Joe's Rental Car Conundrum

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
So I'm I'm getting ready uh this morning, and uh
I glanced over at the counter where Judy often leaves
stuff for me to see, um when she's not around,
and there's a letter and it's from a certain rental
car company of which I am, ah like your status member,
the old premium member, exactly extra special guy. Uh and

(00:23):
this there's no need to name this company. But uh,
you know, if my uh sister Mavis was gonna start
Mavis car rental, I would go with her. So if
I punch you in the arm, it doesn't hurts, No,
you'rer sister Mavis. Yes, yes, so uh we rented a car,
a minivan at c Tach Airport, Seattle Tacomb Airport for

(00:47):
my daughter's wedding to shuttle people back and forth because
Diamonds Circle premium member. Oh exactly, yeah. They scattered rose
pedals get in the garage for me to walk to
the car. Um. And then there's there's a champagne toast
as we opened the doors, rubbing my shoulder, somebody playing

(01:08):
the cello for some reason. Oh yes, it's wonderful, wonderful.
They're at Mavie's rent to come and so like an
hour and a half after we at at the airport,
I think a warning light went on or something, and
I realized the right rear tire is really low on

(01:29):
air air pressure, and so I thought, that's kind of odd.
So I stopped at a gas station. I squatted down,
I pay a buck or whatever it was. I fill
it back up again and start monitoring the air pressure. Well.
By about two or three hours later, it became clear
and all that tires losing air. There you go. That's
always fun. At this point, it's it's fairly late in
the afternoon, and I know by the rate of air loss,

(01:52):
I can get it to the airport the next morning
to swap it out. So I go back the next morning.
I say, hey, this van I picked up yesterday, it's
losing air right rear tire. You need to check it out.
They're like, oh, we're very sorry, sir. Let us bah,
we have another man go to space J three if
you'll give us a moment for the cellist to tune
up exactly. Had to re scatter the rose pedals exactly.

(02:14):
But they said, yeah, we've got another one for you
right there, Thank you very much. And so I jump
in and I say, wow, that's really good service. And
so we go on and uh, so we got this letter,
thank you for renting your vehicle with us at Mayvis
Car Rental, etcetera, etcetera. According to the terms of the
rental agreement. Oh uh, this preliminary letter is to notify

(02:35):
you we identified tire damage on the vehicle you checked in.
Somebody identified tire damage, it was me. According to the
terms of the rental agreement, you were responsible for the
cost of repair. In order to recover the costs associated
with this damage, Javis Car Rental will charge the credit
debit card you have on file for the vehicle repair

(02:56):
cost is fifty six dollars and forty cents, and then
they tack on a twenty nine dollar administrative costs fee,
thirty dollars for the paperwork. Oh my god, so f
you eight dollars and forty cents for having been given
a car with a leaky tire. The amount will be

(03:18):
charged approximately twenty days from the day that this letter.
The cost breakdown as follows. Blah blah blah blah blah.
Mavia's Car Rental holds this relationship with our customers in
the highest regard. If you have any questions blah blah blah,
and so I'm gonna write a back and I have
a couple of different ideas. Number one idea is, for
various reasons, we have kids scattered around the country, Judy

(03:38):
and I fly around a fair amount. We rent cars
all the time, and we're going to rent a car
for a couple of weeks. I'll never I'll never rent
a Natu's car based on your story. You just told well,
I'm gonna tell him. I'm gonna tell him I have
a car rental coming up. You know, I could open
the Mavia's car rental app and tell you how much
I'm paying for this car for a couple of weeks.
But it's it's quite a bit. I mean it's hundreds

(03:59):
of dollar. I'm gonna say. You know what I'm gonna do.
I'm gonna cancel my car rental for hundreds of dollars
and I'm never gonna use you again. I'm just gonna
become a diamond certified Cello Rose Pedal member at another company. Thanks, goodbye,
f you Right, our rental car car companies really struggling
to make profit. Because I used to back in the day,

(04:21):
if I got a rental car. I never looked it over.
It was never a thing I just but I got
ding what a year or two ago where I didn't
look it over and you point out some scratch somewhere
and they claimed that I did it. So now I
walk around the car and right down all the crap
and everything. So are they just like really working to
try to make money. I wonder the fact that they

(04:44):
will deduct that from my credit card or charge it
to twenty days from the date of this letter suggests
to me. It's like, you know, when they ask you
if you want the undercoating at the car dealer and
try to convince you it's a great idea. They're they're
waiting to see who resists. They send out a thousand
of these letters. Six fifty people say you mother Blankers,

(05:05):
I'll never use you again, and they say, oh, no offense,
attend to we value use a customer. Don't worry about it.
But don't they ding them. That's my guess. Now. You know,
if I like t bone to fire Hydrank because I
was drunk or something like that, I totally get that.

(05:25):
But the idea that an innocent mishap, which I maintain,
probably happened before I picked up the car and was
a pain in the ask to deal with. So you
pick up, you gotta bring it back and all that
sort of stuff. Come on you, you owe me money.
I'm temp well exactly, you read my mind. I'm tempted
to ask if there are any attorneys out there who
had just for chuckle, like to write a letter for me,

(05:47):
countersuing Avis for the time trouble and emotional distress this
cost me. On the weekend of my daughter's wedding, Hunt
died in a car wreck because it had low air pressure.
And that's all I can think about now. My elderly
father had to be picked up at the airport my
daughter's getting married. I was I was terrified. I was

(06:08):
emotionally distressed. It caused me physical pain, loss of consortium.
There's no way I could get an erection with that
going on. Weight on the way to pick up AIDS
medicine and the cancer cure. And no, there's no need
to make stuff up. You don't know how lawyering works.
You just take the mundane and make it sound horrified.

(06:30):
So yeah, and make it sound horrifying. It was. The
tire was low and now when I think about it,
I get hard palpeticians and can't do my job well.
And I had to squat down. It was quite warm
and I got sweaty. Uh and uh, what was the
other one? I had another good one? Um. Oh, you know,
I'm not bragging, but I don't make fifteen dollars an hour.
So if you make me waste an hour of my time,

(06:52):
it's gonna cost you. So you piaches oh me fifteen
thousand dollars or we can just forget about this. What
do you say, right? Bastards? Uh? Have you not been
to your own offices? There at the airport there are
fifteen rental companies that are practically interchangeable. I'm a diamond

(07:17):
inner circle gold plated rose pedal cello member. What are
you doing? What are you thinking? For eighty two dollars?
Eighty five dollars? Dumb bastards,