RateItAll: The Opinion Network

We reserved a car for a trip to the Dominican Republic (in July of 2007) and were quoted a rate of $400 and change for a week. We had booked the car on a major c redit card and thus declined the primary insurance. (Most major credit cards will cover this if the entire transaction is done on their card.) We bought the secondary/liability insurance. The company refused to honor the rate we had been offered when we ereserved the car, in spite of holding all the paperwork in hand at the time of rental. I argued and argued (with some langauge barriers) to no avail. I will never use this rental company again!

We rented a car from HolidayAutos for a few days from Lyon Airport and they allocated Europcar as the local car hire firm. No problems or bumps with the car. We didn't even take precautionary photos when we returned it because a uniformed Europcar employee inspected the car in front of the five of us, accepted it as undamaged, told us there was nothing to sign and sent us off with a smile. Later Europcar sent us an invoice for "Damage Surcharge" (damage unspecified) and ripped an astonishing GBP975 from our credit card account. So they formally accepted a returned car as undamaged in front of five witnesses then later pretend otherwise. How do companies think they'll get away with this sort of scam? Anyone feel brave enough to hire from Europcar in future?

An update to my review - finally they backed down. First Europcar France reduced the hit from GBP1000 to 200 then Europcar UK gave a full refund and apologised. The trigger, apart from online reviews, was The Guardian newspaper's consumer champion forwarding the details to Europcar UK. Holiday Autos, who I originally booked with, were useless and never managed a substantive response after 5 weeks. But persistence pays off - all I've lost now is lots of time.

We reserved a car for a week in june 2008 and payed for it in advance, we had an invoice which stated 'fully paid' including insurance. When we arrived in Malaga we had to pay for a full tank (you're supposed to return it empty, ever try that?) and 47 euros for what they called 'excess', since we had already payed insurance. Well, excess is exactly right, in the end we payed nearly 200 euro for a small Kia for one week i. We called Europcar in the Netherlands to protest, they would not let us talk and said they didn't care if we never did business with them again. Nice attitude Europcar.. it was a unpleasant start to the holiday, so I guess we're all agreed we'll use another firm next time.

Used Europcar in Cancun Mexico and was subject to extortion by employee thugs when I returned the car. They claimed non-existant damage to the car windshield and held us hostage until we signed the credit card statement that included a charge for the so called damage. This company is like the mafia, avoid them at all costs, absolutely no ethics, horrible experience, I will never use them again under any circumstances!!!! I would rate zero stars if the website would allow it.

paid by cash ,told debit card charges would be exorbitant.returned car with full tank of petrol.after emails and phone calls received refund cheque less 57.60euros stating tank empty.i filled it near to shannon airport.it would be physically impossible to have used a litre in the short distance to the airport.despite further phone calls and emails,i have still not received the curtesy of a reply,thank you richard at shannon airport,claudie and laura in accounts,i will definitely recommend europcar to all my friends ,

This company is terrible. I was hit by a Europecar and have to pursue the driver (a nice young lady) for damages because of some fancy foot work on behalf of their internal vehicle insurance department. Do not use this company. They will charge you if you hit someone, or if someone hits you, and even after you get charged >$3000 you will be exposed to damages from anyone else you hit.

HORRIBLE. Don't trust these people. Rented a car in Germany, returned to Italy and was told everything was fine and we were paid up. Our account was debited. This was in July. Now we have received replacement invoices for more money (written entirely in German, which we do not speak) and now have received a collection letter from an attorney on their behalf. We will fight this, smells like fraud, it appears they may either be recharging to take advantage of a higher Euro rate, or they are just adding an additional charge(s) months later, unbelievable.

Arrived at airport and Van would drive by without stopping (TWICE). Had to take a cab to the rental building. Once there they didn't have the car I requested (Compact with Automatic Transmission). They were trying to charge me more than the amount indicated on my reservation. EUROPCAR SUCKS

Too bad I read the negative reviews for Europcar AFTER finding out the hard way that they are run by con artists!

I rented a car through holidayautos.com, paid upfront, and picked up the car in Malaga, Spain with no problem. The car was fine, clean. I drove to Madrid where I had arranged to drop it off at the airport before catching a flight. The drive took longer than planned so by the time my husband and I arrived to the airport we were pressed for time to catch our flight. Of course there was no attendant in the office, so I had to wait 5-10 minutes before turning in the key. The man asked me if there was any damage, which there wasn't, and I told him that we didn't have time to fill up the tank was all. So he took my credit card and made me sign a sheet. I noticed that there was a total of 155 Euros and I asked him why. In my nervous, rushed state I didn't realize that I was trusting him to be honest and didn't quite understand his Spanish, but I gathered that I would only be charged the amount for gas. He gave me the slip and said that was it.

When I returned to the U.S. I received a credit card statement with 260 Euros worth of charges! I called Europcar and they said they were charging me for damages! What damages??????? They said that when I signed the slip I was authorizing them to survey the vehicle and charge me for any damages that they could muster up! Now my credit card company can't do anything because I naively signed the form. What about the remaining 105 Euros, I asked. They claimed that they have a signature for that as well! They are going to try to claim it is for gas, but hopefully I can prove to VISA that the gas should be included in the 155 Euros.

Obviously the lesson I learned is to never trust anyone even if it means miss my flight? I had never had a rental company claim damages that weren't there, but Europcar took advantage of me and did. Now that I am out to ruin their reputation, I realize that they already have a bad one! I'm not the only one they have scammed. So, if you or someone you know is thinking of renting from Europcar, DON'T! It's not worth the cheaper rates because you will end up paying more!

Summary: Europcar is run by con artists who find a way to charge you for fake damages

Horrible company, horrible service. They charged my husband's card an extra 270 pounds and didn't believe us when we told them it happened. We had to send them our statement and fight for about 4 weeks until we got the money credited back...and without so much as an apology! My husband had gone overdrawn because of THEIR error and so had to pay interest and penalty fees with his credit card company. They also lied to us repeatedly about policies and procedures. Their CUSTOMER SERVICE was the most horrendous thing ever. All they seem to want to do is argue with me and call me a liar!! Don't ever rent anything from them - go somewhere you can deal with honest people!!

EuropCar is my favorite rental outfit. I rent from them in Belgium about twice a year. One time my flight was delayed - instead of arriving at 7:30 AM I arrived at midnight. I had called from Washington Dulles to tell that the flight was delayed -- we were supposed to arrive about 9:00 PM but we were three hours late on the already delayed flight. . In Brussels airport, all the car rental booths were closed -- EXCEPT EuropCar, the attendand(she should have close by 11:00 or 10:00PM) had waited for me! Only for me. This is exceptional service. Other passengers on my flight were wondering what to do ... This kind of service is unequalled and I am a loyal customers. Never disappointed so far.

I recently used Europcar in Cabo, and they were pretty shady. We got there, and the van that we had reserved wasn't there. We were told that it was in the shop, and would be back soon. I was later told by a mechanic who had to shuttle half of our group to our destination that it was because the van had been double booked.

They also forced us to buy some insurance that they said was mandated by Mexican law, although they couldn't produce any documentation about it. Furthermore, the my friend's credit card company had explicitly told her to turn down any insurance offered by the rental agency. We ended up having to spend an additional $13 per day because they wouldn't give the car to us unless we did.

As a final act of shadiness, the Europcar agents tried very hard to pitch us a timeshare presentation, telling us for 90 minutes, we could get a $600 coupon towards the use of the rental car. Even though this sounds like a great deal, it just felt shady to have a rental car company hard selling us on a timeshare.

Anyway, the van was delivered to us just a few hours after we expected it, so that worked out OK. At the time of this writing, my friend has been doublechared for the van. If that doesn't get resolved, I'll be back to move this company's rating to a single star.

Europecar/Kemwel
This is very complicated but we rented a car through Kemwel here in the US which books Europcar in Europe. We needed car seats for our 2 and 4 year old so requested them in our online reservation. We paid our bill and received our invoice which stated that any special requests could not be guarenteed. Being the concerned parents that we were, we secured car seats from relatives in Brussels because we did not want our kids traveling without them. We got to Brussels, told the Europcar clerks that we did not need the carseats and proceeded on our merry way without them for the rest of the 3 week trip. When we got home and more than a month after we returned our car, there was a $1,200 charge on our car.

What was it for? After much inquiry it was for renting carseats, not returning them and a theft fee! The office in Brussels acknowledges that we did not use them, nor steal them, corporate Kemwel refuses to credit our account.

We are not rich, we cannot afforda $1200 charge for something we did not use! We are working through Visa now but it is so frustrating HELP...
Arno

Europcar is a huge scam. They provided us with a great price on a rental and charged us double the price. We have emailed and called them on an almost daily basis with NO response. DO NOT rent with this terrible company.