Lt Reviewed on Dec 30, 2018, 6:29 PM

Originally booked a car a month in advance and prepaid for it. When we went to pick it up at the scheduled date at Budget, the building was closed and a sign said “we are servicing our vehicles; call this number for immediate asssistance.” We called the number and no one answered. Left a message and called again. Finally a woman picked up and said she’d be right there. After going inside, I thought it would only take a minute or two to check out the car since we’d prepaid. No.....the woman proceeded to require me to show proof of insurance when I declined theirs. When I showed her the card, she said that wasn’t good enough and she had to call the insurance company to confirm that I was a customer, which took a good 15-20 minutes. I’ve rented cars for a decade and have never experienced this level of scrutiny by a car company. Finally got the car and she told me to check it for scratches and mark them before I left. The car was black and it was raining, so it was hard to see, but I marked one scratch that they hadn’t caught. You’d think if they showed such scrutiny over insurance that they’d have a clear record of scratches/scuffs on their car, but they didn’t. I drove it without any incidents. Upon returning the car at the airport a few days later in the early a.m. hours with a plane to catch, a woman gives the car a walk around and says it’s okay to go, but then gets her flashlight and goes back and shines it all over the car and says there’s a scratch/scuffing on the back. Keep in mind, it’s not visible at all without a flashlight. I explained that I hadn’t experienced any accidents and that when I checked that car out, it had been raining and I couldn’t see everything. I took a photo of the scratched area of the car without the flashlight to show that you can’t see it without added light. The woman said she had to file a report because they had no record of it and that I had to leave my information with them in case they decide it will cost them money to fix it. I had to fill out info stating that to my knowledge no incidents had happened when I was driving and that I could have easily missed seeing it when I picked the car up because it was raining which would have obscured it. They said “don’t worry about it; they’ll only call if it’ll cost money to fix it,” whatever that means. Long story short, I’ve never had such a terrible experience with a rental car company and will never use Budget again.