Never again. Many hidden fees. First, they charge you for every EZ toll (regular toll + additional fees for each and every toll, even if the toll price is $0.50!!). Then, they are not transparent at all regarding car charging fees. They're supposed to have you pay what they pay to Tesla, but they charged me suspiciously high car charging stations fees, and when I asked for the details, they stopped answering me! Same for the mileage; they advertise 300 miles per day, but they calculated it as 600 for 3 days instead and charged for additional undue mileage. Scam company!! From start to finish, renting from TeslaRents was a complete disaster.
SW
SwissDriver
Worst rental experience ever.
Worst rental experience ever.
The car you rent is someone's personal car.
It is not checked it is fit to drive by anyone.
Mine didn't have a charging cable, no winter tires (illegal to drive in Canada) and no heating or cooling working system.
And then, you have no infrastructure or people to help you with, there is no replacement, no agency, just a phone number with an answering machine: welcome to hell.
Response from TeslaRentsMay 1, 2024
Hello, we're sorry you had this experience, but this is a misrepresentation of what happened. Let's set the record straight - we never include mobile, low voltage charging cables by default in the car as Tesla (the manufacturer) doesn't include them when selling the car, these are an additional accessory that doesn't come with the vehicle. Second, all our cars have all weather tires. I don't know if it's actually true that Canada requires winter tires, but even if so, we're an American company renting cars out of America. You picked up your vehicle in New York city, proceeded to drive more than 300 miles up into Canada and then called our team demanding we switch you into a new vehicle. We informed you that we'd be more than happy to switch you out to another car and even offered to upgrade you to a more expensive car for free, but you refused to bring the car back for the swap. I don't know how you expected us to have a vehicle in another country to switch you into after you drove out of state, but we didn't have any alternative to assist you once you left our service area.
I wish we could provide you with a better experience in the future, but this review does not represent what actually happened and doesn't acknowledge your own choices in the matter.
XZ
Xucheng Z.
Avoid this company at all cost until they fix their problems
This is not a fabricated hostile review. I've had good experience with this company. Look it up on this site yourself. However, what happened to me just before Christmas with this company was an ABSOLUTE NIGHTMARE.
Here's a recap of the accident: I was driving the Tesla model X on i95 southbound towards Providence when the right rear tire suddenly exploded. I was able to pull off to the emergency lane and immediately contacted Teslarent for assistance. Their agent (Brian) came and arranged for the car to be towed to a nearby tire repair shop. Me and two passengers waited there until 4pm for the broken tire to be replaced. We had to cancel all our plans for that day and returned early to Boston.
Later I found out that this model X was equipped with four extremely worn-out tires which was the direct cause of the accident. In particular, the two rear tires came from different manufacturers and had different width! The right rear tire, which was the one that exploded, had a nearly bald tread. In addition, the suspension was modified on this Model X but no wheel alignment was carried out, which further aggrevated the uneven wear on the tires.
I approached their customer support right after the accident and made my complaint. They only offered to reimburse my money spent on replacing that broken tire. Now almost two weeks have passed and I still haven't received that reimbursement money or even a sincere apology from them.
I will keep this review as long as they come up with a decent solution. And to all who read until the end, please take extra caution when renting from this company; Take lots of pictures for evidence, inspect everything before you go; And prepare for a disasterous customer support if anything goes wrong on your trip!
VO
Volker
Zero stars. Never again!
The car itself was fine, but customer service was an absolute nightmare.
My credit card was charged a second time for the same booking months after the initial payment without my authorization!
Requesting a refund was immensely time-consuming and required many emails and phone calls. Not only did the customer service representatives seem to have no clue about the issue, but it took a few weeks to get a refund.
In addition, I had paid extra for custom delivery to a residential address and drop-off at JFK airport. Unlike Uber, TeslaRents was unable to find the delivery address, and I had to meet the driver several blocks away.
For drop-off, I was informed 2 hours prior to the scheduled drop-off time via text that I would receive details about the return procedure shortly. Unfortunately, I never received this information!
This was on a Saturday evening. After hours of trying to reach someone at the emergency number TeslaRents had provided, I was instructed to leave the vehicle in the airport parking lot.
All this took so long that I barely made it to the gate on time and had in the meantime been put on the waiting list for my intercontinental flight while my family was scheduled to leave on time - an absolute nightmare!
At home, I discovered that the $500 security deposit for the vehicle was not an authorization hold on my credit card but an actual charge!
Several emails and weeks later, I was informed that this was a "hold as per the rental agreement" that had already been released and that it would "disappear on my bank statement"...
I even had a picture of my account statement emailed to TeslaRents customer service but received no further communication from them.
I ended up reporting this $500 charge to my credit card company and had to spend more time and effort to prove this case to them and get a refund 11 weeks after this charge was made
The time and money required to reverse the unauthorized charges was enormous.
Customer service never reached out to me to offer any courtesy compensation for all this trouble, time, and effort!!
If you value your time, stay away!
GB
Gillroy B.
THIS IS A SCAMMING COMPANY
THIS IS A SCAMMING COMPANY. I don’t know where all these glowing reviews come from, highly likely a scam. They confirmed my booking, made me pay for it, and then also charged me for a $500 deposit, only for them to tell me AT THE DAY OF picking up the car (and literally just 1 minute of the start of my reservation) that apparently the car is unavailable and was assigned to someone else all this time. Not to mention, their “verification process” involves sending a selfie with your credit card. Very sketchy. I will report them to Amex, and I will for sure sue.
MU
Mac U.
BE AWARE - I have had to file a report for criminal fraud through the police
Things were already bad enough with this company having stolen $58 from me and overcharged me $100 arbitrarily as part of a service.
Now they have have stolen over $1000 from my account. With zero permission 3 months after the partial return of my deposit (because there was no damage of course) they are made aware that I have sought return of my missing money as I made a complaint to my bank of fraud/theft against this merchant.
Instead of admitting their guilt they instead write a defamatory post (see last review) attempting to make out that I have been a poor customer whom they had to help.
My insurance which was taken out in UK before even setting foot in the USA and provided to them as requested. During my inbound flight to the USA they then offer me an early collection as their representative is at BOS airport. On arrival they then questioned the insurance documentation late at night (they had had plenty of time to check) it leaving me stranded with my children having had ages to review it and offering me and early pick up.
They then tried to extort me by saying that my insurance was insufficient (turned out of course not to be correct) and that I MUST take their insurance or not be able to hire a car. ie they were trying to take money for something that I already had, they knew I had and was more than sufficient. It was simply a scam to raise money from the unsuspecting.
As an experienced traveller I of course refused to take out theirs and asked for my deposit and advance payment back. Suddenly once they checked the documents again (the same documents not a new or updated policy mind you) they realised their mistake and as opposed to apologising for the inconvenience they lie in the post below about me not having the correct insurance.
I have made the original insurance purchase and timeline available to the police and the bank as part of their investigations and advise customers to remain well clear of this company which uses fraud as a tactic to battle their shortcomings rather than just admit fault. petty and immature and ultimately will result in them loosing more in lawsuits than they stole but this is the nature of how they run their business. Be aware of what you are getting into.
JH
Johan H.
Consistently Unreliable - go elsewhere
I had a fairly positive experience renting a Tesla through them in New York (although the car was poorly maintained with no AC and car not fully charged) but in Chicago I tried to hire a car 2 days in a row and they really dropped the ball. On day 1 I walked up and down a 9 storey garage looking for the car, neither the ‘owner’ Bobby nor Teslarents were responsive, I was eventually told the car was in a different building on the other side of town 1.5 hours after the scheduled pick up time making me miss my appointment. On day 2, the ‘gift voucher’ that was issued to me didn’t work on their website and despite getting a confirmed reservation, I was notified in the middle of the night that the car would be unavailable, making me miss my scheduled appointment a second time. Unreliable, complete waste of time, go to a real car rental company
JC
Jacari C.
Again giving a another review because I…
Again giving a mother review because I paid this company Tesla Rent $213 for a rental. Never received any type of confirmation. When I went to go pick up the Tesla after I “reserved” there was no one there. I tried calling the place but like I said they had to have blocked my number. It doesn’t even ring anymore.
This place definitely took money and is not even making themselves available to help in regards to giving a refund.
Response from TeslaRentsAug 6, 2022
Hello Jacari, thank you for providing us with your contact information. I can understand your frustration, here’s what happened - you made a booking at 2am for a 5am pickup on the same day. At 2:14am, our payment processor, stripe, sent out an early fraud warning on the card that you’d used to make the booking. At 2:58am, our team sent you a cancellation notice email to the address you used to book (different than the email address you provided here) and fully refunded the payment (these usually take 3-5 business days, so it should have already posted in your account). It seems very likely that the email you provided at booking was incorrect or misspelled given that you received neither the booking confirmation nor cancellation notices. I hope you can understand, we interface with a significant amount of attempted fraud on our site with scammers tryinf to book using stolen credit cards etc. In your case, given your feedback, this appears to have been a genuine attempt that was mislabeled as fraud by stripe. If you’re willing to provide us with additional information so we can verify your payment and identity, we’d be more than happy to book you in again at your convenience for free at our excellent expense. You can reach us anytime at support@teslarents or 8573990442 for us to rebook you. Assuming you’re willing to provide additional information, We look forward to making this right and taking care of you.
Kindly,
The TeslaRents Team