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Amendment: What can happen if you get stuck with the wrong car rental company

(Christoph Jans, Switzerland, 1996)

DIsclaimer: The 'infamous' car rental company is none of the above mentioned companies. However, if you are interested, I am wwilling to tell you who it was. I'm at '100265.757@compuserve.com'.

Some of the 1996 Euros had a truly pleasant experience when going to Lake Tahoe this summer. We were at the 'Northstar at Tahoe' Resort which we hereby highly recommend, as we all liked it a lot. We drove there (8 people in two cars) on Friday night and stayed through Sunday night.

There was only one little problem: When we were just about ready to leave at 6pm in the afternoon on Sunday, all relaxed and everything, I try to start the car and nothing happens. So I figure the battery is dead or something. But, when I let the ignition key go, I notice it's broken off . It's a very long ignition key and half of it is stuck in the ignition, the other half is in my hand. So, of course, at first try, I kinda try to shove the part I have back in and turn the key anyway.

No luck (of course).

A few other people try, too. No luck, either (of course, this is California, you only get what you paid for). I figure it's time to call the rental company. I do so, no one picks up the phone. I'd have a certain degree of understanding for this, as it's Sunday night. The bad part is, this is the '24 hour emergency hotline' (maybe they called it so because it was only operational for 24 hours after they created it?) of that rental car company. So I call again and let the phone ring 30 times. Nobody picks up the phone.

Great.

I panic real quick and catch myself again. I then call the people I stay with. I am lucky, they're actually home and willing to help me. They get a phone book and call all the locations of that car rental company. They actually find one where there is a employee on duty. The people I stay with call me again and tell me which office of the infamous rental car company to call. I call there and actually somebody picks up the phone. So I tell him about my problem.

He suggests I call a locksmith to get the piece of key out and get another key made. We first look for a phonebook in the apartment, then for a locksmith in the phonebook. We find one (well, actually, his phone number) some 30 miles away (but heck, what's 30 miles in America). I call there, the locksmith's wife picks up and says he's busy with someone else but he'll be there right afterwards.

Some 40 minutes later, he shows up. He works on the car for about an hour and then has to give up. He says the car needs a new ignition lock (which is what we thought in the first place, because the key is twisted in the ignition so it locks itself in there. But no one listens to a bunch of EuroStudents with weird accents anyway...)

I call the infamous rental company again (By now, it's 10 p.m.). They tell me the locksmith is no good if he can't fix it and that I should call another one. I strongly disagree with both parts of their opinion and tell them I want a CAR, not a locksmith (At their expense, of course). After 10 minutes or so of exchanging verbal hostilities, he finally agrees to try (!) to get a hold of their closest office and asking them to run a car to us. He tells me he will call me back.

I wait. And wait. Then wait again. Like half an hour or so. In the meantime, we start to draw who's staying here and who an go home in the one working car we have. Some of us lost their faith in finding a solution to the problem tonight...

Good thing the employee of the infamous car rental company was dumb enough to give me his business AND home phone number, which gives me the ability to terrorize him at any given time. And as time's approaching 11p.m.... I call him at home and he's there. He tells me that he could not reach someone in Sacramento which is their closest office (and a mere 100something miles from Tahoe). He thinks we should wait and solve the problem Monday morning. (Yea right, so he can go to sleep !)

I ... don't think so.

We argue another 15 minutes or so and he finally surrenders and gives in (victory at last! Or probably, he just as desperate to get me off his back as I was to get a car, so the solution kinda came naturally after a while): we can go ahead and rent a car from another rental company somewhere around here. They'll even pay for it.

Unfortunately, in Tahoe on a off-season Sunday night, 'somewhere around here' is quite far. In fact, as far as Reno, Nevada, as we find out after calling all kinds of rental companies around Lake Tahoe. I start calling the rental companies at the Reno airport. The first one is all booked up. The second one is all booked up.

The third one ... you get the idea.

Fortunately, something (intelligence? ... nah. Intuition? ...nah. Instinct? ... maybe the bare will to make it back to the Bay?) made me leave our phone number at the apartment with one of the rental companies at the Reno airport , and, just before I go nuts, they call me back. A car just came in unexpectedly. I see light at the end of the tunnel.

They ask me if I wanted it. Stupid question. Of course, I want it.

At about 11:30p.m., three of us leave for Reno (we were there the day before and really didn't think we'd see it again that soon ) in the second car (good thing we at least had ONE working car ... knock on wood!) to get the car that will bring us back to the Bay Area. We actually an pick up a car and we drive back to the apartment in the two cars. We hurry to get everything into the cars and leave around a.m. (that's already Monday morning) for the Bay.

The drive back to the Bay Area is surprisingly painless (except for a traffic jam somewhere after Sacramento at 3 a.m., but who cares...) and we drop off one of us in San Francisco at 4:30 a.m.. The last one of us returns home at 5:30 Monday morning. The sun is just rising....

I go to bed and sleep till 9, then I call the infamous rental car company to get another car, as the contract still runs for another week and a half or so. The famous car rental company we got the car from in Reno even was willing to rent it to us on a one-way basis, so we could drop it of at the San Jose Airport, which is kinda close to where I stood (at least a lot closer than Reno). So I ask the infamous rental car company to send me someone I can follow to the airport (as I don't know where it is) to drop off the famous rental company's car and to take me back to their office to pick up a replacement car.

They agree to do so and present me a huge van driven by a lady. No problem with that. But as I find out after about a hour, the lady doesn't really know where the airport is, either. I do have a problem with that, though. But eventually, after, say, 90 minutes (if you know where you're going, it takes you 10 minutes) we manage to find the airport and drop off the car.

She then takes me back to another office of theirs, where they have a car waiting for me. When she pulls into the parking lot with the big van, she hits another car's sideview mirror and rips it off.

Needless to say, it was the car that they wanted to give to me as a replacement.

I was too tired to be mad or arguing, and, thank heavens (or who/whatever helped), they come up with another car after another 30 minutes of me sitting in their office and staring at them. I was going to stay for days if they wouldn't come up with another car before. So that's the car I drove for the remainder of the rental contract. I believe you agree it was a good decision to look for another rental car company after the contract expired.

  
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