Alamo Rent A Car > Reviews > FREE upgrade scam

Author's product rating:   

Available selection	Good
Customer Service	Very unhelpful
Vehicle Quality	Good
Value for Money	Very poor

Advantages:	Car clean & tidy
Disadvantages:	Staff at outlet lie to get more money .  Customer services unhelpful .

Recommend to potential buyers:

no

Full review

I have read another complaint almost identical to ours. Shame it was too late for us. Hope you see this before it happens to you too!

Our car was hired from Alamo, located at Sanford International Airport, Orlando. It had been arranged as part of our holiday package and was paid for prior to our arrival from the United Kingdom.

When we arrived to collect the car, the staff were very friendly and we were told we could upgrade our car for FREE because there was a shortage of the smaller car we'd hired. We were told to just take our pick and that all we had to do was to return the car with an empty tank!!

On the date we flew back to the UK £129+ was taken from our Credit card account.

It is now 3 months since our return. Up until today we have been repeatedly fobbed off with standard responses from Alamo asking for further information about our car hire, claiming they were having trouble tracing our paperwork, while they have claimed interest on our money.

Today we have been told that the charge incurred was for the FREE upgrade. For the verbal misunderstanding (doesn't 'free' mean no charge?) and as a 'gesture of goodwill' they will refund half our money. Apparently the charge was on the contract we signed...

Do not get conned like we did. If you have to use Alamo read the contract-even insist on taking a hand written receipt from member of staff with their signature to back it up! Upgrades at Alamo are NOT free and the Customer Services department will not investigate the complaint promptly.

We will never use Alamo again.