Globe Car & Truck Rentals
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My final experience with Globe
Once we got past the astoundingly bad customer service and hit the road, it was much better. Read on. I've rented from them before without a problem. The cars are totally fine, in my experience. The customer service isn't fine - read and see. I booked a car online for pickup at 7:00pm last Friday. This was to attend my late father's memorial service the following day, 450 km away. I arrived a bit late at 7:15, and the place was locked up and lights off. I took to my phone to discover that my next option would be 8am the next morning. Since "Plan A" didn't work out, then I turned to "Plan B": we'd be there at 8am sharp the next morning, and hit the road immediately. Arriving at Globe at 8:00am the next morning with kids and luggage in hand, there were two people ahead of us, and very soon came three people behind us. We all waited in the pouring rain and exchanged our misery at the situation, some saying this isn't the first time they've had a bad experience like this. We're all trying to keep ourselves and our luggage dry, without much success. At 8:20, a car pulls up and they scramble past us and open the place up, and start processing people. When I finally get out of the rain and to the counter at 8:45, I tell the staff member that I am annoyed that they're opening 20 minutes late. I am clearly frustrated but I am not yelling or anything. He bites back immediately: "do you want the car?!", and I say "yeah of course, but what's up with showing up 20 minutes late!?" He bites back again: "do you want the car?!". Basically, he's threatening me that he'll withhold the car from me because I am relatively calmly showing my frustration that he is 20 minutes late, while we've been waiting in the rain. And that's not even to mention not being able to get my car the night before. He explains that he wasn't even supposed to be there that day, and they were late because one of his colleagues was in an accident. Not sure if I believe him at all, and why are 4 staff showing up late all in one car at once, anyway? I finally get the car, plus a $20 'inconvenience discount' applied by the manager that overheard the transaction, and he specifically states that this is for the inconvenience relating to the 7:00pm closure the night before. Problem #2: he gives me the keys and sends me out to inspect the car on my own, as he moves on to the next customer. He explains to me that if I see any damage that isn't already on the visual damage report, I need to take a picture with my phone and immediately email it to the email address on the form. So the renter (me) can't just point the pre-existing damage out to the guy you've just been dealing with and have him add it to the damage report. Nope. Instead, you as the client need to take the time to email a photo of the pre-existing damage to an email address, before you leave the parking lot. If you don't do this, then when you return the car, the damage could later be attributed to you, since they otherwise had no record of it before. This is either the way Globe does it, or, the way they were doing it that morning because they were overwhelmed because they had (at that point) about 10 clients waiting outside in the rain. Finally, we hit the road at 9:10am, and I make it to my father's memorial service, pretty stressed out, and with minutes to spare. I went 120km/hr the whole way, because I had no choice. If I'd hit any kind of traffic at all on the 450km trip, I would have been late for the memorial service. Won't rent from them again. This place is run by a bunch of bro's in their 20's that clearly don't get it. Also- Globe - you can't offer a car pickup at 7:00pm on your online booking if the place will be closed shut 5 minutes later. Never again... Update: 10/22/21: Re: The company's response below. I agree it's not cool for me to mention "bro's in their 20's" but I was really annoyed by the service, and I apologize if I seemed ageist. I am sure there are many times when your guys work hard. However, I stand behind everything else. You think it's "overdramatic" to be annoyed because I had to stand in the rain with many other people while they were 20 minutes late opening, and I didn't get served until another 25 mintues later? There was plenty of staff, once they arrived and started processing the backlog. As for taking pics of damage and emailing them - in my experience with other places, you have an opportunity to walk around the car with someone and annotate it on a piece of paper. I was instead told that if I see any damage I have to email photos to an email address. There's a difference. You are downloading the reponsibility onto the client and making them do the work. It delayed my already super late departure by another 10 minutes. I am not the only client that was annoyed that morning, beleive me.