Discovery Rent-A-Car Discovery Rental Car Company CA Sergey Roshal Discovery Rent-A-Car Sucks! Los Angeles California

Do NOT rent a car from Discovery Rent-A-Car in Los Angeles! 

This is a ghetto wanna be rental car outfit based in the Hacienda Hotel.

525 N. Sepulveda Blvd. El Segundo, CA 90245

On Sep 18, 2013 I flew into LAX for a day of meetings. 

I waited around for a Discovery Shuttle to pick me up and take me to their cars. After watching Hertz, Alamo, Thrifty, Budget, Avis vans all drive by over and over again I got pissed. I called them up and asked them where their van was. They said, "Oh, you need to wait under the Hotel Shuttle sign and take the Hacienda Hotel Shuttle to get to us."

I thought, thats pretty shady. 

So, I waited for the Hacienda Shuttle. The shuttle driver didn't even pull over, he just drove right past me. So I called them again and told them to have their driver circle back around which he eventually did. (This outfit is run by unprofessional clowns) 

BUT Wait!

So I get to the hotel, find the Discovery Rent A Car office (which is the size of a closet) and hand them my ID and Visa Debit card. 

The guy at the counter said, we don't take Debit Cards, you'll have to go back to the Airport and rent a car from someone else.  (I WISH I would have taken his advice since I have rented at least 30 cars from other "actual" rental car companies this year with the same debit card.)

However, I was already running late, so I showed him in the contract that Discovery Rent-A-Car emailed me after I made the booking that said debit cards ARE accepted. I asked him why his company Discovery Rent-A-Car says they take debit cards in writing but he says they don't. 

He blamed Kyak, the search engine company I used to "discover" Discovery Rental Car… (Kyak should take Discovery Rent-A-Car off their search site)

Anyways, he says OK and swipes my card. He put a $500 hold on my card which was fine although most car companies only hold $250. 

I tell him, "Id like to decline your insurance and Ill return the car full of gasoline." He says, "The car only has a half tank of gas, so Id need to guess how much gas to put back into the car to get it back to a half a tank."  RED FLAG ALERT.

You know you are dealing with d****e bags when they give you a rental car half full of gasoline. 

Never the less, I was in a hurry so I said, "Whatever dude"

Some guy appears from out of no where with a  car and says, this is it. It was a white VW Jetta.

I jump in the car and head out to my meeting. 

The next day I return the car just as their shuttle is about to pull out. (Their shuttle only runs every half hour so I would have missed my flight if I would have missed that shuttle) So, I park the car behind the shuttle so the driver can't pull out. I run into the hotel, hand the agent the key, say "There is a half talk of gas in the car, thanks." 

I jump in the shuttle, the agent moves the car and Im off to the airport. 

As I get to my gate, I get a text message on my phone from my bank saying that Discovery Rent-A-Car just charged my card for another $700! ($1200 in total)

So I immediately call Discovery Rent-A-Car and ask the agent why he charged me when he was supposed to credit my card back the $500 (less the $25 fee for the day)

He said that he was putting a hold on my card because there was a scratch on the back bumper of the car that he said I put there. I told him that the car was in the possession of the Valet guys at the Marriott Hotel for the night in a parking garage and I didn't notice any scratches when they gave it back to me. I asked him to please send me a picture of the damage. 

On Sep 25th he finally sent me a picture of the scratch with a bill estimate for $539.27. Look at the pic and tell me if there is $539.27 worth of damage to the bumper. Not even $100. I sent Serge an email saying I would give him $100 and call it good even though I wasnt responsible for it. 

I believe that the scratch was either there before I rented the car or was put there after I had checked it in. I believe that their employee had a vendetta against me because of my multiple calls regarding the shuttle, declining their BS insurance, being called out on using a debit card and the haste in which I returned the keys to him. (I wasn't going to miss my flight over these idiots) 

Now they have stuck me with a $539.27 bill. I told them they should have taken the $100 I offered them. Now the world is going to know what a shady company they are. 

Here are some folks on Yelp dealing with the same issues...

http://www.yelp.com/biz/discovery-rent-a-car-el-segundo