Budget Van Lines Complaint - Budget should be shut down... - Truck Rental

Truck Rental - Complaint

Review by kylove4u on 2010-08-20

TULSA, OKLAHOMA -- My fiance and I rented a truck from Budget to move from KY to NY. On the first day, when we were loading the truck, it was raining and we soon discovered that the roof of the truck was leaking and our belongings were getting soaked with the rainwater. We called for Budget roadside assistance to fix the leak but they refused to come out and do so. So, we bought a caulk gun and some caulk and had to climb onto the top of the truck to fix it ourselves. We thought this would be the worst of our problems. As we set out the next day from KY to NY, we made it as far as the Cleveland, OH area (about 5 hours away from our starting point) when the Budget truck broke down. It turns out the transmission was blown and the forward gears were out as well, and the truck would only go in reverse. We waited 2 hours for Budget roadside assistance to show up. The guy actually said "I think it's alright...try to drive it again" so, we did with him there...and again truck would only go in reverse. The truck had to be towed to a service station in Chardon, OH. We waited 4 hours for the truck to be towed. It was towed to this place in the middle of nowhere with very poor lighting. (it was dark outside at this point). Budget hired a moving company to move our belongings from the defective truck onto a new one. This company was called "Moving Staffers"...from Ohio (don't use them either). They loaded 2/3 of our stuff onto the truck in a haphazard unprofessional manner. 1/3 of our stuff wouldn't fit back onto the truck (even though it had all come from the defective truck, and the trucks were apparently the same size). The moving company basically said "sorry, we can't make it fit. Talk to Budget" and they left. We were on the phon with Budget roadside assistance until 4am trying to settle this. They were like "well, you might have to rent a trailer to hook to your personal vehicle for the rest of the belongings" We didn't have a trailer hitch on our car. They wouldn't let us hitch a trailer (at first) to their truck, mostly because Budget doesn't have them and we'd have to rent from U-haul. We finally got permission to hook a U-haul trailer to the Budget truck. We thought all was well, but later on our journey, the truck just ran out of gas. It turns out the gas gauge was faulty. Budget charged $200 to bring us gas just to get to the next gas station. When we finally made it to New York to unload the truck, it was a nightmare. We opened the back of the truck to see the way the truck had been loaded. there were couches on top of TV's, iron chairs on top of wooden tables, and none of the furniture pads had been used (there were 13); and all 13 had been on the sensitive furniture prior to the load swap. Several items were broken. Legs were broken off of a dresser and just thrown into one of the drawers. An antique rocking chair/family heirloom was completely destroyed, couches were snagged and stuffing is coming out, desks were bowed and huge divots taken out of the wood, etc. A total of 13 large items were damaged. We filed an insurance claim with Budget because we bought the best insurance plan that you could (covering up to 1 million in damages). We requested $3,000 to repair/replace the damaged items. Budget Insurance people refuse to pay for anything except "a dresser and a big screen TV" because that's all Moving Staffers reported as damaged. First of all, we didn't even have a big screen TV damaged...wasn't even on the list of 13 things (and I think we would have noticed if the TV was damaged). Second, there was no way Moving Staffers would have even known about the other items damaged because it was the way they packed them that did the damage...they might have broken the dresser on the spot but the rest of the damages happened as a result of poor packing. And oh yeah, Budget said they won't even pay for a dresser (or anything else) unless we can produce receipts showing we purchased these items. Who has receipts for family heirlooms and antiques through the generations? And who really can show a receipt for a dresser purchased 10 years ago???? I don't even have receipts for things I bought last week!!! These people are ridiculous. Oh yeah, one thing I forgot to mention: We found feces on the truck...amidst all of our belongings...we sure as hell didn't pack poop with our stuff!!