I know why that lady attacked the phone company with a hammer

Last October I read a hilarious account of a frustrated Comcast customer that go revenge using a hammer. The best part of it was that she was 75 and did what the office space guys did to a printer to a phone company computer. It was great. But I never understood what would make you want to go that far. I have a temper, I will admit this. In fact my wife has no problem telling me that when I get frustrated I start to act like a four year old kid. That is true. But normally it passes quickly. But a few months ago I did have a passing idea to repeat the performance written in the article about the Comcast customer.

My gripe though was/is with Avis. Apparently Avis is not a truly global company. You can call Avis or use their dot com website to book a car in the UK. However all that does is transfer it to Avis in the UK who enter this into a completely different system. They also do their own billing, have separate customer support, and as far as I can tell from the outside are a completely different company. Though I do get free rentals in the US for my long contracts over in the UK – which would be nice if I was there to use them!

So I have what is called a mini-lease. I keep the car and I am billed monthly. However when the car needs servicing I take it in and they swap it out. When I did this a few months ago they billed me for the car monthly and for a few weeks separately though I only had one car. In addition to this they did not send me any invoices, which of course I need to do expenses. First I tried calling customer service when I was in the states and they told me I had to call the UK customer service. So I tried calling them, after being on hold for over 3 hours two separate times I gave up. Then I tried calling where I had picked up the car and they referred me back to the customer service line, if you can call it that. So I finally settled to send an email.

In the nicest manner I explained the whole screw up and asked that they rectify it. There own site said it the mail would be answered in 15 days. So I waited 3 business weeks. No answer. Finally a week and a ½ late they sent an apology and credited my account. They also sent me the invoices I needed. However they didn’t credit the proper amount so I was a little beside myself. Now I am deciding how much it is worth to follow this up, whether I should be happy with what I got, or maybe – just maybe – I too should head into the office with a hammer.

I will probably let it drop as the remainder isn’t that much. But I doubt if I come back and need a car that I will use Avis in the UK again. I also certainly understand why the old lady went to hammer diplomacy too.