Scam at Budget Rent a Car Naples Airport

This blog has been prepared to prevent the things that happened to me in Naples while renting a car with the rent-a-car company called Budget from happening again to someone else.

Please take 5 minutes to read my story, you might end up saving yourself some money and a considerable amount of trouble.

The story goes like this:

Before my trip to Sorrento I booked a car through holidaycars.com for 3 days. Since this is Southern Italy, I thought the car might get broken into or damaged even in a parking lot, so I took out a “no risk warranty” insurance, which later played a very important role.
Upon my arrival, without asking my permission, Budget charged my credit card with 500 Euros. When I got an SMS about the transaction, I asked the lady for the reason and she said it was the deposit. Well, I told myself, Budget isn’t exactly this tiny rent-a-car business, in fact, it’s one of the biggest companies, so I thought my money was safe, even though no-one else has ever done this before during any of my trips.
But here is where it gets interesting.
There were no problems whatsoever, after 3 days I showed up at the airport at 8:00 in the morning to give the car back. To my astonishment, all other rent-a-car companies had their staff there to take back cars, except for Budget. I checked everywhere, I honked and everything because I had no time to lose as I had a plane to catch, but I couldn’t find anyone. I had no other option but park the car in Budget’s parking lot and I took the minibus to the airport. There I went to the counter of Budget and I told the guy there that I had looked for their employee for 20 minutes, but hadn’t been able to find anyone. To which he replied saying that currently they had no personnel to take back cars, that’s why there had been nobody there. He told me everything was fine and that I had to sign the papers and they would take a look at the car later. This again made me think about how Budget wouldn’t mess with customers, so I gave back the keys. I told the guy that they owed me the 500 Euro deposit, to which he replied assuring me that they would pay it back soon.

1 week after my return home they still had my 500 Euros, so I wrote an e-mail to holidaycars, with whom I booked the car, but they didn’t reply. Then, to my astonishment, yesterday, i.e. on 17-06-2009 Budget charged my card with further 180 Euros.
That did it. I called Budget at the airport in Naples for some explanation. They told me to give them my reference number. I did, and then they asked me when I intended to return the car. I told them I was calling from Budapest, I had returned the car a week before. At this point I was told that they had no time for me due to too many clients and that I had to call back later.
I called back. This woman asks me to tell her what is on the medal hanging from the ring of the car keys. I asked her to try to understand that I had returned the car a week before and that I called because I wanted to know why they still owed me 680 Euros. The answer: yes, she can see it now, the car was damaged when I returned it. I said hello? First she says I’ve got the car, a minute later that I returned it, but damaged? I told her that was a lie, I parked in the closed parking lot of a five star hotel, when I went to the city, I also parked in a closed lot and I left the car at Budget’s parking lot without even a scratch. She told me she couldn’t care less about any of that, they consider the rental agreement to be terminated and they charged me 180 Euros to cover the damage. And I had to contact holidaycar anyway, because I took out the insurance with them, and it doesn’t have anything to do with Budget anymore.
I told her it would all be like that if any of this was true, but none of it is. I have no reason to lie since my insurance covers everything, therefore I will get my money back one way or another, so I would naturally tell them if I had damaged the car, but, as I said, I returned it without a scratch.

The trick:

It was only later that I checked the form I was given, and it stated that I did not wait for them to check the car. At this point they were lying already!
They are taking advantage of the fact that their clients have their planes to catch and a car to return before that, therefore they won’t take the car back and when the client has left, they charge his card with a few more hundred Euros. It has also crossed my mind that they might only do this to people who they see have taken out fully comprehensive insurance, so that the matter doesn’t get blown up and the client won’t return to complain. I’m not sure, these are obviously speculations.
What I am sure though, and these are not speculations, is: I returned the car without damage and later, in a disgustingly unfair way I was accused with breaking it. My gut feeling says this is an insurance fraud, I can’t think of any other explanation.
I’ve contacted holidaycars.com to settle the matter, let’s see what happens...
And let’s get this one thing straight: here at home I drive a CLS500 so I spend 180 Euros per week on fuel alone. I hope this will make it clear to every reader that I’m not motivated by wanting the money back. I don’t write blogs, but as I own a company that is a market leader in Search Engine Optimization, I decided to make an exception and write down what has happened to me. This blog will be optimized for the most important keywords such as car hire Naples, rent a car Naples airport, etc., so in half a year it will be on the top of Google’s search results list and more and more people will find it. I do this only to stop such vile companies from continuing their disgusting scams deceiving people.
I hope it will work and if you read this, you won’t get caught up in the web concocted by this thief of a company.