Ryder, Budget Truck Rental AKA Avis Truck Rental rented truck not inspected 2 times gave hard time about receiving no reinbusement for expenses the business that doesn't give a d**n Phoenix Arizona, Virginia, New Mexico

Date: Sat, 12 Oct 2002 16:59:31 -0400
Subject: RYDER complaint

My goal when I rented this Ryder truck was to move my family and all of our belongings from Phoenix,AZ to Winchester, VA. A total of approx 2500 miles. My nightmare began on October 6th, 2002 before we even left Phoenix. The brake warning light came on after driving for less than 2 MILES. I called the service number and the representative told me how to re-set the switch and after 2 HOURS was able to get the brakes re-set. We were finally on our way. The nightmare continued when our first truck, #188180, broke down on the freeway in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Once we were finally towed back to the Budget station on Pan American Freeway NE, I was told by Customer Service (Budget's 800#)that Budget/Ryder would pickup the hotel expenses and up to $22 a day for a meal for the time we were going to be stranded in Albuquerque. I was also told I would be paid $10 per hour while I was stranded waiting for BUdget to fix this truck; I was also told there was a maximum of 5 hours per day allowed for downtime. The closest hotel was 1/2 mile from the Budget station. The sole mechanic at this station told me "it's close enough to walk." No representatives offered to give us a ride to the hotel.

Let me explain this a little further: with me was my son with a broken arm, 3 cats in large dog carrier and 1 large dog that needed to get to the hotel; WALKING WAS NOT AN OPTION. No one offered to give us a ride even after this was explained to them. In turn, I was forced to put the driveshaft back in the vehicle I was towing and had to take it off the dolly in order to get to the hotel so that we would have a place to stay while we were stranded in a strange town.

BEcause there was a huge Hot Air Ballon Festival that weekend, choosing a hotel was really no option either, as there were few rooms available in the town. On Monday morning, I called Stephen Sandoval, Truck Maintenance Supervisor, Albuquerque location, 3 times before receiving a response about our truck and at that time I was told the truck has not been looked at yet and it would still be a while before anyone had a chance to look at it. After waiting a while (approx 1 hour), I finally went to Budget in person to get some sort of straight answer regarding the truck. I told Stephen that everything we owned was in the truck, along with very valuable coin collectios and jewels/jelwelry and that I wanted to be present while the truck was being unloaded.

He stated he understood and that he would call me before anything was unloaded off of the truck so that I could be present the entire time the truck was being unloaded. At that point I went back to the hotel and waited for Stephen to call me. I called back 3 more times; on my 3rd call I was able to reach Stephen in person. Approx 2 to 2 1/2 hours has lapsed, He then stated that "the crew" had been working on unloading the truck for an hour. My son and I left quickly and returned to where the truck was being unloaded. I hopped into the truck and commenced unloading the truck with "the crew".

When I arrived, my belongings were being thrown around, dishes were dropped, brass bed rails were shoved in to the side of the truck to get them out of the way for other things and furniture was just being shoved in where ever. This furniture had been carefully wrapped in furniture pads to prevent any scratching and chipping during this long trip. That is not the end to what this "crew" did to our belongings. There was glass broken in an antique cabinet because it was not tied into the truck and was left to just "float around" the truck . There was a keyboard shoved along the wall of the truck and when we discovered it unloading, found it to have broken keys because it was wedged in between the wall and heavy boxes on it's side; the keyboard stand was taken apart and found scattered throughout the truck. There was a cedar chest that was placed on the floor of the truck upside down with a CHAIN underneath it - that chain was NOT OURS and it scratched the entire top of the handmade cedar chest. Box spring mattresses were tossed in and ripped and torn along with rips and tears in the mattresses; there were also black marks all over them. Besides the damage done by the "crew", there was extensive water damage done to boxes of pictures, mattresses and boxsprings. Water literally POURED OUT of boxes of pictures.

At that point I went to Stephen and asked him to please talk to these men about taken it easy with what was being done to the things on the truck (tossing, shoving and dropping). Stephen stated he would "take care of it", but he NEVER went back to the truck to see what was happening. Stephen said he would call us when the truck was ready so my son and I went back to the hotel room and waited. Stephen NEVER called. Went to check on truck approx 2 hours later and arrived to find truck loaded and locked. Stephen was on lunch break, never once having called us to let us know truck was ready. The mechanic gave us keys to this new truck with no new paperwork and sent us on our way. Before we could leave, however, I had to hook up the dolly, pull drive shaft out of vehicle again and finally was able to leave Albuquerque at 1:00 pm; we had been stranded by this Ryder company since 11:00 am the DAY PRIOR; a total of 26 hours of downtime for our first complication.

After leaving Albuquerque, we had to stop at nearest truck stop to call Customer Service YET AGAIN because the tires were so out of round that I could not hold on to the steering wheel as I drove. This should have been noticed by ANYONE who may have moved the truck. The driver's seat also had a huge collapse of the seat -it was the size of a frying pan; this caused great discomfort and maladjustment of my spine for the remainder of the 2000 miles I had yet to travel. After being stranded yet again for 2 hours while waiting for tires, I finally called back to service and was told it would be at least another 4 or more hours before I could be helped. I was told to return to a tire place (Purcell's) in Albuquerque to have the tires fixed.

I turned the truck around, drove 47 miles BACK to Albuquerque to have the tires fixed. When I arrived at Purcell's, the manager told the employee that Budget's response was to "slap 2 tires on, do not balance them and get them out of there." At that time I asked the manager to please balance the tires so that I could be assured that I would have a safer and smoother trip to Virginia. At least the Manager at Purcell's knows what customer service is all about. The nightmare does not end there. It continued until the day I returned the truck to the Route 50 East location in Winchester, VA.

The Ryder truck representative was VERY NASTY and told me several things: he did not have time to check my truck in and did not have time to call the customer service number. I was told by customer service that it was his job to call them so that the account could be settled when the truck was returned. He adamently refused to do this; I offered to call for him and stay on hold until someone could talk to him and he refused to let me even use his phone to do that. After 10 minutes of arguing, he finally allowed me to use his phone to call customer service. Upon talking to customer service about my OUT OF POCKET EXPENSES CAUSED BY DOWNTIME OF THIS RYDER TRUCK, the rep came back with a "SETTTLEMENT OFFER" which was $168.00, which was a difference of $85.73. The $85.73 were expenses I incurred because I had to wait for Ryder to fix this truck that had multiple problems for the week that I had it. Customer service that told me by accepting this offer, the case was closed.

I refused to accept the settlement because of the terms that were given to me on Day 1 from the customer service rep I spoke to. I have moved several times in my lifetime, I have used Ryder before, and NEVER have I had such complications or experienced such damage before.

I expect Ryder/Budget to pay full expenses while vehicle was down. I contracted with Ryder to have a safe, reliable and dependable service to move my belongings, and paid a lot of money for those services. I DID NOT receive them. Ryder did not hold to their end of the contract. I expect someone to contact me regarding this matter and to have it settled.

Charles
N. Phoenix, Arizona

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