CSi RentalsReviews of csirentals.com

Absolutely awful. I arrived to CSI Brooklyn to only find out that your store closed 45 minutes early on Friday December 30th. I was unable to pick up an essential piece of equipment for a job that weekend. I will now be taking my business elsewhere. Thank you

I decided to utilize the 4 day rental for the price of 1 over the Thanksgiving holiday. I called CSI Rentals on 11/22 to make a reservation to pick up on 11/23. I inquired about what I had to bring in order to facilitate the in person rental. I was informed by the person on the phone that I only needed to bring my State ID and a credit card. I then asked if there was anything else I needed to bring. Twice. Both times I was told no. I also double checked the CSI website and it said the same thing. On 11/23 I arrived 4 hours before closing to pick up my rental. I was told by the person behind the counter that my NY State Photo ID wasn't acceptable because it has a P.O. Box listed as the address. I informed them that it was my official address and all my documents including my passport has this P.O. Box on it. The person behind the counter then referred to the "boss" whom I can only assume is George Hertz. Hertz then told me that I needed to bring a utility bill of some sort with a street address on it as a proof of address, otherwise they would have to hold $2100 on my credit card. I asked them if the hold could be partial; like $1900 or so, since I did have a valid ID. They said no, it has to be the full $2100. So I left Manhattan and returned to my home in Brooklyn to search for a bill with a street address on it. Once I found it, I called CSI to make sure the proof of address would be accepted. When I called in to explain the situation, the worker on the other end seemed legitimately surprised and confused. He asked "They didn't let you pick up because of that? Your order is already packed." At this point, it was an hour before closing and I was becoming more and more suspicious that the way I was being treated was not protocol. I expressed this to the person on the phone and they assured me that is was policy and every customer is asked for proof of street address. I then inquired as to why I was not told to bring this on the phone when I made my initial reservation, why this was not listed on the CSI website and why he seemed shocked and confused when I told him I had been denied because of it. He deflected the question. He then spoke to someone in the store, apparently the man I had dealt with in person, who lied and said I was denied rental because I provided a debit cart. That is a blatant lie. I provided a valid credit card and at no point did anyone express to me that they assumed it was a debit card. I was even advised to call my credit card company to request a bump in limit over the weekend, if I didn't have enough credit for the entire $2100 hold. When I told them this, they put me on hold again. Then the worker came back and asked if it would be ok to hold $1000 on my card to facilitate the rental. I said fine because it was late and I had a shoot over the weekend and I was just tired of the whole thing. He then put me on hold again and said if I came back with my CC and ID I could make the rental. (The same things I brought before?! Including a partial hold that I was told was not possible?) I agreed and told them they had run me around and wasted my time and since I was in Brooklyn, I couldn't make it back by 6pm. They said if I came before 6:30pm someone should be there and to hurry up. Then they called me back 3 MORE TIMES to raise the hold to $1500 from $1000 and to ask me to send my credit card info and photos of the front and back so they can run the card before I come. I refused. Why would I give some rando on the phone all that info when I will be there in person with said card in an hour? And to charge me for equipment that I didn't check out and didn't even have in my possession? Why would I ever let a business do something like that? So I can roll up after 6pm to closed gates? I had no record of my transaction or order number because I did it by phone and picked up in person. They could have charged my card and gone home for the holidays and said "Welp, it was after 6pm. She was late. Not our fault." And I would have had no recourse. Basically, their racist brains could not fathom how a young Black person could have an extra $1500 sitting around on my credit card for this hold. So because I am Black, they assumed I was lying, and wanted to run the card before I came. I refused once again. The person on the phone actually had the audacity to tell me "Well if you feel confident you have the $1500," (Are you KIDDING me ?!) "then it is fine." The 3rd and final time they called me back it was to offer me an ultimatum: If I didn't give them the info for them to run my card before I arrive for equipment that is not in my possession, I could not complete the rental. I was so offended and disgusted at their racist, dishonest and unprofessional behaviour that I told them to cancel it. I did everything right, but because they are unduly suspicious of Black people and think it is impossible for us to have money, I had to cancel my 2 day shoot. This is unacceptable. And when I called back to address the situation after the holiday weekend, at first the woman on the phone was friendly. But when I told her my name, her tone completely changed, like an "Ugh, it's you." kind of tone. For what?! They inconvenienced me. I did nothing but refuse to allow myself to be mistreated and abused by racists. Then, she actually had the nerve to ask me if I wanted to re-reserve the gear. Like I would actually still patronize their business after the way they treated me! That is when I realized that they saw absolutely nothing wrong with what they did and had probably done it to a million Black renters before me. So I thought it better to make my experience known, so other Black renters can be aware of the biased treatment. Do not give money to businesses that don't respect you. CSI Rentals are despicable and have no respect for Black renters.

Phone help was excellent. I get to the store and the moment the elder guy staff got involved everything went left. He cursed at me, refused my order and chased me from the store. Proceeding to follow me down the street. I've missed my shoot for the night and will never rent from nor recommend this place to anyone !

I rent only a few items from these guys, ask if I need to put any money down and they tell me on multiple phone calls that I do not seeing as I'll be paying with a credit card. They failed to mention, however, that the credit card needed to have enough available for the $2,500 insurance deductible to be put on hold in the case of busted equipment. They didn't mention this until I was a full state away going to set with my actors and holding my DP and Producer up there. Also, being a student, not being told about needing a line of credit that large can be quite problematic as some of us aren't approved for or don't want the burden of cards that large. In addition to their awful ability to communicate the full reality of how their system works, they also claimed I was not listed with the insurance. My program coordinator had to send it out twice before these nimrods got it together and realized I was, as a matter of fact, approved even though they had an up to date list in the first place. The fact that I even had to pay these cretins for anything after an hour of back and forth phone calls between departments and asking for favors for a credit card that also needed ID approval and had to be filled out on their archaic form system is just salt on the wound. CSI needs some Crime Scene Investigation because there is some serious blood on the walls there from the employees banging their heads trying to figure out how to spell customer service, let alone know how to actually do it. I will never be dealing with them again and if you're a student, do what's good for you and don't even begin to.

I picked up equip for a pro shoot in mid Friday. We do not shoot over the weekend. We were charged a full day upon pickup along with serval items we decided to go with lighter options. On rerun the next business day we returned approximately the and time we picked up and were charged two more full days. They are so disorganized there that they didn't realize they had changed me a full day on pick up and the. Double charged me bc the equip was late. I conplained bc usually with pro rentals you can drop off around the same time you pick up the next busies day. We used the equipment t on Fri only for a few hours. They forgot to give us a pin that screwed the boom together so the entire boom fell over twice and shattered a lense which was mine and cost me over 459 to fix. All bc the second pin wasn't included in the boom kit. So I was charged 3 days rental, I showed them the charges and they justified the double charge bc I returned past 10 am. I told them on a pro rental when you pick up at 3pm you can usually return late the next business day. Nope I got charged 2 days upon return. They Neber addressees why I was also charged another day on pickup and why none of these amounts matched. I have written over 10 times with one response and nothing done about it. This was 6 months ago. It's insane to have to pull my credit card statement show 3 days of charges for a day rental and not get a credit back. I do t plan on renting from them again.

Our monitor was faulty, cutting in and out every few seconds, thus wasting time on set and causing issues with focus and ruining takes. We tried switching out multiple HDMI cables and testing the camera's output, but we finally isolated the issue to being the input on the monitor itself. Had CSI tested the equipment after getting it back from the previous renter, they would have easily caught this issue. On the CSI website, it stated that the monitor was able to be powered by canon batteries, however, failed to state that an extra adapter was needed to do so (and which was not provided). Renting out the monitor proved to be a useless waste of money (to this day I have not been offered a refund). Others that have rented from CSI informed me that they have had similar experiences with monitors they rented.

Horrible customer service, associate and manager was very rude and unhelpful. I had an issue, no one from the company followed up with me. I had to continue to call and call to only speak with a representative who stated that they will have a manager call me back. I will never do business with this company again. NEVER.

They gave me broken equipment, offered no solutions while i had it on-set with a paying client, then magically fixed it behind the counter when I brought it back, claiming it was in perfect condition and I was lying. Then the owner chased me out of the store and screamed racial and homophobic slurs at me in the street.