Complaints

The complaint text that is displayed might not represent all complaints filed with BBB. Some consumers may elect to not publish the details of their complaints, some complaints may not meet BBB's standards for publication, or BBB may display a portion of complaints when a high volume is received for a particular business.

• Initial Complaint

  Date:05/23/2023

  Type:Product Issues
  Status:

  AnsweredMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  We booked Kyte car rental through Kayak, whic, linked ** to Priceline. We paid and provided driver details and license for verification. NINE days later (and only two weeks before the start of the booking) **** wrote to cancel the booking because they said they could not verify the driver's identity/account. When we approached their help desk for an explanation they said that verification is done by a third party and they could not say why he was denied This driver has a clean current license, good credit score, no background issues and rents from other companies without issue. They then went into overdrive and said he should never try again with **** as he is in their system and will never be able to rent from Kyte, ever. This seemed to raise the stakes in terms of what kind of information was gathered. We suspected that the very cheap price we got was perhaps a trigger for the cancelation because we looked on line after they cancelled our booking and the price for the same period had gone up quite a bit. We still find the decision arbitrary and unfounded and find it unacceptable that they did not make any attempt to contact us to resubmit a photo of the license or to determine why the verification failed.

  Business Response

  Date: 05/26/2023

  Hi there, 

  I'd like to look into this but I don't see an account associated with the email or name provided. Is there an alternative email or name that the booking was completed under?

  Customer Answer

  Date: 05/27/2023

   
  Complaint: 20096581
  
  I am rejecting this response because: I am providing information associated with this reservation since they could not look it up using the Priceline reservation information provided. The email associated is ********************* The name is ********************** 
  
  Sincerely,
  
  *********************

  Business Response

  Date: 06/07/2023

  Hi there,
  
  Verification is based on a variety of different factors. If you'd like to see our eligibility requirements, you can do so here: ************************************************************************************
  
  We do understand this can be a frustrating experience and we apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused. We're unable to override the decision at this time and you've already been issued a full refund.

  Customer Answer

  Date: 06/09/2023

   
  Complaint: 20096581
  
  I am rejecting this response because:

  
  Jun 9, 2023

  
  Thank you for providing this information on eligibility for renting. Four points in response:
  
  1.The person who was renting the car meets all the criteria
  2. We asked for an explanation on his eligibility failure to learn whether there had been a mistake in Kytes verification process, and whether there was misinformation out there. **** refused.
  3. In your eligibly criteria it states, if your account doesnt meet the eligibility requirements, you are welcome to retry again in the future.
  4. When this was attempted, **** then notified him that he was banned from ever renting from Kyte again.
  
  We are asking for the following:
  
  1. Sharing the information that triggered the decision to rescind the rental contract 9 days after it was paid for and accepted so that we have transparency on the decision and the criteria for this decision, and can determine if the information Kyte received is correct or incorrect.
  2. If there was an error in the information on this driver, willingness by **** to re-submit this drivers information used to determine renting eligibility and reissue the contract at the same price that was offered. This rental starts Jun 22, so to be responsive, Kyte must address point 1 and 2 immediately. 
  
  Sincerely,
  
  *********************

• Initial Complaint

  Date:05/18/2023

  Type:Customer Service Issues
  Status:

  ResolvedMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  Hello my name is ******,Would like to speak to someone to better explain how this company violated my rights as an employee, Loss of Wages and Breach of Contract. I have proof to back up my allegations and here is the letter I sent to their company yesterday. Once I get a call from someone , maybe I can explain the proof that I will be sending. I am also seeking legal compensation from this company.

  Business Response

  Date: 05/18/2023

  The best approach here would be to reach out to ******************* with the grievance since this is regarding an independent contractor, and not a customer, I cannot provide any support here. 

  Customer Answer

  Date: 05/20/2023

  Better Business Bureau:
  
  I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID ********, and find that this resolution is satisfactory to me.
  
  Sincerely,
  
  *****************************

• Initial Complaint

  Date:05/17/2023

  Type:Product Issues
  Status:

  ResolvedMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  I rented a car with Kyte in March 2023. At the time of rental, Kyte charged a $300 deposit, to be refunded upon the undamaged return of the car (per a signed agreement). During my 3-day rental period, I thought I had lost the key fob for the rental car. I immediately reached out to Kyte customer service, who asked me to file a claim stating what happened, but also informed me that it was my responsibility to replace the fob and return a new one with the car. Within an hour of speaking with Kyte customer service and filing the claim (per their instructions), I found the original key fob (it had fallen out of my coat pocket) and I re-contacted Kyte customer service to let them know all was resolved. At that time, I specifically asked if there was any action I needed to take to revoke the claim I had filed and was told no. I returned the car at the conclusion of my rental period without incident and 3 days later, my initial $300 damage deposit was refunded as expected.On May 3rd two months after I rented the car with *********** received a new $300 charge from Kyte on my credit card. When I inquired as to why, **** sent me a copy of the claim I had filed when I believed the key fob was lost in March. I have repeatedly followed up about this incorrect charge and have explained in detail both to customer service via chat and via email to their claims department about what happened, and have not received a response or resolution from Kyte.**** erases customer chat messages so I do not have access to my correspondence with customer service when I reached out to them during the rental period (they might be able to access), however I have proof of the initial $300 deposit, the deposit refund following my successful and undamaged return of the vehicle, and the new, unapproved charge made to my card two months after the car was returned undamaged.

  Business Response

  Date: 05/23/2023

  Hi ****,

  Very sorry for any confusion here. I'll look into why that additional charge came up. I do see both $300 charges have been refunded on our end already. Please let ** know if you need anything else!

  Customer Answer

  Date: 05/24/2023

  Better Business Bureau:
  
  I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID ********, and while the issue has now been resolved, it should be noted that the business only took action once I filed a complaint with you. Until that time, there was two weeks of no communication from them, despite them abusing access to my personal credit card information.
  
  Sincerely,
  
  ***************************

• Initial Complaint

  Date:05/17/2023

  Type:Service or Repair Issues
  Status:

  AnsweredMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  I pre-ordered and PRE-PAID for a rental car for a business trip, paid $50 for a ride to downtown ** via Lyft to meet the person dropping off my rental car. I arrived early and proceeded to wait 3 hours outside of ************* in Downtown *********** and finally was told that they couldn't have a car until 7am the next day and asked me to come back the next day...all of this was communicated via text and the response time was VERY SLOW. I live 30 miles east of ** and traffic is atrocious at that time which is why I got the car for a day before. They have not responded to me and I paid another $50 to get home...it will cost me $60 in the morning and will take 1.5 hours..I still have received no refund either. If I didn't live in LA they would've let me out on the street with no vehicle and they took my money. This is not proper business practice

  Business Response

  Date: 05/17/2023

  We've issued a full refund for this booking. 

• Initial Complaint

  Date:05/12/2023

  Type:Customer Service Issues
  Status:

  ResolvedMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  On May 11th at 6 pm I made a reservation for a car rental for 7 am on May 12th. I received a text message from Kyte that my drivers license was expired and that I needed to email them photos of a valid drivers license. I immediately emailed the photos of my new drivers license. 4 hours later at ***** pm they emailed me that I needed to submit the photos on the app. They did not text me and I did not see the email. They then proceeded to delay my trip start from 7 am to 11 am. I messaged customer service to attempt to change the reservation time back to an earlier time but received no response for an hour. I had no choice but to cancel the reservation and pay an extra $250 to another rental car company for a last-minute car. I would like to be refunded and additionally compensated $250 by Kyte for this inconvenience.

  Business Response

  Date: 05/16/2023

  Unfortunately if we don't receive the license in a timely manner we can't send out a vehicle unfortunately. In this case, since we weren't able to get that uploaded we would have had to push out the trip to accommodate getting the license in and manually verified. 

   

  We've already issued a full refund. We wouldn't offer additional compensation beyond that in this instance. 

  Customer Answer

  Date: 05/17/2023

   
  Complaint: 20050545
  
  I am rejecting this response because: It is not true that I did not upload the drivers license. I sent the drivers license to the business via email immediately as instructed. If the business is unable to access a document from their email even though they instruct their customers to send them documentation through email, that is their fault, not their customer's fault. In this case, I am not seeking any additional compensation, but I would like the record to stand that 1) I sent my documentation to the company over 12 hours prior to the originally assigned start of the trip, as instructed. 2) I had taken a trip with this same company with the same expired drivers license several weeks earlier that they did not notice.
  
  Sincerely,
  
  *******************************

  Business Response

  Date: 05/17/2023

  Noted. As mentioned, a full refund has already been issued. 

  Customer Answer

  Date: 05/23/2023

  Better Business Bureau:
  
  I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID ********, and find that this resolution is satisfactory to me.
  
  Sincerely,
  
  *******************************

• Initial Complaint

  Date:05/08/2023

  Type:Service or Repair Issues
  Status:

  AnsweredMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  I rented a car from Kyte. Added an additional driver more than a week before the trip start. And provided the needed documents for verification. They did not complete the verifcation of the additional driver details before rental start. After the rental started, they stated that an additional driver cannot be added because it needs to be done before the rental starts. Why am I being penalized for Kyte not doing the verification on time, given that we had started the verification more than a week before rental start? In addition there is no customer service number. Only way is to chat. And each chat reply from them sometimes takes 15 to 20 minutes. And they close the chat session if there is no response for 15 minutes from you. So you'll have to keep staring at your phone, waiting for each reply for upto ********************************************************** two. Very hard to resolve a question or issue as there is no phone number to call and a chat session cannot be completed unless you are willing to sit in front of a phone for an hour waiting for their slow replies. Very frustrated.

  Business Response

  Date: 05/23/2023

  Hi there, I unfortunately don't see any submitted documents for the additional driver. This may be because the trip has already started. Unfortunately we indeed can't verify drivers after the trip has started due to security reasons since we don't have a physical rental counter. I do apologize for the inconvenience this may have caused on the trip. 

• Initial Complaint

  Date:05/08/2023

  Type:Product Issues
  Status:

  AnsweredMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  Kyte has not been honest regarding their deposit return policy. They currently have $1000 in deposit from me for the same car rental. They told me my funds were released May 3, 2023 but my account still has the money on authorized hold. They are very deceptive and consumers need to know if their shady practices. I uploaded the pending transactions from my bank along with a screenshot they sent me on 5/3

  Business Response

  Date: 05/08/2023

  Both of the customer's deposits have been returned to him and we've notified him of such. If they haven't returned to his bank account he needs to contact his bank, which we notified him of. We do not have those funds on our end or access to them anymore since they've been released. 

  Customer Answer

  Date: 05/08/2023

   
  Complaint: 20030351
  
  I am rejecting this response because: my bank told me that they have not released the holds. The company is lying. They did not provide a refund. 
  
  Sincerely,
  
  ***********************

  Business Response

  Date: 05/10/2023

  We unfortunately do not have the funds at all as shown in the screenshot. There's nothing further we can do. 

  Customer Answer

  Date: 05/12/2023

   
  Complaint: 20030351
  
  I am rejecting this response because:the issue is that they were deceptive and never sent my bank authorization to release the funds. My bank explained that they set hold dates far out and never sends the bank a release authorization. That keeps our funds on hold. For example, Kyte set the first deposit date as 5/10 and the other as 5/18. I just received the first and will get the next Thursday. That is too far out and beyond the banks control. 
  
  Sincerely,
  
  ***********************

• Initial Complaint

  Date:05/06/2023

  Type:Service or Repair Issues
  Status:

  AnsweredMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  I booked a rental through Kyte. At 8pm the night before they said they needed a new credit card that the other didnt go through. I gave them a new card. They charged the refundable deposit twice, $600. They also charged my other card twice for another $600. Fraud at its finest. Canceled less than 24 hours before and charged $1200 to two different cards.

  Business Response

  Date: 05/16/2023

  The customer's original debit card wouldn't work for the deposit so we had her upload a credit card. We attempted 1 deposit on the credit card, which you can see there as the $300 charge. 

   

  All have since been released / refunded either way which you can see in the image attached. This is resolved. 

• Initial Complaint

  Date:04/26/2023

  Type:Customer Service Issues
  Status:

  AnsweredMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  Kyte is useless they charge you extra and don't bother to have a customer support you have to wait for hrs to talk with them

  Business Response

  Date: 05/08/2023

  Hi there,

  We do not have a customer under this name. 

• Initial Complaint

  Date:04/22/2023

  Type:Service or Repair Issues
  Status:

  AnsweredMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  On April 21st, 2023, I rented a car from ************ for the purpose of transporting some parcels to the post office and delivering my pet's belongings to my friend's house. Since my friend's cat items were at my home, I used ****** car to accomplish this task. I returned the car at 12:00 pm on April 22nd, 2023. However, when I arrived at the return location at 11:40 am and started cleaning the vehicle, the person who was supposed to collect the car arrived at 11:45 am, 15 minutes earlier than the agreed time. As a result, I did not have enough time to clean the vehicle properly. After returning the car, I received an email indicating that I was charged an additional fee of $450. I was unsure why I was charged, so I contacted customer service. They cited three reasons for the fee. Firstly, there was a strong smell of marijuana in the car. However, I do not smoke marijuana as it is prohibited in *****, and I was returning home soon. Moreover, I have noticed the same smell in all the cars I have rented from Kyte, so I believe that the marijuana smell was not caused by me. Secondly, there was a stain on the back seat of the car. However, no one had sat on the back seat, and I did not transport any liquid items to the back seat. I only drank pure water in the front seat and made sure to close the lid properly to avoid any spills. Therefore, I am not responsible for the stain on the back seat. Lastly, there were some cat hairs in the car. I admit that I transported some cat items in the car, such as a cat scratcher, a cat carrier, cat food, and a cat tree. I put some of the cat tree in the back seat, which is why there were some cat hairs on the back seat and in the trunk. However, the staff collected the car before I had enough time to clean all the cat hairs. I believe that the Kyte staff should share some responsibility for this. I disagree with the $450 cleaning fee entirely, and I am willing to pay only the cost of cleaning the cat hairs, which should be around $50

  Business Response

  Date: 05/08/2023

  The customer in question was charged a cleaning fee for the pet hair and the smoke smell. For the cat hair, we sent him photo evidence of the mess. We need to be thorough with cleaning pet hair in order to avoid allergic reactions in following customers. 

  For the smell, we notified him it was tobacco, not marijuana. The team member who noticed the smell noted that it was very strong, indicating it was recently smoked in.

  We explained this all to the customer in a conversation. I do see that the Surfer had arrived 15 minutes early to retrieve the car but he would have waited until scheduled time if asked. Surfers that arrive early are required to wait til scheduled time if the customer isn't ready.

  Overall the fee wasn't even successful. I've attached a photo of the failed charges so ultimately the customer hasn't even been charged it.

  I'd be happy to reinstate his account upon paying of the pet hair fee $100.