Avis swore at me in front of my kids
Negativ: I have rented cars for 10 years and have never been treated in such a disrespectful and rude way as I did at the Brussels airport during our family's Christmas vacation.
When picking up the car, I was pressured in multiple ways to get insurance. Neither the man at the desk nor the man at the parking garage seemed to respect my decision not to get insurance. They implied I was not smart to decline insurance.
When I picked up the car, I noticed a large dent on the right side that was not documented. I drove it 100 yards to the office and the man was very suspicious of me. He made comments that I created the dent myself in those 100 yards. He was reluctant to document it on the form. He did not sign the document.
The fact that he did not sign it, and the fact that there was an undocumented damage to the car, are important for the rest of the story.
The car had a lingering cigarette smell in it during the entire trip.
The car, a Peugot suv, performed very well during our trip.
When I returned the car, we had a short amount of time before we had to make our flight. We were treated to a fifteen minute inspection of the vehicle, with no interest paid to the fact that we were on a timeline. I have never in 10 years of renting cars been subjected to a fifteen minute car inspection, whether or not I had a flight to catch.
During the inspection, the Avis man (a different one from earlier -- named Ciorbea - a bald man shorter than the original employee) was extremely suspicious of the dent in the car. He questioned me, then I told him it was the other man, a taller man with more hair, who documented the dent. The two of them discussed it, and it was apparent the two employees had little respect for each other. The form was not signed by the original employee, nor was there a picture taken of it, when I checked out the car - this is what Ciorbea didn't like.
The bald man finally accepted that the dent was not my fault; but what if the original employee was not working the day I brought the car back? I do not have any hope that Ciorbea would believe me.
Ciorbea found a light scratch on the front left of the vehicle. He consternated over this for another five or ten minutes and questioned me on this. We pointed out that there is no way to prove that we caused the scratch, because we found undocumented damage on the car to begin with. This angered him and he dismissed our point.
Then, he assigned two separate "small" charges which totaled over 300 euros. I questioned him: "how do you know it will cost 300 euros to fix this?" He got angry with me and told me he was just doing his job, and that there are "American smart asses upstairs at Avis" who make the rules.
I declined to sign the contract because I disputed the damage assessment.
I wondered to myself, if charging customers for damage repair is so important, how did I receive a vehicle with three major dents, unrepaired? Where does the damage money go?
I was astonished as this man swore in front
