CarTrawler
Reviews and Complaints

Car booked via Emirates Airlines on Car Trawler 28 Feb. Booking reference BE325491240 confirmed by email on Feb 28. The Car Trawler system cancelled reservation the same day.

On 6 June my credit card was charged for the initial rental agreement despite it being cancelled by them. I was obliged to find another vehicle (much more expensive!) with a different company on the spot at the airport.

I sent 3 emails to request a refund. No response received still. There is no phone number either so I suspect a fraudulent action by them and am considering legal action if no response sent.

I received an email from dollar rental company stating that Cartrawler handles

billing issues for their company and Uber rental car services; stating they cant issue me a refund for my reservation (which I kept on Sat March 2nd at 8:30 am) they (the car rental company) wanted to over charge me past my receipt statement amount. I decided not to book a car for the 7 days I paid for in advance as a reservation. Now non of these companies want to issue me a refund for my reservation/ not even half the money I paid for the car and the days- nothing was put back into my account. Uber redirected me back to dollar car rental; now this morning dollar car rental sent me to Cartrawler- which does not exist in the real world: due to no email, no contact, no chat app works for this company! I got cheated out of a car and my money this week!

Sirs

Please be aware of my complaint below regarding Firefly Car Rental. Booked by Car Trawler

Although I am aware of this also happening with other rental companies.

And this should be stopped.

Booked through Car Trawler via Easyjet

Firefly Car Rental OCJ3RD

ES753540660

I am writing this formal complaint regarding a Fraudulent transaction of one of Firefly Employees at Alicante Airport.

The vehicle was booked as a Flydrive via Easyjet Website, which liked to Car Trawler who booked it through Firefly, who's is owned by Hertz Global,

so by association, this Fraudulent Transaction affects the reputation of all concerned, and legally responsible by association.

We booked the vehicle and had premium insurance added which clearly states no further insurance is required at the airport.

We went to collect the vehicle and the man behind the counter checked and brought up the firefly contract, he stated you have premium insurance so all is covered but we will

authorise a deposit of 350 euro against the card for its return, we had no problem with this.

He then went on to advise the fuel policy was Full to Full and underlined this, and advised we must refuel the vehicle within 10 kilometers from the airport,

and bring in the receipt for the fuel. Then advised if we did not refuel the company would charge for the fuel and pointed out the top righthand side of the contract stating estimated charges,

and then advised the vehicle was diesel, and wrote Diesel under the Estimated Charges and asked for this to be initialled to confirm we understood the fuel policy.

Then asked us to sign the rental contract, He then handed us the keys and told us where to collect the vehicle. there was no further conversation regarding the vehicle.

We returned the car fully fuelled and provided the receipt for a petrol station within 10kl as advised, the staff on return told us no fees applicable all was in order and the deposit

would be cleared within 10 days, Again nothing was mentioned regarding SCDW as again this would have been DECLINED AND DISPUTED THERE AND THEN.

On my return home and checking my bank account yesterday, You Firefly - charged my card on 10 december 2023 for 196.69 euro BY FIREFLY MADRID !

I have tried emailing firefly but the email is returned, the contact form on the website states page not available, i also copied in Easyjet, Car Trawler, and Hertz being the owner of Firefly.

Firefly cannot be contacted via your website, it states " page not available and the email [protected]@firefly,com is returned as undeliverable.

I have copies of all documents and the petrol receipt and photos of the cars fuel tank in the airport and the petrol station was 3.7kilometers from the airport, its dated as proof.

Easyjet have responded stating Firefly/Hertz are stating this is a charge for the Super Collision Damage Waiver, which is Fraudulent as we were NEVER offered this and would have DECLINED this

had it been mentioned at the airport.

From further investigation it would appear this is a regular Fraudulent practice by Firefly and several reviews people have also never been asked or accepted this charge, which

shows that either the employees are criminals or the company Firefly and Hertz is condoning this criminal practice.

For Easyjet and Car Trawler / Holiday Autos - you by association to Firefly and this is also not just Firefly in Spain, are accepting their fraudulent practice as acceptable,

by continuing to use them and therefore your reputation will also be damaged.

This kind of deception is illegal and should be dealt with in an appropriate manner.

All companies should have forms that do not hide information or have their staff using deception to charge addition fees.

Forms should have Specific sections for this Super Damage Collision Waiver, written in Full not SDCW.

It should be a mandatory requirement to point this out and have a Specific section that states charges are accepted or declined with a full customer signature and company representative signature, not try and use fraudulent practices using Initials given for refuelling policy as an authorisation to

Steal from customers under the pretext of you initialled the charges for SCDW.

Without Prejudice

Mark and Jennifer Donovan

Copy

Copies to Easyjet, Car Trawler, Hertz CEO, Hertz Executive, Hertz Customer Service, Firefly

Copy Solicitor

Copy European Car Rental Conciliation Service.

DELIVERY AND READ RECEIPTS REQUESTED.

Considering that a "significant delay" would be defined as one that affects the departure or arrival time of a domestic flight by three hours or more (or by at least six hours for an international flight), my delay was not severe at all.

As soon as I arrived at the airport I contacted Cartrawler and after a while they said the driver didn't answer our calls, so you have to pay for another transfer. (Attached screenshots)

That day all the flights were on delay due to the weather unpredictible conditions. I wrote down my flight number, so it can be known in advance, meanwhile I was in my 18 hours flight.

This was the written mail to my compensation.

According to them you have to book your transfers considering you will arrive 3 hours late or more to receive the service. Obviously flights are delayed everyday and then this kind of service has no sense, it is a total fraud.

Dear Marta,

Thank you for taking the time to contact CarTrawler.

Please be advised that in case of a severe flight delay you need to refer to the following section of our Terms of service:

'In the event of a flight delay, the local supplier may be able to accommodate a small delay, however this is dependent on their availability. The supplier is not obligated to wait indefinitely. If the supplier cannot accommodate the new arrival time, the customer may need to make local arrangements upon arrival. The original booking would be non-refundable in this case.

We are not responsible for any additional costs incurred due to flight delay/cancellation and would recommend approaching your Airline/travel insurance provider regarding reimbursement in these situations.'

In light of the above and in keeping with the terms and conditions of your transfer agreement, we are, unfortunately, not in a position to offer a refund in this instance.

Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience caused by this decision.

Kind Regards,

Tomasz

Ground Transportation Team

The 04/11/2023 I hired a car for two weeks.I paid through PayPal. When I get to the Company Green motion at the airport, I had to leave some money stuck as a fee to get the car. The Company did not accept a debit card just a credit card. As I did not have a credit card I could not hire the car. I wanted to cancel the rental but the Company did not cancel it and charged me the whole amount of the two weeks of booked. They could have charged me just a small penaly.

I am sharing this in hopes that other consumers will read it BEFORE not doing business with these scammers.

I booked a car to which I paid a premium insurance, only to find out that the rental company will still secure a $2,250 deposit on my credit card and they will use the ENTIRE amount if the car gets any scratches or dents. When I asked them to cancel the useless policy they said it needed to be cancelled more than 24 hours prior to the rental period, ignoring that I booked the rental only 2 h in advance. I wasn't informed of none of the important facts - that they need 2,250$ security deposit and that I can't cancel the policy if I don't needed it.

I will NEVER do business again with these scammers!

DK785870140 was booking number I have sent a complaint to online chat before this was the booking number. The driver did not wait at the airport. There was a delay in our luggage coming out. I spoke to one of the other drivers he said he left. I have complained before they have not refunded me my money this service is appalling and I have complained to Emirates

I have complained on their on line chat and haven’t heard or received a refund

Reservation: ES78998550.

We were met with a closed Thifty office 23 October. Thifty knew about a delay, working with Norwegian Air Shuttle. They got a message. Instead of arrival 23.55 we arrived 01.15. We had to take a taxi to the nearest hotel for the night. Taxa waiting. No free rooms. Next hotel. Okay. Next day back to the airport and the Thifty office to pick up the reserved car.

First of all we had a lot of trouble standing in the middle of the night trying to reach Competa as our destination. So we needed a car. We have paid taxi twice, hotel and a day more for rental. And lost time.

Booking ID PT778828820

Name – William [censored]an

email booked under – bill.[censored][protected]@blueyonder.co.uk through KLM

I have tried several times to bring a resolution to my request for a refund for the transfer Caparica – Lisbon airport 20 September 2023.

Here once again is the gist of my complaint.

I purchased a return transfer through KLM for Lisbon Airport – Av 1 de Maio 38, Costa de Caparica for 10 September and a return transfer 20 September.

The driver picked us up from the airport on time but was taking us to Fonte da Telha which is 10 kilometres away from Costa de Caparica.

Fortunately, as we had been there before, I knew where we should be going and redirected him. Even then he was very reluctant to drop us off, insisting we were wrong and he had the correct address.

You will appreciate I was very concerned about our return transfer and tried to contact you to confirm the address. The only ways your system allowed this was by live chat or phone call. I tried live chat on numerous occasions over 2 days without a single response from a live agent. I phoned twice but each time I was cut off after 30 minutes waiting.

Your website only allows a cancellation of a transfer, not an amendment so, having no choice since it proved impossible to contact you, I cancelled. This was on 13 September, 7 full days before the return transfer.

I was quite convinced in the light of the first journey that the driver for the return transfer would have gone to the wrong address and we would have been left waiting and would have missed our flight.

I have had several email conversations with you but each time get the comment that we should have cancelled before we actually set off for the outward journey and we were simply referred to your terms and conditions which insist of cancellation BEFORE the first flight. Why would we do that?

The agents have failed to take into consideration my reasons for cancelling the transfer, something I did not want to do, but this course of action was FORCED on me by the circumstances that the taxi firm had the wrong pick up address.

All I am asking is that you take a more reasonable view of events and issue me with a refund for the cancelled journey.

William [censored]an

This company makes scamming an art form. In 40 years of renting cars all over the world, I have never been subjected to such an open and devious campaign to sell additional insurance. At face value, staff are friendly and helpful, but then present a long series of horror stories about what can go wrong on Romanian roads and how much it will cost to fix even the smallest ding - all accompanied by unverifiable photos. A new one on me was how they will charge at least €50 for "additional cleaning" on return if the extra insurance is not taken. If not, I would be responsible for washing and valeting the care before return - as far as I know, this is an outright lie and probably an illegal requirement and I was given an example based on a semi-racist story of a large family who had left a vehicle in such bad a state. I was told that my longstanding annual excess policy with Insurance4carhire would not cover such disasters - I have subsequently confirmed this was not correct. Finally I was told I would not receive emergency roadside assistance without their insurance. This convincing litany went on for many minutes at 1am and to get out of the place, I took the extra insurance, which cost twice as much as the original rental deal. While Klass Wagen will no doubt give their standard reply about customers being carefully offered all the insurance options, this takes no account whatsoever of the blackmailing attitude taken by their staff and as a company, they must deliberately inculcate this approach during training. If someone with my experience can be fooled by this deviousness, beware before buying - their apparently cheap rates when booking are a cover to pull the unsuspecting renter into paying for extra costs. As a final insult, when I asked to extend the rental for 4 hours due to a cancelled flight, I was quoted €154 without any details given of how this was calculated and when the original rate had been ~€130 for 8 days! This says it all about the company's corrupt business model.

I booked a car with CarTrawler online for my trip to Verona from 4th September to 12th September. The booking reference was IT787761380. My flight arrived at 20:30 on the day, an hour and a half later than expected. When I arrived at the rental desk, the Thrifty desk was closed, despite all other car rental services being opened. After trying for over an hour to contact someone, I was resisnged with my partner to book a hotel for 100 euros at the local airport hotel. We then arrived at the rental desk as soon as it opened the following morning to take out car. Upon arriving, however, we were advised that our car booking had been cancelled and no cars were available. In this period the rental desk had only been closed so I was stunned at how this could be the case. I was advised nothing could be done and after speaking with CarTrawler for an hour on the phone was told a complaint would be raised to help me get a refund of my money and that I would be consulted about this process. I then had to spend another 400 euros on a rental from another organisation.

After returning from my trip, I called to discover the status of the complaint and was advised that my complaint had been closed. I spoke with Muhammed about this, a case manager, on 15th September, He told me I hadn't been contacted about it because the system had problems so they just closed it and didn't realise they hadn't contacted me. I was appalled that in addition to taking a booking fee of £307 for my car, noone had tried to consult with me through a complaints process.

I paid upfront and online for a service I never recieved and do not understand how a case may be closed without speaking with a customer. As noone had tried to contact us when our flight was delayed or advised on the situation, I was equally appalled.

I would hope this is just a misunderstanding and that the money I paid for this will not just be accepted by an organisation who had done nothing for it.

Hello.

I booked and paid $465. for a car rental on-line using my debit visa card. It was accepted with no problem. When I got to Edmonton airport I learned that without a credit card I could not rent the car. We were stranded in Edmonton airport with no vehicle. I have tried since August 31st to contact you for a refund but I have not received any response. The 'help chat' does not work. We want our money back as we did not pick up the car because we couldn't.

Barbara Lott

Booking number: CA101250630

we rented a car in brazil through Rental24H and paid in advance in full. on arrival to pick up the car the vehicle we booked wasnt available and we were downgraded and promised a refund for the difference. The local rental company Foco then proceeded to charge us in full again. we were extremely tired from the journey and had appointments so needed to go after spending two hours trying to get a vehicle at all. Foco said the Rental24H would refund us the money they had taken. when we gave the car back (a day early) they again took ages and said they would refund the difference in the downgrade to one of our party's brazilian account which never happened and that they werent responsible for the double charging. we tried to contact Rental 24H several times to no avail so zero help and support and no refund. This company is the worst, never use them

Car Trawler booking ref:IT 3274 6380

On the 12th may 2023 we received confirmation that our payment was received. We boarded the plane at Manchester airport at 05-55 on the 18th May and landed right on time at Ciampino airport in Rome, meaning we had time to spare before our transfer was due to arrive, we grabbed a quick coffee and then went outside to wait for that transfer.

When it got to 30mins after the time promised we tried in vane to get through to the company using the 2 numbers provided, we phoned time and time again but without any success, an automated answer that kept going to voicemail, we did leave mail but nobody ever got back to us. A lovely lady in the airport's information office told us she wasn't surprised in the slightest, she was more than aware of this companies tactics.

Almost 2 hours later, and still no contact or transfer vehicle, we realised we had to make other arrangements which cost us more money and wasted our first day in Rome, it was only a short break and so we couldn't afford to lose any time. Our hotel kindly arranged return travel to the airport on the 21st, costing even more money.

Since then we have tried and tried and tried to get answers and to get our money refunded, 180Euros, as well as an apology for this debacle. There is an interesting article in the Irish Times regarding to the profits being made by the company, reading all of the stories on here it should come as no surprise they are making these profits.

Our party included 2 NHS nurses and an auxiliary nurse, they deserve to treated with far more respect.

I booked a car (IT731319700) for a two weeks period in August in Italy for a total cost of 710 eur.

The general terms and conditions mention that failing to present (among others) a valid credit card will result in the company car to not release you the car... And I presented a Revolut Visa card which appears to be a debit card, although it had more than the deposit amount needed (1800 eur vs. 1200 eur needed).

No other reasonable solution could be found: do a money transfer for blocking the amount, or using another credit card (because the name was not matching my driving license). The only solution proposed was to pay upfront an extra insurance of +- 600 eur for the 2 weeks (which after some discussion was reduced to 500 eur...), which I refused to pay.

It is completely dishonest and exaggerated to keep this strict Terms & Conditions policy, and I do not understand how this is even permitted: paying 100% for a service that in the end is not used at all is a pure scandal.

A more customer-friendly company would, in the case a customer fails to present one of the requested document, suggest a refund minus some administrative fee for covering the little extra time it takes to do the refund. But keeping the full amount for an unused service is outrageous.

Booked a car from car rental company "Surprice" to be picked up at Milan Malpensa airport for 284,49 euro charged by Cartrawler from my credit card. Surprice was not able to process my credit card, so no rental car was delivered. Cartrawler refuses to pay back my money "because there are abbreviations in the name on my credit card". Upon pick-up, I showed all required documents including ID, driver's license and credit card, and it was 100% clear that the credit card was mine and corresponded to the one used for the payment to Cartrawler. What a scam!

BOOKING ID. ES777861460

A taxi was booked from Alicante airport to Benidorm (booking details attached) our flight was delayed by 4 hours so our driver had left and we had pay for an alternative. I could not contact Cartrawler as the access code sent did not work. I called Cartrawler and could not speak to anyone as they directed me to the website (the call cost £3.20 screen shot attached) As I booked through Ryanair I assumed the driver would know the flight delay. I attach screenshots & details - I would like a refund of the unused taxi fare due to the flight delay - I attach copy of the gate we had to pay for an alternative taxi.

Date. 17th August

Flight Booking ref QGCSPJ

Flight number FR9185

I recently had a deeply concerning experience with a car rental company operating at Miami Airport, and I feel compelled to share my cautionary tale to prevent others from falling victim to a blatant scam. My family's trip took an unfortunate turn due to what can only be described as a classic bait-and-switch maneuver.

I had meticulously booked and paid for a car rental, complete with the necessary insurance coverage, to ensure a smooth arrival for my wife and children at Miami Airport. However, upon their arrival at the rental office, chaos ensued. It was midnight, and the last thing anyone expected was to be hit with distressing news: the reserved car was suddenly unavailable.

What unfolded next was a shockingly audacious scheme. My family was told that the very same car I had booked was indeed available, but here's the catch: it would require an additional payment of $340. As if that weren't enough, the situation escalated further as they were coerced into purchasing insurance at a staggering cost of $45 per day.

This deceitful tactic, known as the "bait and switch," is a manipulative ploy that leaves customers feeling trapped and exploited. By advertising one price and then revealing hidden costs upon arrival, these rental companies capitalize on travellers' vulnerability and fatigue after a long journey. It's not just a matter of financial strain; it's a violation of trust and tarnishing of what should be a smooth travel experience.

Before this experience, I had heard warnings about such scams, but I never anticipated falling prey to one myself. It's evident that this car rental company's priorities lie in maximizing its profits, even if it means sacrificing customer satisfaction and ethical business practices.

I implore anyone considering renting a car at Miami Airport, or anywhere else for that matter, to exercise extreme caution. Research the company thoroughly, read reviews, and if possible, opt for reputable rental agencies with transparent pricing policies. Document every step of the booking process, keep all correspondence and ensure you fully understand the terms and conditions, including potential hidden fees.

Let my family's unfortunate encounter serve as a stark reminder to remain vigilant against these dishonest practices. We deserve better than to be taken advantage of during what should be a joyful and memorable journey. Stand united against such scams, and together, we can make informed choices that safeguard our travel experiences.

Booked via EasyJet. They hid a requirement for an international license in the fine print for picking up a rental car in Italy and wouldn't issue a refund when the vendor would not release the vehicle. For context, both my wife and I used to live in Europe and go there at least once a year. We rent cars every year in Europe. We rented a car in Sardinia 2 years ago. We rented a car in this instance, one desk over from where our car rental with car trawler was supposed to be picked up, with no problem and only our US license.

Hi how are you I reservation the for 6 day and me when I am arriving late they said the car it’s cancel I told them they should any body call or send email for because me I am not told them to cancel the reservation and after I call the company they said the money not refunded i told the now only you take money and doesn’t not do any thing ,, I swear that not good and I want my money returned

My reservation number for car PL779414860