Budget Car Hire SA Reviews 29

Lovely professional staff in person and via customer service but this company is GREEDY. I was charged more than the cost of my 20 day rental, for a chipped windscreen ( stone flying up off highway ) It costs the equivalent of £40-£60 to replace a windscreen in Cape Town and they charged me £260 for windscreen damage,small dmin fee and 15% tax. I questioned this with customer service and was informed the charges are correct and will remain.

Nope. I read tons of reviews of Budget lying and stealing money from customers on return, I thought it wouldn't happen to me and it did. They have claimed "wind screen damage" on my rental, although there was no damage to the wind shield and I have pictures to prove it from the return. Multiple requests for Budget to provide pictures have gone unanswered and they have stopped responding.

Terrible crooked business.

Two bad experiences with Budget-Avis in South Africa (Cape Town Airport).

The first time (2018) they deducted two additional amounts for “speeding fines” we do not believe we incurred, and without providing any evidence of the so-called fines. Impossible to deal with them after the fact.

The second time (Nov 2019j they once again deducted extra money with no explanation. the car was returned clean, undamaged and full tank of fuel. They hang up the phone when you call them. I have emailed them, but have no confidence they will reply or refund the extra amount charged.

Do not use Avis-Budget.

The car was okay - therefor 2 stars.
Returned at Capetown Airport, full tank.
Without notice an extra 38 Euro charge ... no info.
After claim with car broker found out, that it was for cleaning the car and additional petrol.
At return signed that I would allow for a car cleaning before checking for any damage - without any delay for me.
So signed.
And that comes out.
Everything else was fine - pickup of car, car itself, ...
but strongly recommend to be very aware and carfull at car return.
In the future I will let them sign for the petrol and dont assign anything...

Corrupt and liars

Paid for rental prior to arriving

They charged me full rental again but said it was deposit

Then said car was damaged , a day after I returned and vehicle was checked as ok

Unable to contact them

Hang up phone and never reply to e mails

Thief’s plain and simple

Beware

Perfect Rental. Everything good and as expected from hire via Auto Europe. No extras charged. Filled tank and returned, no extra petrol charge. Budget has the highest customer satisfaction rating out of all of the name hire companies.

Rental vehicle booked via AutoEurope with Budget.co.za, pick up from Cape Town Airport.
The queue at the Budget/Avis joint counter at the airport was the longest we have ever seen. Took well over an hour to get to the front of the queue and then complete formalities.
The car was fine, with no problems during the 9 day rental.
When we returned the vehicle to Cape Town Airport we were exchanging it for a second pre-agreed rental for a smaller car to drie around Cape Town area.

When the first vehicle was returned, it was examined closely both inside and out by an Avis representative, who said
"great, no problem here".

We then walked to Avis counter in the airport to sign for our pre-arranged second (and smaller) car. I mentioned to the lady
at the Avis desk that we had just returned an Avis vehicle. She asked for the agreement for the first rental as it would speed
up her helping us with the second rental. At the time I could not find it and she printed it out (after finding it on the
computer system using my surname). Only when we were back in the UK and discovered that there was additional valet charge did we look at
this agreement that she had printed off, which did indeed have valet charge on it.
So the charge was in place within 15-20 minutes
of our returning the vehicle and having being told that everything was OK.

The car was dusty and had some sand in the foot wells. However, we have hired rental cars in South Africa many times and had remarked that this was the cleanest car that we had ever returned.

After two weeks of trying to get any sense out of the UK and South African Customer Care teams, they simply said that the valet charge was needed due to sand.

I'm afraid that it seems that this is an easy way to extract additional funds from clients. The charge was only £43.34, but the fact that it was added to the bill within minutes of our dropping off the car, when we'd been told that it was OK, has left a feeling of ill will. We cannot help but suspect that this may well be standard practice, with the client having no real right of recourse.