I unsuccessfully did a search to try to revive a rant thread I know I remember about overseas call centers. Yesterday, I was surprised to learn that when you call a local rental car company at a local airport branch # (this was Alamo), you get automatically kicked to India. My question could only be answered by someone at the actual airport auto rental desk. The polite Indian fellows assuredly transferred me back to the the local desk.............8 times in a row. Whereupon I got transferred back to India, because the airport desk business hours were from 7 am to 7 pm (I was calling during lunch--jackasses). To get to the local airport desk, I had to ultimately request a supervisor, who dialed some super-secret number and got me to the business administrator of this particular Alamo branch. This woman was in a building outside of the terminal and didn't know the answer to my question, so she promised me I would receive a return call in response to my question about returning a vehicle two hours late. I told her it was important in my decision on when to bring the car back and in planning my departure. Exasperated, and playing with a new digital voice note-to-self machine, I recorded that call. I never rec'd the return call. When I showed up two hours late, they tried to ping me with an additional $28/hour outside contract term late fee and a $19 surcharge/tax fee. I said hell no and told them how many times I had tried to contact them, could not, and would have brought the car back if I had known the late charge was so stiff in comparison to the dinner I was being bought during those two hours. They told me to get bent and were going to put it on my cc. I ask for the administrator who was now gone, and they were smiling. I played the recording, and they relented.

But geez, I never thought the rental car companies would find it cost effective to outsource these types of calls--the damn fleet at this airport probably isn't over 50 cars, so the four slack jawed employees couldn't be over whelmed.


PS: I know that I was contractually bound by the terms I agreed to when my wife booked the rental, but the customer service thing hacked me, so I declared them in breach