Economy Rent a Car review: Bad Industry Service

On Jan. 29th, I booked, through expedia, a midsized car for Orlando to last a period from Jan. 29 to Feb. 18th…..my confirmation said ‘Your reservation is booked. No need to call us to reconfirm this reservation’…The reservation was with Economy Rent a Car, even though the paperwork states Signature Rent a Car…When we were shuttled in, after waiting for 45 minutes at the pickup spot for a shuttle, there were no cars available for me and while my counter agent conferred with someone in the back over the issue, I was exposed to loud conversations from other clients who were in the same position and one lady was literally shouting to her counter agent about her insurance issue and that they would not accept her proof of insurance even though she had her insurance agent on the line…I could hear the agent say, ‘lady, I am not shouting at you so please don’t shout at me’..
Consequently, we(eight of us) were shuttled back to the airport, I with a reservation made by Signature in my name and again through expedia, for a one day rental from EZ rent a car..the agent there seemed to know my problem before even hearing it from me… although the rental was for 14.23, all the other charges, including the toll pass came to 32.80…Signature, told me that they would deduct the one day rental from my rate, which they did, but only the rental part…and after arguing, they deducted my toll pass, however, all the surcharges, I would have to absorb…Then came the issue of insurance…They would not accept my CAA certificate or my gold card coverage and in spite of my insistence that I had coverage, I was told that I would have to pay 19 dollars per day for coverage from Signature…but, I would get the coverage for a discounted rate of 14 dollars a day..Now I know what the discontent was all about on my first visit..This trick on their part, doubled my rental rate for the period.
When they pulled my vehicle up for us, it looked like it had been in an ‘issis’ attack..It was scratched and dented everywhere and I made the car hop put a big circle around the whole vehicle during the walk around even though he argued that dents only larger than golf balls count…Then when getting in, I notice the inside roof lining separating at both ends of the car entry and I was wondering what was actually holding it up…but we needed a car and I was prepared to live with the issue, tucking in the edge, each time that I got into the car…
The next morning as I got in to go for coffee, my ‘tire’ light was on…I didn’t think it to be a big issue and stopped off and had it inflated at the nearest gas station…The next morning, the same thing happened except after I inflated the same tire, the light still stayed on and I enlisted the help of the mechanic at Sam’s, who found two tires that were going flat…
I took the vehicle back and the supervisor apologized and clearly sounded like he was accustomed to doing so as there was no surprise over my complaint…He attempted to give me an upgrade ‘for just a few more bucks a day’ but I declined and was offered a Volkswagon passat which I continuously kept checking for ‘issue’ lights on the dashboard, but none came up for the period that we had the vehicle..
In summary, I am firstly surprised that expedia would deal with such a ‘non industry standard’ provider and amazed at how ‘slick’ the relentless counter agents are in trying to sell upgrades. But denying our insurance coverage was a new one to me and I have been renting vehicles two or three times a year for at least 20 years…I would have never rented from this provider as I normally am familiar with the brand name renters, however, I trusted expedia and sadly was disappointed with the results…