Viajero Rent A Car

I would STRONGLY urge everyone to NEVER rent a vehicle from Viajero Rent A Car in Manila, Philippines. I travel internationally many times a year (both for buisness and pleasure) and this is the absolute worst experience I've ever had with a car rental company. Here is a copy of the email that I sent to Viajero Rent A Car on April 9, 2018, which was several days after returning from a 35 day vacation in the Philippines. I will try to a PDF file of Viajero's email replies to me. They always say they're doing something but it's been more than a month now and still NOTHING has been done. Please see my email of April 9, 2018 below:

To Whom It May Concern:

It's unfortunate that I have to write this email this evening, but I feel I have no choice in order to make you aware of how extremely unsatisfied I was with my Viajero Rent-A-Car rental.

I have travelled to Philippines on many occasions in the past 9 years, but have always rented from Hertz Car Rental, located at NAIA. For this particular vacation, I decided to try another company. I found Economy Car Rentals (www.economycarrentals.com) and the price seemed reasonable so I decided to rent with them, which ultimately led me to Viajero Rent-A-Car.

On March 2, 2018, at approximately 1PM, we arrived at NAIA and were given a Toyota Innova. The car looked very old, as there were numerous scrapes, bumps, dents, lots of scratches on every side of the car and the 4 tires were in horrible condition. The driver's seat had a very big rip in the leather, and there were many, many dirty stains/markings all over the roof inside the car. Norman, my Filipino travel companion and I were quite surprised at how poor and in such bad shape the car looked. We received the car with very little gas in the tank, as the dial was on 'E' (or empty). The very first thing we had to do was drive to a diesel station to fill with diesel. I have rented vehicles all around the world in the past and have always received a rental vehicle that had a full tank of fuel.

On March 5, 2018 at approximately 7-8PM, we were driving from Calamba City, Laguna to Nagcarlan, Laguna, when the brakes on the car started to act a little strangely. While trying to stop at a busy intersection, I pushed on the brakes, but the brakes did not work and the brake pedal went directly to the floor. I had to quickly pump the brakes many times for the brakes to eventually work. This was an extremely scary situation, as this could have caused a terrible traffic accident, which could have killed Norman, his parents, his sister and myself. Immediately following this incident, the brakes seemed to work ok again. However, after driving approximately 5KM further, the same thing happened again. At this point, we immediately parked the car on the side of the highway and contacted the on-call telephone number at Viajero Rent-A-Car. Someone answered the call and took our information as to what was wrong and where we were located. The employee called us back very quickly and asked us if we could contact a towing truck to have it towed to a garage. I'm sorry, but as a customer travelling in a foreign country, I should not have to be the one to go through the inconvenience to research and find a towing company. My travel companion, Norman, contacted a good friend of his from Nagcarlan, Laguna, and we found out there were no towing companies in Nagcarlan, Laguna, and that the closest towing company was in San Pablo City, Laguna. We contacted Viajero again to inform them that it wasn't possible. Initially, we were told to leave the car on the side of the highway (in a safe place) and that someone would pick up the car tomorrow (March 6, 2018). The employee kept asking me if the car was parked in a safe place. I kept saying that I didn't know the place, so I couldn't verify if the place was safe. We left the car, hired a cab (another expense for me), and were driven back to our residence in Nagcarlan, Laguna. Later that night (March 5, 2018 still), we got a call from Viajero Rent-A-Car that they were going to send us another vehicle (Toyota HiAce) and that someone would be by sometime tonight/early morning to swap the car. I assured him that this would be ok. At approximately 2-3AM on March 6, 2018, we got a call from Viajero that someone was outside the house so we got up and drove the Viajero employees to the Toyota Innova. We then drove the Toyota HiAce back home.

The Toyota HiAce worked perfectly, as it was a fairly new vehicle. I felt safe in this van, as the previous scary incidents in the Toyota Innova made me feel unsafe, anxious and nervous. We were allowed to keep the Toyota HiAce from March 5, 2018 until March 9, 2018, where we switched it back to the Toyota Innova once we were assured that the brakes were fixed at NAIA at approximately 1030PM, after we arrived back to Manila from Cebu. Prior to making the switch, I spoke with a Viajero employee to ask him if we could keep the van as we felt happy and safe, but he told me that was not possible. He explained that in Philippines, rental car companies do not rent out 15-passenger vans, unless a driver is hired (which I researched and found out this was not true). I thought that it was extremely unprofessional to lie to me about this matter. There are companies who will allow foreign drivers to rent Toyota HiAces. Again, we were not allowed to keep the HiAce, and took back the same old Toyota Innova on March 9, 2018 at NAIA. When the Toyota Innova was picked up, it had almost a full tank of gas. When it was returned to us again, the tank was less than 1/4, so we again had to fill up (more expenses).

We continued driving the Toyota Innova over the next couple of weeks and although no serious incidents/issues, the car was noisy, things were rattling when driving and it was just an unpleasant experience.

On March 30, 2018, we experienced another issue! This time a family member who was driving behind us told us that the brake lights (both lights in the back) were not working. This, again, presented another very dangerous situation for us as we were driving with no protection from the brake lights. We immediately called the on-call telephone number again of Viajero Rent-A-Car and spoke to a lady. We told her about the problem. She listened and said she would call us back. Within a short time frame, the employee called us back and said that no one would be able to come tonight, but that we could try to find 2 brake lights for replacement. I'm not a mechanic and know nothing about replacing car parts. However, the following day, we took a cab again (more expenses) to 2 garages in Nagcarlan. Both garages did not carry the correct brake light for the Toyota Innova. However, one mechanic told us that he didn't think it was the brake lights that were the problem because it's rare that both brake lights would stop working at the same time. Nonetheless, we had no brake lights and could not use the Toyota Innova. On March 31, 2018, by around Noon, we had not heard back from Viajero Rent-A-Car, so we called the telephone number. There was no answer. We called again, but no answer. We then text messaged asking what was the status of our problem, but no response ever (we can take screen shots to prove this)! At that point, we felt we were wasting our time and we rented another car from someone in Nagcarlan, Laguna, which AGAIN was additional cost to us.

On April 3, 2018, we left very early in the morning so we could beat the heavy traffic and we drove the Toyota Innova back to NAIA to meet with Viajero Rent-A-Car to return the car. Because we had no brake lights, Norman had to keep his finger on the hazard lights button and every time I used my brakes, he activated the hazard lights. This was completely and utterly unacceptable!

One final note (and we have pictures of this too), as we pulled into the parking lot at NAIA T1, a security guard told us that the front right tire looked flat. We pulled into a parking stall, got out to inspect, and found that the front right tire was completely flat. We immediately notified Viajero Rent-A-Car and was text messaged that it was ok because a technician was already on his way there. That was the end of our vacation, so we obviously didn't have to deal with the flat tire.

I decided to wait for about a week after returning home before sending this email because I needed time to calm down, gather my thoughts and feelings, and then write an objective and constructive criticism of this absolutely horrible experience. This was definitely the worst experience I've ever had internationally with any rental car company in my life. This experience was horrifying and also very dangerous in several situations, which I've outlined above.

Again, this simply isn't good enough and I'm looking for a reply from someone within the upper management group of Viajero Rent-A-Car. I will wait for a couple of days and if I don't hear anything back, I will proceed with communicating this very email to Economy Car Rentals, as well as leaving feedback on Google, Facebook and many other public feedback blogs/venues.

Thank you for taking the time to read this email. I trust you take this very seriously, and I await a formal response from someone and what you intend to do to correct this extremely serious wrong.

Dennis Jacobs

Please take 10 minutes to read the email correspondance back and forth. As of the time I published this review (Sunday, May 13, 2018, at 2046 HRS), this issue has still not been resolved!

drivers dont show up and made me miss meetings more than once

car is dirty

been sent a totally different car than I booked/paid for

NEVER AGAIN!

muy no bueno.

car had 120,000km on the odometer, not in very good condition, and in an ‘i am afraid to drive it’ condition.

anyways its a rental so i was thinking i would just drive it for a few days so never mind all of the above and suck-up the whole situation.

then it kept getting worse, the card reader they brought to the airport was broken so could not read any of my credit cards to take my deposit, i gave them 4 cards, both mastercard and visa, and none worked. maybe i was just declared bankrupt?

anyways since they could not get my deposit they wanted me to make e-commerce payment, and tried to explain that over the phone but i did not quite understand it and not in any mood to at that point so i just told them i’d just want to cancel my reservation.

after contacting cartrawler a few days later they said viajero would not give me back my full refund, but offered partial refund.

i think it is totally viajero’s own fault for not being able to take payment for my deposit for the car, and i should not be obligated to pay them in other ways because they brought a bad card reader to take my deposit.

and now viajero car rental is keeping part of my money for their own fault, for me not being able to take my rental car, and for me having to make other transportation arrangements.... how funny is that.

anyways i can only take it as my loss and another lesson learned but really hope others to avoid the same.

so stay away from viajero rent a car, so you can stay away from old rental cars and other troubles you may find with them.....

As an entrepreneur, I travel all over the world. One of my

destinations is the Philippines, at least 3 to 4 times a year. My stay

is usually about 3 weeks to a little over a month. Taking taxi cabs or

having a driver pick you up and take you places just doesn’t seem to

quite give me the experience I would like to have exploring in the

country. For that very reason I inquired the services of Viajero

Rent-a-Car. They are very diligent and offer a variety of vehicles to

choose from, small compact vehicle to a large SUV or even minivan to

accommodate whatever type of travels you are in need. They have a

great team of staff that definitely goes beyond the call of duty to

help and assist you in any situation needed while you are using one of

their vehicles. This gives me a great peace of mind and with ample

trust that they will fulfil my needs in case of emergency. I highly

recommend Viajero Rent-a-Car to any foreigners that will visit the

Philippines and are in need of a vehicle that is reliable and safe due

to the fact they have reasonably priced new vehicles available, so

that you know you’ll be driving a reliable vehicle. Thank you Viajero

Rent-a-Car for fulfilling all of my car rental needs while I’m

visiting your country in the Philippines.

I've been using Viajero for almost two years now every time I visit the Phil. I still swear that it is far more economical than the brand name rentals. The cars are decent. Once I used their driver - and was impressed by his professionalism and safe defensive driving habit. I was very satisfied with the whole trip experience.

Customer service is satisfactory and the staff were friendly and helpful.

One inconvenience was putting a cash deposit of I think Php 15,000.00 prior to the rent. This is quite a trouble for many customers like me. I wonder if Viajero heard of credit cards? Those are reliable medium of payment. Joke Lang!

Their process still has a way to go before it could achieve the efficiency and ease of use of US rental car companies. I hope Viajero continues its service improvements.

We are using Viajero at least 2x a week for airport dropoff or pickup which is about 10mins away from home. Sometimes 3 or 4 times .

They charge Php 1500 per service/way which includes driver, vehicle, fuel. Toll and parking fees are excluded. Viajero has Been 3x late by 30 minutes or more for the past 3 months that we are using them. Sometimes they change the driver and never informed us in advance.

For the charge of Php 1500 (normal taxi fare is about Php 100), being late is not acceptable. Not to mention we book very advance.

Aside from those complains, everything else is good. They are very responsive too.

I have been renting car to Viajero and never have had any problems with them. Miss Leah the person who assisted me was very helpful and polite.

Mr Rey our driver had done so much for me and my family while we stay in.the Phils, hes very kind and so patient. He even came back to our condo at Manhattan Residence to give back my sunglasses that I left in the car.

Overall rating is A+++, customer is always their priority and they always make sure they meet ends on the other part. Definitely recommend to my friends.

this company has NO ethics! aggravating and abusing employees.

You have a DOLE case but did not attend. Not giving your employees' government requirements is violation of labor laws. Napakaliit na kumpanya pero arogante, akala mo maganda ang service pero hindi nman, bulok pa mga sasakyan. Mataas ang turn over rate, lahat ng employees nagaalisan dahil walang ethics at professionalism.

Nagbabawas ng sahod ng employee ng walang basehan. Walang night differential. Mismong may ari sinisiraan ang empleyado. Pinupulitika sariling kumpnya.

Walang isang salita.

Puro pangako para mag stay mga employees pero abused mga tao. Multi task dw pero excuse lang to pra gawing alipin mga tao

I do not agree to this post. I am a long time client of Viajero Rent-A-Car Company, and since then i haven't had any problem regarding their service in fact they are so easy to approach and very friendly.

I want to emphasis Ms. Jonette and kessel for entertaining me in such a short notice. Very Good Service indeed and the drivers also. Keep up the good work!

The car is squeaky clean, the given vehicle has a few scratch but i'm not that sensitive so its ok but the car performance is good. We had a super blast expirience thanks to them.

The company named: viajero car rental iz a very bad company if you want to rent a safe car that doesnt fall into spare parts on the road. Do yourself a favour if you dont want to return a car which u rented from them that lookes from the outside 'good serviced car' and leave you stuck on the road.

Do not rent from this company any car. The staf sound helpfull when u first come to them and when tje '*** hit the fan' you are beeing usec because your securith credit carx voucher is in there hands to fill up any amoung of money they feel like.

BE WARNED mEEL AWaY from viajerorent a car corp. RCI Building 105 Rada , Makathi Metro Manila 0905-288**** or 0918-948**** or land line:+63 2-546**** be warned from there reservasion manager Kesel Elisabeth Paranda and another whos name is janeette * avoid this company for your own peace of mind

I would like to thank your company for providing us car rental within short notice. Our driver, Mr.

Nick, has provided an excellent service. He is efficient, professional and we had a smooth safe drive. Thank you and will definitely do business with you again. It was an ideal rent-a-car service!

From the beginning where the representative who took care of my inquiries and managed to update me time to time, to our dearest driver Rommel who inform us that he's on his way to our hotel to pick us up an hour before the said time and being so nice all throughout our travel. Kudos Viajero!

I never doubt you earn lots of award. Thank you and God Bless.