Complaint Rating:

Company information:
Thrifty Car Rental
United States

Thrifty is demanding over $500 for damages incurred before I rented vehicle. See letter below for details:

Thrifty Car Rental
Attn: Niles Finley
DTG Operations, subrogation Dept
Dept 927
Tulsa, OK 74182
Re: Claim number 730170
I am in receipt of your letter dated January 29, 2009 in regards to the damages to the rental vehicle as well as your second letter dated February 10th in which you fail to address my concerns specifically in my letter I sent to your office February 2nd.
For the back drop to this story, we arrived at Thrifty (Sea-Tac) at approximately 11:30pm on December 18th. The weather was the worst storm in decades, dumping close to a foot of snow on the ground and then freezing. (verifiable with any news agency) At the time of our arrival temperatures were in the mid-teens. It took close to an hour to get the car and then when we were issued the Chrysler PT, we were unable to find it. I went back into the office, now after midnight and told the clerk. He couldn’t find it either and re-issued another PT that he retrieved from the snow covered lot.
The employee then went to an upper parking lot and drove the PT down to the lower lot where it was impossible to inspect the vehicle. The car was covered with approximately six inches of snow and ice with over eight inches of snow on the ground. We removed what snow we could off the hood with our bare hands in the freezing weather as the clerk was short-staffed and unable to assist. Your company has a responsibility to ensure that the vehicles can be inspected of which you failed to do. It was not realistic to expect me or anyone else to grab a snow shovel and shovel around and under the car in temperatures that were in the teens, let alone that it was in darkness. Your employee failed to inspect the vehicle before issuing and your company failed to provide an environment suitable for inspection. I also suspect that the previous party to this car failed to have their car inspected adequately upon their return due to the winter storm conditions or that the car was damaged by your employee when parked after their departure. With over eight inches of snow on the ground in your parking lot, it could easily have occurred.
As I stated in my first letter, this vehicle was parked in a dry, underground parking lot for most of the period rented as I was trapped in a motel near the Seattle Space Needle for 3 days. As the damages were to the front, under the bumper, it is obvious that the vehicle was damaged most likely in a parking stall with a concrete stop covered with snow. I never parked in such an area during my short rental period.