The most poor service I've experienced from a car rental company to date.

<p>I booked a car with an agent at their call centre for 4 days from Friday, 16 June 2017 to Monday, 19 June 2017 and confirmed with her that I could use a cheque card to pay for it. Upon arrival at the Cape Town International branch to collect the car, I was informed that in terms of their procedures they are required to telephone FNB to get authorisation for the holding amount to be processed on my card, but they were not able to do this because the bank was closed on that day as it was a public holiday and would be closed the following day as well. As their manager, Virgil, informed me, this was a new policy which had come into effect 2 months earlier. Consequently, they could not release the vehicle. I pointed out that I had not been informed of this by the agent with whom I had booked, and that their website states that they accept cheque cards without mention of any qualifications/conditions being applicable. I offered to transfer the money to them as a deposit or give them cash for the holding amount. Alternatively, the authorisation could be obtained from the bank on the Monday. I was informed that they could not agree to any of these solutions and that the only thing they could do was to arrange an Uber to drop me off at my destination, which would still leave me without a car for the duration of my stay. After consulting with the supervisor, telephoning the call centre once again to confirm this and even phoning the manager at Avis' head office, I was met with the same response: there was nothing that they could do and they were clearly unwilling to compromise/facilitate any kind of solution. After 2,5 hours spent debating the problem and a possible solution, both with the staff at the branch and over the phone with the head office, I left without the car I had booked and eventually had to organise a car with another car rental company.</p>