Budget has lousy equipment and terrible customer service. The 10' truck that was rented to me by EZ Move Truck Rentals of Stamford, CT, a Budget franchisee, had no headlights!!! I discovered this when I was in Long Island at 10pm with a truck full of items to take back to my home in Stamford. I called the Budget roadside assistance and they dispatched a towing service which correctly diagnosed that the lights didn't work, but refused to tow me back to Stamford. I spent 5 hours on the phone with roadside assistance and they couldn't get anyone to tow me. I ended up spending the night in the truck since there was no way to lock the cargo bay with my items and driving myself to Stamford once the sun came up. EZ Movers verified the lights were inoperative when I returned the Truck, but refused to give me any type of compensation. They suggested I take it up with Budget. Budget, of course, claimed that the franchisee should have handled the problem. The supervisor at Budget who was handling my case refused to return any of my calls for the better part of a month. In the end, I got a mere $32 off on a $167 bill for faulty equipment. Both Budget and their franchisee were extremely unprofessional. I will never use them again!!

Budget is a joke. I made an online reservation, and then confirmed it twice. I arrive to pick up the truck at the scheduled time yesterday evening, and the office had closed early. No one was there, and after two calls to "customer service" and two promises that someone would call back within two hours, I got nothing. Meanwhile, I had hired some hourly workers to help me load and unload the truck (I'm a single girl). I ended up paying them to wait around while Budget strung me along until I finally called a third time and they said the managers had gone home for the day and that someone would call in the morning. I then had no place to sleep tonight because I was supposed to be out of my prior residence today. A neighbor I don't even know is letting me sleep on her couch, and my stuff is still on the lawn. I'm praying that it's still there in the morning. I cannot believe this!

I will NEVER use Budget again. The "drop off lot" they told us to return the truck to was an abandoned lot in downtown Detroit with weeds growing all around the trailers. The place was all fenced up, no one was there, and you could literally reach in the dropbox and grab out the keys. If we left it there, the truck would NOT have been there in the morning. So we found another location, drove it across town, and left the truck. We went there on Monday at 3:30 to get our deposit, and no one was there. The lot was closed up with two big dogs inside. My husband called the office, and no one answered. After spending a ton of time on the phone with customer service, we found out that we were charged 30 dollars for the truck being 6 dollars short on gas, when we in fact did them a favor by dropping off the truck in a safe location. Budget doesn't even know where they are sending people to return trucks... they don't care because they are franchises. There is no customer protection, and no oversight. Budget is a disgusting joke of a company, and I will NEVER use them again. I had to give them a rating, but in reality they don't deserve even 1 star.

Don't use Budget! They called the day before we were to pick up our rental & said we had to go to a nearby city to pick it up. This is after I had just confirmed the reservation 2 hours earlier.  This was a sign, I should have heeded. After arguing with the agent he finally said he would have it at the location it was confirmed at.  The agent didn't offer us insurance and didn't want to sell it to us because he didn't know how to add it to the rental agreement. We had to insist that he add insurance.  It took us over an hour just to pick up the truck because of his incompetency.   Anyway, the real kicker was the next day, after we loaded the car onto the carrier, my husband noticed it was broken. And it was rusty, meaning it had been broken for sometime.  This was on Sunday, so there were no other locations open and when I called customer service (and I am using that term loosely here) they took all my information and put me hold.  I was on hold for over 30 minutes, I was infuriated and disconnected the call.  We were still trying to pack things and figure out how we would get both cars and a truck to our location since there was only two of us.  They never made any attempt to contact me and rectify the situation.  I even called again when we were on the road and they put me on hold again where I held for over 15 minutes.  We were totally on our own.  When I contacted budget by email and requested monetary compensation since we have to drive 1000 miles to pick up the car we coudn't tow.  I was informed they were not able to compensate us, and that we should have checked the equipment to make sure the it was safe to use before we rented it!  Isn't that what the budget employees should do??   What balls!!!  A company that thinks it's perfectly ok to rent unsafe equipment.  I WILL NEVER AGAIN DO BUSINESS WITH THIS SHITTY COMPANY .  DO YOURSELF A FAVOR, DON'T USE BUDGET!

  Terrible customer service: wasn't told drop off location was on contract, so I just looked them up on google.  Google information was outdated (store no longer there).  After spending time/gas driving around I finally noticed  actual location was on contract.  I dropped the truck off and by this time the fuel needle was BARELY below F, which is exactly where it was when I picked it up.  I figured they wouldn't care.  Nope.  I was told to go fill it up or be charged $25.  Keep in mind this is partly Budget's fault for not telling me where to drop off truck. So I was forced to go to gas station and put in $5 into a tank that holds $85 worth. 

Also truck was in poor condition (balding tires, left turn signal out, wheels unbalanced causing steering wheel to shake badly). 

Make sure you get your gas across the street because if you don't they will go in and "top off" the tank and if you go over 1 gal they are going to charge you. I will never use them again!

They changed my pick up location without notifying me. It cost me more in mileage and gas and they were not willing to compensate me even though it was their mistake. Also, after waiting for my initial location to open (which they never did) and find out the new pick up location, it cost me 1 1/2 hour delay in beginning my moving process. I will not ever use them again and advise others not to use them either. Next time I will pay a little extra and use someone else. This place is crap! Now they are even telling me They will waive a late charge that isn't even due! We turned the truck back in the same day we got it. Less than 24 hours from the pick up time! I hate Budget truck rental and vow to get revenge! I would rate them a 0 if I could!

Our experience with Budget truck rental was absolutely horrible. Lost a lot of $$$

I made a reservation for a one way truck rental on 5/4/2005. The reservation was for 7/31. One week before the trip my reservation had already been deleted. I called the 800 number and was told that it was fixed. On the day that I went to pick up the truck, my reservation had again been cancelled. I was in flames. My original quote of $254.00 had jumped up to $550.00. Not happy. Three hours later I walked away with a $300.00 rental. Had to rush to L.A. and to make my plane back to Seattle on time. When I called the 800 number to make a formal complaint, I was continuously blown off. I contacted my lawyer. I will continue to go above and beyond my means to slander Budget Rental.

Terrible customer service at the start of my rental, no instructions on how to operate/connect/disconnect equipment. The Truck had no features for a long trip, the steering wheel did not adjust, the mirrors were difficult to adjust and no cruise control for a 3100 mile drive. The car carrier was not inspected for tire wear adequately and I ended up with two tire blow outs on the same trip. The second left me on the side of an interstate in the early morning hours for over 7 hours with no help! Alot of excuses, but NO help. I was straned in the middle of the night for 7 hours due to the 24hr roadside assistant inadequate personnel manning the phones.

their trucks are great and their customer service is great!

This is not a good company, I also called and made reservations the price the quoted me over the phone was way cheaper then what they told me when I went to pick it up,(thats the reason I cancelled my uhaul reservations) they also dont provide you will all there terms over the phone. And there employees are dumb founded.

I rented a Budget truck one way from Ottawa, ON. to London, ON, and I wish I had rented an U-Haul truck, because it wouldn't make any difference except for the $300.00 more that I had to pay at Budget. The truck was awfully dirty, smelling of urine, and the truck accelerated much too fast, which made me spend more money on fuel. Not to mention that the form they filled out was wrong and led me to believe I had rented the wrong truck. Contacting Budget was hard and I also received an extensive phone-tree and waited on hold for about ten minutes. When I finally talked to a guy named Paul, the only thing he said was that he would return my call next day, which he obviously didn't. I called again and left a message. The next day a girl called me full of apologies, but never offered any compensation. This is my first and last time with Budget.

I requested a partial refund after a mechanical problem prevented me from using the truck I rented for the number of loads I had intended to move. I was provided with a toll free telephone number, where their "phone tree" directed me to a website "response within 24 hours" as opposed to "up to 21 days" by any other contact method. The only response within 24 hours was an autoresponder e-mail. Eight days later, after no response to a follow-up e-mail, I called the toll free number, went through the extensive "phone-tree" and waited on hold for about ten minutes. I was delighted to find a freindly, knowledgable human finally respond, and offer me a partial refund of my rental. She said that an e-mail was sent 2 days after my original complaint. I find it quite odd that I did not receive that e-mail, or any response to my follow up inquiry. My experience with Budget, other than the mechanical problem and it's consequences, was very good. The truck was clean, the people friendly and helpful, and I was most pleased to find a truck available on what they said was their busiest day of the year. I am pleased with the final resolution and with the human response. If Budget would only make contacting them a bit more resonable, and respond more promptly instead of making you "chase" an answer, they could easily rank 4 or even 5 stars!

Our experience with Budget truck rental was absolutely horrible. As a company new to the consumer truck rental market, I would think they would want to make a good name for themselves and establish a good reputation with customers. The price quote they gave us was competitive with the best prices we gathered from UHAUL and Penske, and they had a diesel truck available (which was key to our decision since we were moving cross country & didn't want to spend alot on gas). The chain of negative events that unfolded from the time we went to pick up the truck to the time we turned it in...would fill pages here. I will try to be brief in saying... the quality and cleanliness of truck was very poor, the employees were beyond incompetent, the roadside assistance was a joke, and the customer service was no help whatsoever. Also, the company was not able to provide equipment that was essential to our move after we had requested it during our reservation. Renting the truck alone took upwards of THREE hours causing us to move our belongings in the dark and snow...here's the kicker...only to find out we had NO lights at all on the rear of the truck and we were not visable to other drivers on the highway. I cannot express enough how miserable an experience it was and I would NEVER recommend Budget to anyone about to move.

budget has merged with ryder truck rental. I had a very poor experience with them. beware: they will make a reservation and give you a good price but then we you go to pick it up things change and you have no choice but to pay much more $$$. I was told I could work it out with cust. service afterwards but they did not help at all.