Avoid Thrifty Chelmsford Branch. Better, avoid them all

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Thrifty Car Rental
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1.5
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prontodave's review of Thrifty Car Rental

“Avoid Thrifty Chelmsford Branch. Better, avoid them all”

★☆☆☆☆

written by prontodave on 22/11/2013

I wrote the following complaint one week ago to Thrifty UK through their website. They have not even bothered to respond:

I'm sure it is important for you to understand why a customer uses your service once and then never returns. I'd like to explain why I shall not be using Thrifty again.
I hired a car from your Chelmsford branch yesterday, I was asked to produce a utility bill and credit card statement in addition to the usual drivers licence and credit card. I forgot the credit card statement and explained that I had walked 45 minutes to get to the branch so asked if there was anything they could do to accommodate my mistake. The middle aged red haired lady serving me said there was not. No offer to send somebody to accompany me to get it ( I would have gladly paid) no flexibility, no leniency. Up to this point I can't complain, it was my fault that I had forgotten the document - but I commented to the lady that other car rental companies such as Hertz do not have such onerous requirements, to which your member of staff replied "yes they do, I used to work for Hertz and they ask for exactly the same documents".

Having frequently rented cars from Hertz (as well as Enterprise and occasionally Avis) I know this to be incorrect, so when I returned with my Card Statement I brought her a print-out of the Hertz UK website showing that they simply require a credit card and a licence. Her reaction? She rolled her eyes and said "yes...well they have far more cars stolen than us, and our cars are expensive".

This was a poor and rather condescending response, but still not enough to merit my writing to you. However, when she started to process my car rental, her computer programme crashed and she let out a long nicotine-smelling sigh and said "I'll have to do this manually, I hate doing this". She then called to check my credit card and must have been put on hold, because she audibly muttered "Oh, for fxxx's sake!"

When I returned the car at 09:30 the following day, the office was locked up and nobody was answering the phone. When somebody arrived 10 minutes later I was not surprised to see the same middle-aged, red-headed lady and equally unsurprised that no apology was forthcoming.

You only have my word of course that I was not an irate, abusive customer. Annoyed and irritable...but no more than that. However, under any circumstances a member of staff of a large company should not be condescending, foul mouthed, and smelling of nicotine, and they should certainly be attending the office during office hours.

Any one single event would have been overlooked, but the entire rental experience was awful from beginning to end. I felt like I was an inconvenience and will certainly not be returning again.

  • UK, Chelmsford

    Country & City of hire

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