for sympathy. I want you to understand that I was going by the paperwork that I had from the website which included me dropping this car off at the Best Western and taking their shuttle to the airport. It did not include me sitting out in the dark at 05:00 in the morning waiting for somebody to come and pick me up, somebody I wouldn’t know, somebody who would know I was a tourist, and who I should trust to take me safely to the airport to catch my flight back to the states.
What I want is for you to feel as outraged as I do when you hear their the websites response regarding this miscarriage of justice. They told me there is nothing they can do to get a refund for me, then they sent me a copy of a voucher that left off the part about returning the car and included only four pages. In this email they stated, “It doesn’t say anything about pickups or drop offs.”
My copy has six pages and is directly from their website. I printed all the documents as soon as I completed the transaction. This website is all over the world. How can they be so deceitful? They sent me a fake printout. It is not what was available to me at the time of the booking. I have copies and sent them pictures of what is in my printout.
At this point what I expect is a full apology, and a full refund. What do you think will happen?
I guess the lesson that I’ve learned that I want to share with you is that no matter what it says in print on the Internet I would say that you call and verify every single detail before you make a trip far from home. No one should be expected to sit in the dark somewhere in an unknown place and try to find transportation anywhere. Not with the world wide web at our fingertips, or at least that’s what I thought.
Fool me once but you will never fool me again. I shall not use the internet to plan a trip ever as I am sure there are many, many other people out there who have lost lots of money over similar situations. For me, I will go directly through the business I will be dealing with and hope that in the end they will be truthful and trustworthy. What do you think my chances are?
Oh, and by the way, the hotel that my sister and I stayed at in Windsor refused to give me a refund when we left a day early. We had made the trip from her home to Windsor to see family. She is on oxygen and can barely get around. I had to push her everywhere in a wheelchair. It about killed us both.
The casino hotel in Windsor said they could not give me a refund as it was “prepaid.” Hotel.com got me a refund and were quite wonderful. At least I got lucky once. How about you, have your gotten lucky on your trip?
Thankful I made it home safely, and as to you, I hope you have a wonderful day, you and I deserve it.
