We have just returned from a wonderful family holiday in Orlando, Florida with the only real reason to complain coming from AVIS the car rental company.

So what went wrong with Avis? It all started a year ago when we booked our hire car through Expedia.com there was problems with the booking when we arrived at the Avis desk in the airport. Not wishing to repeat this problem, we booked this time via their main website; http://www.avis.co.uk/, believing that going straight to them would cause no problems. We prebooked our childseat and our extra driver. The email confirmation arrives and all is well. I check my credit-card statement before leaving the UK and Avis has taken off their money as per the contract.

However at the Avis desk in Orlando, they had no record of us paying anything and we'd have to be charged again. Naturally one refused to accept this, stating the whole process we had done to book the car. They refused to believe me even when showing them the PDF document of the Avis.co.uk receipt. They said "its not printed out, we can't believe you didn't doctor that". I blinked then asked "You are joking of course? Naturally if i was going to deceive Avis on this large scale, you don't think i'd be able to print out my 'doctored' voucher?"

The man was just not for budging. Finally I said I wasn't going to leave the desk until this was resolved and a manager was brought out to deal with us. Lucky break for us, he was a British guy who instantly seen the problem and said "don't worry, we'll get you sorted. The UK voucher is sound, and if you email it to me when you get to an Internet connection then I'll personally sort it." The man was a saint. A voice of reason i could have kissed him.

The trouble didn't end there though. We then learnt that Avis was all out of cars. We had to wait nearly an hour for one. We waited at the garage (with others in the same position), where the British Avis manager happened to spot us and asked "what you guys still doing here?", i replied stating that they didn't have any cars left, "nonsense he said, we have cars in other classes, fancy a people's carrier instead?". Our saint came to the rescue again.

Now at this point the wheels fell off the wagon, because with a different car, there was a mix up now on the rental agreements, which was to surface when we returned the car in two weeks time.

I was told to go to the rental desk as this car had no rental agreement to it and therefore they didn't know what was going on. I spoke with a lady there who was one of the most obnoxious women I could possibly have had to deal with. Stating that I had to give her my credit card so she could charge the full rate rental to my card for hire. I explained the situation, but she just smiled and said "Out of her control". I said, well you aren't getting my credit-card, and if you attempt to charge the card you have on file, i will stand here and make the call to the credit-card company and have it canceled as a fraudulent transaction here and now.

She said i was being unreasonable and then ignored me and walked off. Fortunately a queue was building up. Nothing like a crowd to play to. I then asked in a rather loud voice, "Are you finished with me?". She then returned, saying there was nothing she could do. I advised she get a manager or someone that was capable of listening to the customer and get this sorted, otherwise I will happily make a scene here and we'll see how just how hard Avis tries as per their slogan that was plastered everywhere.

The manager arrives some 10minutes later, she has a 'secret word' with him before hand and he comes up all confrontational. He was surprised to see how calm and polite I was. He then looked through records (why do these people have so much typing to do!) and eventually found the mix up but said he could do nothing because it was a UK voucher and Avis US was a separate company. He then pulled the woman over to show her where she had made a mistake in not finding that out.

I noted that i really don't care how you manage things internally, Avis as far as i am concerned is a single company and i transacted with you online in that faith. He said he would be charging my credit-card and asked for it. I refused to give it to him. He said he would charge the one on file. I said, do that and it will be reported as fraudulent. I said you've already billed me, and the credit-card company will see that as a double charge and happily side with me. He then said, "you haven't been billed sir. we have no record of that". Nonsense, again he refused to accept to see my statement from the laptop, claiming it could be altered. This was getting comical.

So i said finally, "while i would love to stand here and argue with you all day, i am going to walk away now, because you have no interest in sorting this out. Arrest me if you wish, but i have a flight to catch. Good day to you sir".

Upon my return I called Morgan Stanley and explained the situation to them and they said they would put a hold on all Avis transactions until I got back to them. I then called Avis UK, and spoke to a wonderful lady called Carla. I explained the situation to her and she instantly said, "oh dear. this one again. leave it with me i'll get it sorted out". A day later she calls back and all is well, no problems at all. Apparently the US are sticklers for their procedure she said and this isn't the first time this has happened.

What went wrong? I have no idea. I don't really care to know, point is, i was accused of many things by the Avis US agents of trying to con them out of their car, and had it not been for their British manager recognizing the problem and stepping in, we wouldn't have had our car.

I had always understood customer service was brilliant in the US and sucked in the UK. I have since come to learn that, its all superficial in the US.

This 'Have a nice day' is so false and annoying that when asked by someone "And how are you today?" I merely reply with a long list of ailments.

Don't go to Avis if you need a rental; try one of the others.