Dollar Car Rental

I seriously can’t believe how unprofessional the woman at the counter was this morning. I am telling her my name for my reservation, her cell phone rings and she picks it up and goes into the office and takes the call. She comes back and says to me what do you want again, me (blank stare). I tell her ans she says she doesn’t have any cars, I tell her I have a reservation and she says what do you want me to do. The woman proceeds to offer me a bigger car for more money. I said no thank you and walked out… If I could give zero stars I would

Pretty brutal customer service. I got there at 11:20 AM for an 11:30 AM pickup and was told that I was 3^rd on line for a car and that they didn’t have any at the site at the moment. Apparently they had to wait for cars to arrive from their parking lot around Central Park. This is very simple process. You know how many reservations there are and at what time people are going to be picking up. You also know how many cars are in your possession. It should not come as a surprise to you on a holiday weekend (MLK Day) that people are going to be showing up to get the cars they reserved. It got a little ridiculous. While I was there I think a dozen people were waiting «on line» to have a car arrive for them. The guy in front of me had been waiting since 10:30 and he didn’t get a car until 12:00. I had to wait until 12:15. If you have hours of time on your hands to wait for these guys to come up with a car for you then maybe their inexpensive rates are worth it, but I would recommend paying more from anywhere else to actually get a car when you want it.

In short, This is definitely way way way worse than the worst business I’ve ever experienced
Rethink a million times before you click on dollar rental! I bet you will regret it. They charge you extra nonsense fees two months later without your consent, such as toll administration fees which could be 10x bigger than your toll fees. They would never let you that before you rent the vehicle, or even after you return the vehicle and pay the bill. They will simply quietly hide this and let the third party company send you the bill for hundreds of dollars of fees that you are not even aware of. Stay away from this asssss hole biz. Protect yourself, please.

So, this place has very bad reviews, let’s start with this. You are in New York, this is not Mississippi neither Ohio. Said that, I got my car 30 min before and it took me 15 min to be out. The lady was very nice, she offered insurance, I declined — covered by amex. No problems with the car. I paid for a compact and I got a compact. Clean, brand new Kia Rio. Gas was full. I filled the tank full to return it. I would said my experience here was nice. Why 4 starts? They need more people working there. The waiting time is a bit longer that usual because is normally only one people working there and guys, if the guy that gives you the car wasn’t nice is not because they are not nice, is because how we are here in the city. Welcome to New York folks.

When it comes to customer service, a positive experience is your due right? So why would you leave feedback if you had a good experience? Especially for something as onerous as car rental. That seems to be the case with a lot of these reviews.
All I know is that I’ve rented a car from this particular location 5 times. Never once did I have an issue. Their rates are very competitive especially with their ‘City Deals’.
The best part is the lady that has been behind the counter every time. She is quick, personable, and no-​nonsense.
Did I wait once for almost an hour for a rental? Sure. Of course, it was at 6pm on a Friday before a holiday weekend. And she gave us an upgrade.
Renting a car in the city sucks, just a fact of life.

I don’t write many reviews, but I really want to chime in here. I’m quite surprised by the negative reviews. I’ve rented from them twice and both times, I had to call to make a change to my pick-​up/​drop-​off times. They were very accommodating and didn’t charge any extra fee. I had a weekly rental and got stuck in incredibly bad traffic, and was two hours late for drop-​off. I did call ahead, and when I dropped it off I was not charged a penny extra for the late return. Both times I’ve been in and out within 10 minutes for both pick-​up and drop-​off, and the staff was very friendly. I honestly have nothing but good things to say about them, so perhaps they’ve made changes since the negative reviews here (and no, I don’t have any connection to Dollar).

My experience with Dollar was the worst I’ve ever had with a business period. My reservation was for 9am, my car wasn’t ready until 11:30am and after processing I wasn’t in the car until noon, totaling a 3 hour delay. The staff was incompetent and unhelpful and the manager was rude and left the premises. Upon returning the vehicle I asked for some sort of compensation and the manager refused to give me any more than 1 day compensation on a 16 day rental, which was completely unacceptable. I’ve filed complaints with the Better Business Bureau and NYC 311. This place seriously needs new management or should be shut down.

This place is insane. Stuck waiting in the waiting room for more than 50 minutes, although there was only one person ahead of us in line. The man at the counter made no effort to move quickly — actually went amazingly slowly, giving the party ahead of us all kinds of random advice about how to avoid tolls and such. The second employee on site sat in a room off to the side talking on his cell phone the whole time. According to the man at the counter, the other man was «on break.» Needless to say, we arrived late. Unbelievably bad.

My husband recently reserved a rental car by telephone from Dollar. The reservationist, whose name he wrote down, told him that he would get a ten per cent discount if he used his American Express card. He did so, and was given a confirmation number.
When he got to the rental location to pick up the car, the person at the counter told him that Dollar would not give him the discount because their system did not show an American Express reservation, even though he was paying with an American Express card and knew about the American Express discount policy. Although Dollar refused to honor its own discount policy, he needed the car, so he took it anyway.
Bad ethics, bad business.

I am a sucker for positive customer service.
I am also a sucker for people speaking respectfully to others.
I am especially a sucker for customer service reps who speak respectfully to the customers who pay much, much more than a dollar for a rental car, regardless of the company name.
Whenever this gets violated, this sucker gets frustrated.
This sucker also walks down the block to the other rental car company.
I would suggest you do the same.

Most important tip — be sure to check the fuel tank before driving away! 2 out of 2 times they overstated the fuel at the counter. For ex, this weekend they noted at the counter that the tank was full. When I got in the car, it was actually only slightly more than ½ a tank! If I didn’t go back into correct, they would have charged (ripped) me big $$$ on return! Same thing happened a prior time — so I knew to check this time.

Never again! My husband showed up on time yesterday for our reservation. The reservation was for a Dodge Charger or SIMILAR… what did we end up with? A powder blue Ford Crown Victoria… how the F?&K is a Crown Victoria similar to a Dodge Charger!!! Since we were only renting for one day and it was cheaper then zipcar my husband just let it go and took it. Then to add insult to injury, when he declined the insurance because our credit card provides it which is what we did when we rented from Dollar in Tampa, FL a couple of months ago they told him NY is different and he might get charged for it anyway. Just terrible service. From now on I will stick to Budget next door as we’ve never had a problem with them, we didn’t use them because Dollar was a little cheaper but as the saying goes «you get what you pay for».
I gave this place a star because I had no choice.

There is one major reason why I give it a one star review.
There is this lady that works there, I won’t say her name, and I understand that her job is to offer the extra insurance, so they can profit over it, but EVERY SiNGLE TIME we are there and we say no, thank you, she just looks at you and with a shoulder movement tells you: well, let’s just hope nothing bad happens.
What is that suppose to mean? It’s like she wants something to happen. Just not a nice thing to do and definitely not a nice thing to hear when you are about to get on the road. I don’t know if they train their personal to do so, so we buy the insurance or if that’s a separate occurrence only with her, but that is just wrong.

Don’t bother making a Reservation. I went to pick a car believing that Dollar-​Rent-​a-​Car honored reservations. With dismay I found one employee for 20 customers serving «first come first serve» and no cars available. I consequently left and went to the competition. For sure the last time I try to hire with this company. Maybe cheap but unprofessional and careless.

Arrived on time for my reservation, but the only car left in the garage was a minivan. There were people ahead of me, so I calculated that my chance of getting a car in the next hour was approximately nil.
This is where I usually rent from, but I’ve got to rethink that. The staff is usually pleasant (although rather slow).
Thank God for Zipcar.

I was in and out of here quickly, which I really appreciated after my long trip. The Dollar Rental Drop Off is in a nondescript parking lot, so be on the look out — on the left side. (It’s before the larger Budget sign on the same side of the street.)