Stolen Rental Car Part Three

Budget Fastbreak

With Budget I am a Fastbreak member, and have been for many years. I reserve my car online and either go to a special line when I pick the car up or am told through the app where to get my car and bypass a line altogether. When I rented a car from them in Des Moines earlier in September, I checked in at a desk in the airport but was given no paperwork. She just went from my confirmation number.

In St. Louis I was directed to a spot in the Budget lot, but no car was there so we had to go inside the building. Again, I gave the clerk my confirmation number and she checked my drivers license before telling me which Avis spot to go to. When we left the parking lot, a woman scanned our transponder and checked my drivers license to make sure it matched their records. Again, I was given no paperwork and I didn't think anything of it.

When I logged into my Budget account at home, mysteriously only the Des Moines rental shows up. Not the St. Louis rental. I called customer service to request a copy of my rental agreement, and the gal apologized that it hadn't been emailed to me following my rental. She requested my reservation number, which I gave her, confirmed my email address and said I would have it within four hours. Two days later it had not arrived. I called customer service again, and a different gal said she didn't see a copy of my agreement, and that she would have to request it from the local (St. Louis) office. She said that would take 7-10 business days, and then it would be emailed to me. 

Two weeks later I still don't have it, so I called again. This time the gal said that it looked like I had never signed a rental agreement, and that I would have to contact the St. Louis office myself. She provided me with a phone number, which actually took me to the airport itself and not Budget. The man who answered kindly gave me the Budget number. When you call that number, you get a series of choices and none of them takes you to a live person. Most of them dump you back into the main Budget customer service center. I'm at a loss as to what to do with them at this point.

In the meantime I have called the police department records center five times, never getting a live person but only a recording. Five times I have requested the police report for my stolen car, explaining that I need if for filing a claim on the car. I have received no callbacks.

Very early in the morning on Friday, October 25th I received a phone message from a police officer in the district where the car had been stolen, telling me that a City of St. Louis police officer had found my rental car. The message gave me the officer's name and told me to call the city police. A phone number would have been helpful to me. After muddling my way through the various phone options, I left a message last Friday but did not hear back from him.

The city police officer works nights, so I had to figure out when I could call that he would be there. So on Tuesday I called at 5:30 CST and was able to talk to him. He said that a male from Avis/Budget saw that their stolen car was pinging at a certain address, and asked that they try to locate the car. The officer responded and found the car where they said it was pinging. He told me the car did not appear to be damaged, and the dash looked okay though he didn't have a key to get into it. He saw a female driver's license on the floor of the back seat, but couldn't tell if it was mine. This is interesting because a woman (maybe) reached out to me through Facebook Messenger to tell me that her grandson had found my driver's license, and that she has it in her possession. She wanted to talk to me. I checked out her Facebook profile, and things seemed a little sketchy to me so I didn't talk to her. If my license is really in the car still, she was obviously on a fishing expedition.

The city cop also said the Florida plate had been switched out to one from Missouri. They took the car to their impound lot as the other police department said they would come and get it so they could process it for fingerprints. As of the time he and I talked, the car was still in the city lot. 

I left a message for the original responding officer to call me with an update on the case since the car has been recovered. I am curious to know if any of my other personal items are in the trunk. I'm hoping he will call me back, and that he can assist me in being able to get a copy of their police report.