If I could give negative stars, I would. I will wrap up my first, last and WORST experience with fox in one sentence. I'd rather drown in a Denny's septic tank after getting one foot caught in a bear trap, the other getting sawed off with a butter knife and getting kicked in the privates by a Donkey rather than rent from Fox again.
I landed in LA and hopped on the well worn, yet quick and spritely shuttle bus and was promptly whisked away to what I thought would be bustling rental car facility with... well, cars, and people (with pulses) and whatnot. The bus squeaked to a halt and the doors opened with a familiar hiss of the air brakes. I stepped out to find myself in an industrial park. There was one representative thoroughly engrossed in watching car accidents and bloopers on TV. I shrugged and thought to myself "Whadaya want for $80/day?"
She was friendly and attempted to get me set up in a "car" (once again, $80/day out the door, doesn't buy much) but we quickly encountered a problem.
Now, here's a little disclaimer: I made a MISTAKE! (GASP!) OMG, WTF, IDK, RLFMAO, SMH, LOL, BMW, LTD!!! I know, right. Who would've thought that ANYBODY could possibly make a mistake. Well, I did. If I had known that I would've received the treatment that I did, I would've gotten off the plane and whipped myself with chains right then and there.
Well, what happened was I had put my reservation in for the fifth instead of March thirtieth. So, the woman was going to charge me a whole week for only having the car from 1am to 5 am. I asked her if she could help me. She said that I should get back on the bus and go back to the airport and set a new reservation. Once again, If I had known what was coming in Las Vegas, I would've done so with chains and said 100 Hail Marys on the way for my penitence. I implored the woman to help me out so that I didn't have to get back on the bus. I started feeling as though I'm a child and my mother is saying "If you don't behave, I'll turn this car right around." She hailed another guy who magically showed up out of thin air. Apparently, he was some sort of manager. The long and short of it was that they put a note on my agreement that if I return the car within the day, I'll only get charged for one day. In the back of my head, a voice called out from the lower sub-levels from some dusty, secluded office... "Don't accept that... You know there's gonna be trouble at the other end... Don't... Turn back before it's too late..." I ignored my subliminal bean-counter and accepted the agreement and thought that everything would be fine.
In hindsight, I should've seen the signs. I had crazy people on the plane who's only purpose in life seemed to be to annoy and confound me, but I didn't think it'd be the green flag on the "Mess-with-me-for-no-reason 500" inaugural weekend.
She told me to grab a car from Section 10 and waved her finger towards the other side of the facility. I wasn't sure if she wanted me to walk into the wall, or go in the broom closet or to walk down the corridor to who-knows-what. After clarification, it was the "Who-knows-what" corridor of doom and shame.
I was enlightened by the fact that you can pick your own car from the section. Section 10 was the "Cheapskate section" (which fits me perfectly.) I had a cornucopia of sardine cans to choose from. I think the tally was 6 Chevy Sparks, 4 Toyota Yaris' (or is the plural Yarii, like Pruii?) a Mazda 2, and a Chevy Sonic hatchback (which looked like a Suburban compared to the other cars). I checked all of them for Bluetooth and XM radio. The Sonic was the only one that fit the bill. It was an LTZ to boot, leather, the big touch screen, etc.
Checking out was fairly easy. I'm surprised that Fox doesn't have any maps on how to get OUT of LA. So, the guard was nice enough to explain to me in a "Pepe Le Pew" accent on how to get out of town. But, he forgot to tell me how to get out of the industrial complex that I was in. After getting a scenic tour of the rectum of LA, I was on my way. I turned on the XM radio and was infuriated that the car had the capability, but there was no subscription! What kind of rental car company does that? Anyways, after a four hour drive to Vegas, being awake for 27 hours straight, downing anything caffeinated and sugary, I finally made it to the McCarran Airport rental car return.
I circled the facility three times before I asked a Budget Rent a Car guy where do I return Fox cars at? The answer was not there. I had to drive about four miles south to the facility. The return agent was there to greet me, which was nice, but after she called me over to "the Booth", the mental bean-counters whispered from my psyche "I TOLD you..."
I ran out of characters, so I will post a new review to finish the story. THIS is where it gets good. (well, good for you, bad for me).
So, to continue my review...
So, the return agent directs me to "the Office." The blue awning loomed overhead lie the top half of an alligator jaw and I was the one dumb fish swimming right in. I was greeted by Curtis Lewis. I informed him right off the bat that I accidentally put in my reservation date for the 5th instead of March 30th and I only rented the car for four hours. He did some "investigating" on his little computer thing and replied... "Ohhh... I see what you did. You put your reservation date in for the 5th instead of the 30th."
"Yeah, so... I mean, I only had the car for four hours."
"But, it's in for the 5th."
"Yeah, I made a mistake. But, I only had the car for four hours, so..." He interrupts me mid sentence.
"Well, now I have to fix YOUR mistake. I mean you're a whole week off! How does that happen? The 5th, the 30th... How did you get THAT far off." I had to fight EVERYTHING in my being not to tell this guy to take his Chevy Sonic and shove it, but maybe it was because I was physically and emotionally drained. After being up for 27 hours and having a flight delayed for four hours, and being crammed in a tin can and hurdled across the US at 55000 mph while dealing with psychopaths who kept asking me what the lights outside were, then driving four hours in another tin can from LA to Vegas, to come to what I thought would be a bastion of peace and solitude, a place where I can dump that POS car and my wife can pick me up and I can be chauffeured to a nice warm bed where all of this would seem like a bad dream, I have to deal with Curtis F-ing Lewis, treating me like a child because I clicked the wrong stupid box.. He has the audacity(did I spell that right?) to ask me HOW?
"What the hell, does it matter?! I had the car for four hours. Can you just charge me the day and wrap this up?"
"It matters because I need to put in WHY you made a mistake."
"Are you serious? Ok, FINE! I was at work, I had customers who came in while I was online, my wife was on the phone with me, I had like ten second to make a reservation and I clicked the wrong box. Are you happy now?! You got what you need?!"
Then, he crossed into another dimension of stupidity and I finally realized how much patience I had in reserve. He says...
"Ok, ok. It's fine. It doesn't really matter anyways." I stood speechless.
I don't consider myself a violent man and I wouldn't fare well in prison, but what went through my mind... I would've turned myself in after beating him over the head with a phone. Yet, there I stood, holding back all of my rage and frustration. After ALL of that humilitation (because there was another agent "Mechelle" (yeah, Mechelle)) was there watching the whole thing transpire and chuckling along with Curtis' lack of human interaction and customer service skills.
I was SO angry with these sorry excuses for humanity that all I could let out was like noises... for lack of a better word. I couldn't put together the words to describe my hatred for this man and your company as a whole.
I left after little incident. I kept my cool. I didn't go to jail. I entered my wife's loving embrace and was quickly whisked away in our Sonata to an awaiting bed. I hoped that the uneasy feeling (you know that feeling, when you were a kid, dealing with the school bully. The feeling AFTERWARDS is the that feeling. The humiliation, degradation and angst of why? Why did I have to endure that?) would go away. I'm a full grown adult. I pay my taxes, I work hard and enjoy life. I try to raise my kids right. Why did I have to endure that? The worst part is, I PAID for it!
The feeling STILL hasn't gone away. That is why I'm writing such a LONG review. That is how passionate I feel about my experience. Like I said, no matter HOW cheap it is... Hell, you couldn't PAY me to use Fox again. I'd rather drill a hole in my head and put an M80 in there. I'd rather set myself on fire and disembowel myself in the middle of the freeway and get hit by a bus rather than rent from you guys again. At the very least, I hope and pray that you FIRE Curtis Lewis from the Las Vegas BLVD location and maybe Mechelle, too. At least, demote her to cleaning cars or something.
NEVER AGAIN!!! IF somebody mentions Fox Rental Car, just forever disown and shun them.
What does the Fox say? Don't ask Curtis Lewis.
