I recently rented a car from a similarly well-known company. When I went to return it, the location was completely abandoned. No attendant in the lot, no staff in the office. I waited with other customers for 30 minutes before I finally found a staff member walking through the parking lot, who said I could just leave the keys on the dashboard and go. I had assumed there’d be some sort of more official checkout process, but was tired enough after driving all day to just accept it.

Sure enough, I got an email two days later saying the car had never been returned. I explained the situation to customer service on the phone, who mostly chided me on not getting a receipt after returning (difficult to do when no one is working there).

At the time I joked with friends that the rental company was going to have me arrested for car theft. Luckily I just got an email receipt from them over a week later without comment. Guess it could have gone a lot worse.