CarTrawler
Reviews and Complaints

I had done 4 back to back bookings for an airport transfer from Budapest airport for 19th oct airport...I did 4 because each time I raised the request it gave me an error message. But later in the day my card got debited 4 times. I immediately cancelled 3 of the orders..and this was a week before travel. I got refund for one of the cancellation but not received for other 2. When I checked with my credit card company they told me Cartrawler has claimed money for all 3 travels..how can they claim for a cancelled travel. I need to know when will I be refunded.
References of cancelled orders are HU464846400, HU464831800, HU464848160

We rented a car online through Holiday Autos (tel 0035620992808), booking reference MT471269040. We paid the whole amount 118.28 eur online for 9 days and our card were debited. On arrival, we could not find appropriate card and we were forced at the desk to cancell booking (late arrival, office closed). After the night we found our credit card but the company refuses to provide the car. We asked and called and emailed many times asking for customer support, but still the company refuses to provide a car, even for a few remaining days till 07.11. no solution provided, no search of solution. Still we paid and have no car. Pls help

[protected]@free.fr Daniel Guillevic

- 3 août 2019 : Réservation N°ES416340480 confirmation N° 1610110
fournisseur OK Rent A Car
Réservation effectuée sur le site de Vueling Cars après achat des billets
d'avion Paris-Alicante le 07/10/2019 et retour le 17/10/2019
Paiement à Car HIire par CB VISA de 63.22€ par Guillemette
Guillevic
- 1er octobre 2019 : Vueling Airlines prévient de l' annulation du vol retour le 17/10
le 2 octobre le vol retour est reporté au 18/10/19, une modification de
la location est demandée à Vueling Cars
- 2 octobre : nouvelle réservation N° ES457587240, fournisseur Gold
Car/Interrent confirmation N° [protected]
Paiement à Car Hire par CB VISA de 45.13 € par Guillemette
Guillevic
- 7 octobre : à l' arrivée à Alicante nous nous présentons au comptoir de GOLD CAR,
l' employé ne parle pas français, uniquement espagnol et anglais, je parle un peu anglais et un peu plus espagnol. Nous ne nous comprenons pas, le client d' un guichet voisin nous fait la traductionet au moment où je vais payer, l' employé refuse de nous fournir la voiture nous obligeant à nous adresser à un autre loueur
En conséquence je demande le remboursement des sommes versées pour une location dont je n' ai pas bénéficié, soit 63.22 +45.13 = 108.35 €

I booked a car from Cape town airport ref number (ZA439350040) from the 4/09/19-08/09/19 and when i arrived at the airport i realized that i forgot my credit card at home and i asked them if i can use cash or use the other card on my existing account to pay for the deposit but they refused i had make a new car rental on another card ref (E831322144) which i made and i came back home i contacted their office asking for refund on the 16/09/2019 and till today i haven't received any feedback from them even my refund.
Mr Sono
[protected]

We booked a return journey from Schipol Airport to our hotel in Amsterdam. Taxi was booked for 1300 hours. We waited where we had been told to on our booking form for 35 minutes - nothing. Tried phoning the number on the booking form - told it did not exist. We then took another taxi - at a cost of 70 Euros! 5 mins into the journey, the original taxi driver texted asking where we were!

We filed a complaint on our return to Edinburgh on 6 October and have heard nothing since, didn't even get an acknowledgement email.

Cannot find an email address for Car Trawler anywhere.

My credit card has been charged for eur 257 without any notice, or information.

The car was prepaid, and I refused all extra insurances, as I had the Axa insurance.

ES447392000

I din not make ane new damages on the car during the rental periode, hovewer, there was a number of damages on the car not mentioned on the documents. I emailed a number of pictures of these to the rental company before driving from the airport.

I booked a car thru the Ryanair/car trawler site. FR463230990 is the booking no.
When we arrived in Toulouse-Blagnac airport Budget car rental had no information about our booking.We paid a deposit of 25euros 22 November 2018. As a result of not getting a car we had to rent a car with another company at great expense, as we were last minute.
We understood we had a confirmed booking and can not understand why the car was not there.The booking was from 17th October 2019 until 24th October 2019.
I would appreciate an explanation, and my deposit back. I have bookedcars thru your site many times and never had any trouble. I am travelling to the UK next month and need a car but am reluctant to use your site again.
Beverley Manolakena
[protected]@gmail.com

my booking #US446527720

I booked a car using ID90 from Dollar in Fort Lauderdale using my debit car, however because the car rental do not accept the card I used to make the booking for the deposit. I had to cancel the booking. I had to withdraw money and ask my cousin to taxi to the airport to use his credit card and make a new reservation.

I just call your customer service and they are saying the system is showing I cannot be refunded because I didn't have enough money to pay the deposit, which is erroneous.

I will like to get my case reopen and challenge for my refund.

I work for Caribbean Airlines and we have to use ID90 to book flights, cars and cruises.

my email is [protected]@gmail.com

Looks forward to a favourable reply.

Courtney Demming

Dear,
On 15 August i booked a flight with my family from Amsterdam Airport to Tangier Morocco with Air Arabia (PNR [protected]). Air Arabia offerd me to rent a car, so i did. I paid €174 with a creditcard. The departure was on 18 October.
On 17 October i searched in my mail for the voucher to print. Because this was not the first time for me to rent a car in this way. But i couldnt find the voucher in my mail. I didnt even remember at which company i rented the car. I called Air arabia but they couldnt help me. It was not their problem. Sonibleft to morocco without a voucher. There are just a some rental companys amd i asked each of them "did i rent a car at your company?". Finally i fount my reservation at Budget. But he didnt want to give me the keys of the car because i couldnt provide the voucher. He said "you didnt pay us but you paid cartrawler. Is we cant provide them with the voucher they will not pay us. This was very stressfull because i was with my wive and 3 children and we where fed up with the travel. So i spent some hours at airport trying to call you and air arabia. But without succes. So i had to go to Sixt and rent an other car with double of the price.
I am very disappointed in Air Arabia and car trawler. Why couldnt i find any link on internet to find my voucher? Why do you just send 1 email and thats it? I cant even remember i received an email! This kind of information should be accesable from every place. I was not alone but with my family. There was just 1 company Sixt that had 1 car available for double of the price! What if there was nothing available? This is unbelieveble
The amount i paid to Sixt, i couldnt afford it. And would like to receive that back. This is the first time in 15 years i go on vacation with my family, and is it ruined in one day.
I dont know what to do
Name: Samir Azzouz
Birthday: 27-07-1986
Rental date Budget: 18-25 October 2019
Picking point: Tangier Airport/ Morocco

I rent a car through TRANSAVIA on internet with CarTrawler for my travel in Valencia (Spain). One person of their service provider in Valencia don't want to give me the car because my drive licence is a little old (38 years old). I rent a car with another car rental company with no problem with my drive licence. I ask CarTrawler to refund the car rental (93€) and they say they don't want to the refund. So run away if CarTrawler is intermediate of your car rental.

We booked & paid for a return transfer only no one showed up to take us back to the airport not even a courtesy phone call when I got thru to cabforce she put me on hold whilst she spoke to our driver "sorry he's stuck in traffic & won't be there for over an hour try get a taxi" she said there was nothing she could do ! Absolutely furious & no taxis available we paid a lady to take us to the airport ! Cabforce have not replied to my emails I hope you will ?
Reference no. ES453670160
Provider ref. 222988

i reserved a car from FRANCE and i was suppose to pick it up in Fort Lauderdale Florida USA. I came to the desk on the september 22 2019 and the guy behind the desk talled me he can't give me the car ! it was 22:00 pm. I tell him : what should i do at that time? He answer me: Take a taxi!
I paid USD:854.27 the integrality was paid when i made the reservation and no car!
I went to HERTZ to rent another car and it cost me another USD 1200.00
Now i want my 854.27 $ back and at that point...Nothing ! Nobody answer at Cartrawler they send me back to NORWEGIAN who is the plane company wich i travel with? I think that Cartrawler is NOT HONEST and treat their custommers very badely! But i want my money back and when i wil be in France i will go to my lawer. Don't use that company they're no good!

Untrustworthy company, hired a car for nine days, at a quoted price of £187.35 through CarTrawler which included comprehensive insurance.

Charged a total of £405.93 as Firefly who provided the car also charged me for the hire and additional insurance.

A complete scam don't go near either of these companies.
Both Firefly and CarTrawler have refused to do anything about the situation.
CarTrawler have a deliberately difficult website so as to not allow you to easily contact them

I would like to complain on the woman who served us on the arrival to Abby Car Rhodes 29/09/19. We came to desk with the woman who supposed to by our driver for holiday. We booked axa insurance through the Car Trawler. When we came she was really polite but the problem started when the driver asked me to give her my card for deposit as she had around 4 credit card but wasn't cure about pincodes. I gave receptionist my creditcard so she could 1000.0eur deposit but she refused to do it as I wasn't the name driver and she needed names driver credit card. than the name driver told the receptionist she can use the debit card on the drivers name and she have refused it again. telling us she has to use credit card with drivers name on. we again tried to tell receptionist she can use the drivers credit cards to take deposit 1000eur without pincode just the block 1000 Eur deposit. she told us she cannot do this too. then forced us to cancel additional cover I made and took her 0acces cover for 140 euros. We didn't want to do it bud she told us we wont be able to take car. and she also promiss if I cancel the additional insurance through the website I made the money will be returned. I cancelled insurance and buy the abbycar 0acces insurance. was waiting for refound but found out today that the refound wont be made as I cancelled policy less than 24 hours in advance .
I don't think is fair as the person on the reception desk was realy pushing on us to buy therin insurance and didn't want us to sort our situation on our own

I have reserved a car at Malaga airport from Firefly via Car Trawler, reservation N°ES574173430, and paid 45.04 € for this. May 31 - June 5, 2019.

As is normal, I gave my credit card as a guarantee at the airport.
And was debited 113.74 €. Meaning, the total is more than three times the agreed rental charge (there was no additional charge, damage, etc..) and by the way, I never received an invoice.

I contacted Car Trawler and had a chat on June 28, where I was promised some more information, but nothing at all has happened

Michel Hertz

michel.[protected]@mail.com

Dear cartrawler,

We did book a car during our Flight booking at Cheap Tickets.com and they are refering not to you.

During this car rent booking we get transfered to Cartrawler, from the moment we wanted to pay the car (under FI564988710 /changed to FI444961920.) everything went wrong first we have paid 2 times through an error... and we even got a reminder to pay a third time.
This wasfinally arranged through several phone calls.

During the last check-up (about 1 week before departure) I saw that my name as main driver was listed while the credit card was in the name of my wife, (and this was regarding your customer rep. high risky, this is of course our fault, but I wanted to change this through a offered web template ( called change Main driver name) via your web site. I received a confirmation and the message that this could take a few days.

1 day before actual departure I saw that the name had not yet been changed, according to Cartrawler it was indeed not yet processed, and this change could only be processed in case of a cancellation (at a fee of € 50, - and new booking, only this would be at the current rate, which was almost double the already placed booking, they admitted that something had gone wrong but that would be their procedure ...

After a lot of tug-of-war I was able to convert the car rental to another company, of course for a small surcharge of over € 60, - This is in our opinion just pure scam. Especially we have the possibility to change a main driver via the website, this will not be implemented and the customer will be penalized with extra costs.

So please do trasnfer us the extra pais money back

I followed all of the instructions CarTrawler provided and upon arrival in Rome went to the SIXT desk at FCO on Saturday 1st September with all of the documentation that CarTrawler had instructed me to take. The woman at the SIXT desk indeed asked to see the hardcopy of the email that CarTrawler had sent me and the hardcopy of the provided voucher. Initially her attitude was friendly and helpful but when she saw that the booking had been made through CarTrawler her demeanor changed. She asked to see my drivers' license. I provided my UK drivers' license which she would not accept because my residence is the US. I provided my US drivers' license which she did not accept because she said it was not valid in Italy (not only is this factually incorrect because of the reciprocal arrangements between the US and Italy, but I have never had an issue using a US drivers' license to hire a vehicle anywhere in Italy in the 15 years I have been travelling there). I started to suspect that something was wrong and this was confirmed when she told me I needed to have an International Drivers Permit. Here's the thing - I do actually have one of those. They are very rare and not needed in Italy but I was able to show this to her along with my passport and valid credit card. I was then told by the woman that I would not be allowed to take my pre-booked and pre-paid for car because I had made the booking on the CarTrawler website and not on SIXT.com. If you have a similar experience to this you need to know that all of this was a smokescreen. Subsequent investigations and conversations with members of staff at multiple vehicle rental desks at FCO have shown that these companies simply will not honour CarTrawler bookings. CarTrawler know this and continue to sell rentals to customers safe in the knowledge that they will get to keep the money, not have to pay the third party (in my case SIXT), and then just fob the customer off when they complain.
As soon as I left the car rental office I called the CarTrawler customer service number and explained what had happened. The representative I spoke to immediately started trying to invent reasons for the SIXT woman's behavior but this was not appropriate because only she and I were involved in the discussion and I can categorically state that the sole reason given by her for not allowing me to take the car that I had booked and paid for was that I had made the booking on the CarTrawler website. I therefore followed CarTrawler's complaints process and requested the immediate return of the $120.08 that I paid for this car rental. My CarTrawler case number is [protected]. In order to investigate the case CarTrawler requested the following documents all of which were provided:
• The photo/scan of the Payment Card used at the rental desk showing the following information: the first 6 digits of the card, the name of the card holder, expiry date and the bank's logo (please cover any irrelevant information).
• A photo/scan of the drivers licence.
• A photo/scan of the International Driving Permit.
• A photo/scan of the additional form of the photo ID (passport).
• A proof of your own Loss Damage Waiver Insurance presented at the rental desk.
• A copy of any receipts/ documents/ photographs that are relevant to your case.
• Your flight details and flight number.
Incredibly, after providing everything they asked for, CarTrawler then invented a story where I was a ‘no-show' at the vehicle rental office at FCO writing that as a result they are "not able to offer a refund on this occasion"!
They explained that "A 'no-show' occurs for the following reasons:
1 - You didn't inform us about your cancellation prior to your pick-up time.
2 - You failed to pick up the car at the arranged time and date.
3 - You failed to provide the documentation that's required to pick up the car.
4 - You failed to provide a credit card in the main driver's name with enough available funds on it.
In the event of any of the above, no refunds will be made to you."
Since none of these criteria applied in my case I again got in touch with CarTrawler and asked again for the return of my money explaining why their justification for not returning was invalid in each case. They are still to this date refusing to return my money.
At the time of writing there are 47 pages of complaints about CarTrawler on TripAdvisor and I am not at all surprised. They have been described variously as conmen and crooks and that has certainly been my experience.

Maria Sala
26/9/19 Book ref it451672720 confirm j1624874156 with Dollar
26/9/19 10:00 an email to say that the company was changed to Budget book ref it453906400 confirm 16575912gb3
26/9 16:30 Bergamo airport at Avis/budget I was told that no cars were available, first they said that I only had a booking ref and when I showed them the confirmation number they said it was a mess up with the computer. Without even an apology I was told to look for another car.
I went to Hertz/dollar and a very nice lady helped me out. She phoned car trawler and spoke to Simone, who said I could rent a car with any other company and get reimbursed, we asked for a confirmation email but it didn't arrive. The only car I could find would have cost €1000. So we phoned again, this time Piera answered but after few minutes she even put the phone down on us, as if it was my fault. How rude!
Third time lucky. Francesca answered and she tried to find a car. No car in Milan, Lecco. Just a car in Como for the following day 27/9 with Maggiore. It454154320.
The net result.
Two hours at the airport being by some rudely treated.
No taxi. So Bus to Bergamo station and then train to Lecco with two cases. A journey that should have lasted 1 hour by car lasted 5 hours!
Following day bus to Como to pick up the car. Other 2 hours journey.
Francesca said that I'll be reimbursed the 60 euros for dropping the car at Bergamo plus £40 for the inconvenience.
Nevertheless I feel I was incredibly badly treated. I appreciate there was Salone della Moda in Milan but this isn't an excuse to not honour your contract. To crown it all, very probably I developed a nasty cough as a consequence.
Regards
Maria Sala

Cartrawler (in partnership with Ryanair) is a rip-off and a scam of an operation. In a dubious partnership with Ryanair it lures unsuspecting customers by 'special discounts'. They are unprofessional, unreasanble and unhelpful. Apart from that they want to block a wapping additional £2.5K excess on your card on top of the car supplier's, in our case it was Goldcar's €1.7K, without prior warning, you only discover this in the booking confirmation. Their tel numbers given on the booking confirmation are deadends, we called several times and waited for over an hour! Our calls were never picked up. The website chat was another automatic screensmoke, they can only apparently 'help with aftersales', i.e. when they have taken and run off with your money! Our story: our Ryanair flight was delayed by 3 hours arriving in Marseille at 1am on Sat, 28th Sept - every other car hire office was open except for Goldcar! On the opening of the office at 7am the Goldcar rep told us that the booking was annulled a new booking would need to be made at three times the price of the original one, for which no refund could be offered. The Goldcar rep also lied to our faces saying she's been waiting for us the night before, until we told her to go and fetch the note we left at 1am in the key drop box! Having then spoken to a few other car hire places about our situation we got the impression that Goldcar clients are ripped off in a similar fashion on a daily basis.