The truck rental business can be great most of the time, but every once in a while you get a crazy customer who makes your whole life difficult.

What would you do if a customer not only refused to return your truck on time, but also damaged it, parked it in a very difficult spot, and never unloaded his stuff?

That is what happened at the truck rental company in this story, and on top of it, the customer actually asked for a discount!

I sabotaged your truck so you owe me money

The twists and turns here are innumerable, all thanks to a very special customer. In fact, I think I’d better give him a name.

He’s earned it. Let’s call him… “Spectaculoid”.

This is at a popular truck and trailer rental place. You know the one.

Renting moving trucks can be very convenient.

Spectaculoid rents our biggest truck, says he’s going to need it for 3 days.

Awkward because this truck was in high demand at the time, but he insisted and we shuffled things around to make it happen.

Got super clear about the return time. Okay. Drive safe.

This isn’t a long-term parking lot.

Except Spectaculoid wants to leave his car on our lot. For 3 days. Dude we fill up constantly and tell people to park across the street so if you could just move it…

… Aaaand he leaves it on our lot. Uncomfortably close to the side door, too, so that we spend the next several days having to squeeze by his bumper. Fine, fine, whatever…

This customer shouldn’t be calling, he should be returning the truck!

3 days later Spectaculoid calls and my coworker Andy answers.

Andy’s been given his 2 week’s notice for a laundry list of screw ups, one of which cost us all a Christmas bonus (a story for another day), but he figured if he did a really good job he could get the manager to change her mind.

Andy! No!

So Spectaculoid asks for an extra day. “No problem sir!” Andy says. The family who reserved that truck for the afternoon are now screwed. Nice work.

We figure out Andy’s mistake when the family arrives and, after calling Spectaculoid and him flat out refusing to bring the truck back (“Nuh uh he saaaiiiid I could have it!”) we make some phone calls and find a cancelled reservation for a replacement truck.

They dodged a bullet on that.

So, at least that worked out, but we’re looking forward to getting that truck back the next day. It’s going nuts around here, everybody wants a truck.

Next day Spectaculoid calls again. He wants to extend the rental again because his friends didn’t show up to help unload.

I hope they are charging him a lot.

Dude, come on, IT’S A ONE BEDROOM APARTMENT. Most people take 6 hours to move. You’ve had 4 days, including that extra one. You are neither elderly nor infirm. Empty the truck and get it back here.

“But all my stuff is in there!”

“So empty it. Now.”

“Okay… I’ll try…”

Hopefully he is actually going to bring it back.

“No, seriously, it’s officially late in an hour and it needs to be here then. There’s no way to extend the contract and keeping it longer is theft.”

“Oh. Okay. Okay I’ll bring it back.”

Is it time to call the cops?

Does he drive it back? Of course not. In fact, things are just about to kick into high gear.

A little while later I hear my manager yell at Andy: “Tell him to call roadside assistance!”

No Andy, DO NOT extend the rental again!

Andy’s on the phone with you-know-who. Spectaculoid is claiming the truck won’t start and Andy was just about to extend the rental. Luckily, this time, he doesn’t get the chance.

Now, a truck not starting isn’t unusual. People leave the headlights on by accident all the time. Easy to forget things like that with an unfamiliar vehicle. That’s why we plaster the number for free roadside assistance all over everything.

He thinks he deserves something extra for free?

Spectaculoid, having agreed to give them a call, wants a storage unit for free “for the inconvenience”.

Manager takes over and, smelling a rat, tells him to hold while she searches his name in our storage system. What do you know, Spectaculoid already has a storage unit with us and he’s overdue.

This guy just can’t take responsibility for anything.

“Well you would have had the truck back days ago if I had a bigger unit to store all my stuff!”

Hunh? Does not compute…

These details are unnecessary.

For some reason we end up down this weird rabbit hole where he talks about how he intended to load up the truck and dump everything in a storage unit. Okay? I uh… don’t care?

Anyway, no deal, and we tell Spectaculoid to hurry up and call roadside assistance to get that truck back tonight. He argues that he doesn’t want to. But… He has no other ideas here. He just wants to keep that truck forever, apparently.

Time to stop threatening and just call the cops. Or a tow truck to bring their truck back.

Some arguing, raised voices, legal threats, fine. Fine he’ll call.

Oh, you think we’re going to get that truck back now, right?

Hang tight kids, this part gets bumpy.

This process seems pretty normal.

See, when you call our roadside assistance you get a dispatcher. The dispatcher sends out a tow truck. The tow truck driver calls the customer to arrange the specifics on time and place.

Spectaculoid is suddenly not answering his phone. The tow truck driver calls us and asks for the alternate number. No answer there either.

I guess he thinks they will just go away if he ignores them.

So we try calling. And texting. And emailing. Nope nope nope…. Spectaculoid is suddenly completely unreachable.

Around 24 hours later it occurs to us that he has our numbers blocked. We try using our cellphones instead. “Hello?”

Clearly this guy is not taking their threats seriously.

My glorious manager unleashes her righteous fury. “You will unblock our phone numbers and stop avoiding us. You will call roadside immediately. And you will do whatever is asked of you to get this truck back. Now!”

Spectaculoid agrees, but not without some grumbling.

Now what?

Next call we get is from roadside. They are losing their minds.

List of complaints includes:

This list is absolutely insane.

1. The truck is jammed between two buildings and he’s not sure how it is physically possible that Spectaculoid got it in there. The sides are almost touching.
2. And there’s no conceivable reason he would have jammed it in there. It made loading/unloading the back impossible. And it’s not like it was a hiding place. It just plain doesn’t make any sense.
3. And he can’t even get in the truck. The doors won’t open. He can’t figure out how Spectaculoid got out of the driver’s seat once he parked it.
4. And the superintendent is screaming at the tow truck driver the whole time because he wants it out now now now! Apparently he’s been fining Spectaculoid over a hundred dollars a day to get it out of there.
5. And the driver needed to leave to get a special winch to pull it out of there which sent the superintendent into a total hysterical fit.
6. And when he got it out to the road and climbed in to try starting it, he saw that Spectaculoid had ripped the starter out of the engine and left it on the floor.

Ok, they should call the cops for this for sure.

As the layers of confusion and utter bafflement wash over us we arrange for the truck to be towed to our lot with the back facing the storage unit so it can be unloaded ASAP.

Okay. We call Spectaculoid.

“Umm… hhheeeyyy… so… WHY THE HELL DID YOU RIP THE STARTER OUT OF THE ENGINE???”

He thought what!?

“Oh that? Well I figured I had to in order to get roadside to come out.”

“What? What? But that doesn’t make any…”

How is this their problem at all.

“Oh also I’ve had to take a lot of cabs to and from work.”

“… And?”

You have got to be kidding me.

“Well I think I should be compensated.”

“… Why???”

“Well because the truck wasn’t working.”

What? Now his car doesn’t work either?

“Setting aside the fact that you did that yourself, why didn’t you just get your car from our lot?”

“Oh it doesn’t work.”

I should hope so.

We deny his request for days of cab fare.

So now you’re thinking hey, at least it’s all finally settled, right?

They should have unloaded the truck for him, and sold his belongings to pay for the damage.

Well there’s still several days of procrastination until he unloads his truck into the storage unit. And the massive repair bill, which also covers a big fresh gash along the top of the truck from scraping against the building.

And one last fun thing; Andy’s final contribution to the saga.

I can’t imagine why they are tolerating this.

Spectaculoid was allowed to move into the storage unit without the usual deposit.

And, while he has spoken on the phone with us about it, he’s been carefully avoiding coming by while we’re open to avoid making the payment.

So all his stuff is locked up until he pays. If we don’t get a payment it’ll all go to auction next month.

Last time we saw him was on a security camera. See, we noticed his car was finally gone. So we checked the recording.

So much for the car not working.

At 1AM a van pulls up, Spectaculoid gets out of the passenger seat, hops into the car and drives off.

The car suddenly works! It’s a Christmas miracle!

This story is just crazy.

I… can’t believe I’m not making any of this up…

This story is so crazy that they couldn’t have made it up if they tried. They should really sue the guy for the damage.

Let’s see what the people in the comments have to say about it.

I’m guessing this commenter is correct.

I was wondering this same thing.

I 100% agree with this commenter.

This would have been a smart move.

This commenter thinks they should have towed his car.

Time to cut your losses and call the cops.

If you enjoyed that story, read this one about a mom who was forced to bring her three kids with her to apply for government benefits, but ended up getting the job of her dreams.