Thrifty Car Rental en Panama

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  nimrod krupnik

  :: 07 August 2017 12:39:16

  On July 1th we rented a car from Thrifty car rental at Panama City, Crown Plaza branch. Knowing we coming to Panama during the raining season, we took an SUV and drove away to the beautiful rural country side of Panama. As we close the deal with the guy behind the counter he mentioned: "and when you go to the beach, don’t get sand in the car". Oh, if we only knew it was a legal contract… A month later we bring the car back to the dealer, when we wanted to give the keys back he called his manager to let us know they going to charge us for 50$ cleaning fee. That's when I start to suspect. I asked the manager what is the reason for this fee, he claimed that there is so much mud in the car, he will have to take everything out and wash it. "Yes" I response, "that’s how you clean a car", but there was nothing unusual in some mud in the legging area in a SUV, during the raining season, in Panama… especially nothing that will make you remove the seat or change the floor padding… I tried to argue with the manager, he just smiled and say, we can call the cops, take some pictures, and go to court and so on, knowing I have my 11 hours bus later that day. Now, me and my wife have been traveling around the world for 4 month now, we rented a car almost in every continent for long periods. When we went to Hertz in L.A. they had signs anywhere saying: "We are smoke free company, if you smoke in the car we will charge you extra". Sure enough I didn't smoke. So I asked the manager to show me where it says that I will pay for any amount of dirt in the car? And then he circled a line in the contract, in Spanish, which the desk guy didn't even mentioned. After that the manager have vanished into thin air. Now, they have my deposit, they can bail me for all they want and I can't do nothing about that. Regarding the amount of dirt, you be the jugde, I own a car for more than 10 years now, I've cleaned it many time and I can tell what is "unreasonably dirty". I blame only myself for being gullible enough to sign a contract in Spanish with global car rental company. But this was a straight up fraud. Best I can do is to warn others from repeating my mistakes.

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  Jose Martinez

  :: 21 July 2017 12:10:05