Tampa woman picks up rental car and drives off the lot, what she discovered when returning it a week later is baffling

A Tampa woman named Brianna rented a car for a trip to Miami with her friends. She went to the rental office, signed all the paperwork, paid for extra insurance, and finished everything she needed to do. The worker at the desk gave her the keys and told her the car was parked in the front row. Then he said to have a good day and that he would see her in a week.

According to Motor1, Brianna walked outside and found what she thought was her rental car. She got inside and noticed there was an extra set of keys already in the vehicle. She thought it was just a spare key, so she put the keys from the rental desk in her purse and used the ones she found in the car instead.

She picked up her friends and they all drove to Miami together. They got on their cruise ship and enjoyed their week-long vacation. Everything seemed perfectly normal during the entire trip. When Brianna came back a week later, she returned the car to the rental office. 

The rental company made a serious mistake

She handed over the keys she had been using, which were just regular keys without any tags on them. The worker at the desk looked confused because rental car keys usually have a plastic tag with information written on it.

Then the rental company realized what happened. Brianna had rented a Ford Explorer, but she actually drove off in a Ford Expedition instead. She had been driving the wrong car the entire week without knowing it. This mix-up is not as shocking as a stranger discovered living in a crawl space, but it still left everyone confused.

The rental company was not even sure if the Expedition was part of their rental fleet. Nobody knows how this mistake happened, but Brianna drove a completely different vehicle than what she paid for.

Brianna’s friend Nikki posted the story on TikTok and people had strong opinions about it. Most people said it was not Brianna’s fault at all. They said the rental company should have walked her to the correct car and made sure she got in the right one.

Many people pointed out that rental companies should never leave cars unlocked with keys inside. The Ford Explorer and Ford Expedition look very similar to each other, so it is easy to see how someone could mix them up. 

“Yeah, that’s not her problem. That’s a rental car problem because she got out the gate with the wrong car and she should’ve never left the gate with that car but people were not doing their job,”  one person, who works for a rental car agency, explained. 

Since Brianna returned the car and did not try to steal anything, most people agree the rental company made the mistake, not her. Unlike serious criminal investigations like a burn cage discovered in a celebrity home, this situation was simply an honest error with no bad intentions.