GoldCar Rental
Reviews and Complaints

Arrived at Girona Airport (GRO) Aug 12th 2017 at 20:30 with my young family. rental reservation number [protected]
Was told I had to pay an extra €520 for an unpaid fine from a previous (2015) rental. They claimed the boot cover was missing upon return, and that 'special cleaning' was required (it was only a beach holiday, so would have been dust/sand at worst).
Saturday night, middle of August, so clearly I had no other options but to pay (on top of the €700-ish for the initial rental) the demand before they'd release the car. No other firms had cars available so I was left hugely out of pocket. This is on top of the usual rubbish about up-front charges for the full-to-full policy (incase you return it empty) and the extra insurance (even though I paid maximum levels of cover when I booked the rental in England.
Annoyingly I have used Goldcar many times since 2015 with no problem at all-it seems the 'penalty' was applicable only to the local Girona Airport desk. I will never use them again and if anyone has any tips for complaints procedures or claims chasing please let me know. I am requesting a full reimbursement of the extra money I have had to pay. The claim (which I had no choice to pay) is completely unprovable and no one from Goldcar has EVER contacted me to tell me what happened since Aug 2015.

I hired a vehicle on 13 August to 23th August from Palma Airport. On collecting the car I noticed a number of marks and scratches on the rear bumper. The checkout form was amended to reflect this at the Goldcar office and signed (with stamp). I have a copy of this and have attached. After my return back home i checked my credit card bill and noticed that you charged me 200€. I checked the bill on your website and noticed that you charged me the 200€ for a damage on the rear bumber. The damage was recorded by the rental agent just after checked out the car! Please look at the enclosed pictures and return the additional deposit. Thank you.

Contract no [protected]/[protected]
Hi
I hire a car from your company on the 20th August from palma airport.I received my credit card statement to day to find that you have charged me £152.36 then you have refunded me for £40.64.I am very puzzled about this.can you please tell me what the charge is for.because I was not told about any extra charges when I picked up the car.
Many thanks
Patrick Napoli

I had to travel to Tenerife at short notice, after my father took seriously ill while on holiday there. I booked a car for 8 days with Goldcar at short notice, as I had only booked a 1 way flight and didn't know when I would be returning. As I was in a rush to make visiting hours at the hospital when I arrived, I didn't have time to check the car, and took pictures of the vehicle instead. Sadly, my father passed away the next day, and as a result, I returned the car 5 days early. After returning the car, €200 was taken from my card, due to damage on the rear bumper. When I checked my photos, the damage was clearly there when I collected the car. I called customer service immediately, and they said that if I emailed the pictures, then they would refund the charge. They firstly took over 4 weeks to respond to my email, during which time I started to incur charges on my credit card for the money that they had taken. They then replied to say that because the damage was not marked on the check out sheet, they had the right to take a charge, despite knowing that the damage was already there. I had further asked whether they could refund a €50 charge that they also took because the petrol was not full when I returned the car. They obviously had the right to take this charge. However, since I had returned the car 5 days early due to the death of my father, I thought they may be willing to waive the fee, given that they were already making significant financial benefit from my father's death. However, they refused to even consider this, and took the extra charge anyway. Car rental companies have a poor reputation for caring about customers, but I have never come across such a heartless and cynical company in any line of business, anywhere. Goldcar are a disgrace, and no one should ever rent a car from them. Pay extra if needed to use another company that does not treat its customers like scum.

I rented a car in Barcelona airport for less than 24hrs, paid for the full insurance and paid the refundable €110 for fuel. Because it's full insurance, nobody checked the car with me on pick up. Fuel refilled with receipts on the seat! Dropped off the car very early in the morning to catch my flight and 2 weeks after my fuel refund is not yet back.
Called them and they said there was a tray missing in the car and that's why they held back my fuel money!
This is incrediblly fraudulent! What tray? I pad for fuel and brought it back full, I paid for full insurance and still they are saying a tray is missing! I've sent a mail to the complaints dept but from the numerous feedbacks im seeing on various sites about them, I'm not sure they will respond! Fingers crossed!

I was told that I had to pay additional €150 as we were dropping off the vehicle at 4.00am on sept 4 because it's outside office hours. I advised the extremely rude clerk on the desk that I had purchased additional insurance already through axa.
I was very tired and advised I could just call and cancel if I changed my mind.
I've looked into the details and I do not need this insurance, I have paid the €15 for sdr due to drop off being outside office hours.
I have called customer services but they have said I have to complain fir my refund through here.
Please refund the affiontal insurance as I do not need or wAnt this.
Please also note that the derive light for the vehicle came on within 10mins of us leaving the airport! Not great rude unhelpful staff, insurance that's not needed and a car that needs a service!

We have made an official compaint with goldcar customer services but don't hold out any hope.

See

Dear MARTIN ROBERT,

Thank you for contacting Goldcar Rental. Your query has been received and assigned the file number 1353364.

Details of your query:

1st level:
2nd level: / Additional charges - Extras
Comments: Upon arrival at Palma airport, I presented my paperwork to collect the vehicle & even though I insisted that I had CDW insurance I was informed that I had to take your 'Cobertura Super' which cost an additional 123.93 euros. The attendant did not give us any other option and was distinctly rude and evasive. I have evidence to show that my insurance was taken at the same time as the original booking via AutoEurope. This would have been easily visible on your systems. As far as I am concerned the ‘cobertura super’ was an act of mis-selling by your agent and I therefore expect a refund of 123.93 euros. I trust that you would welcome the opportunity to resolve the situation and I look forward to hearing from you.
Our Customer Services Department will send you a reply as soon as possible.

You can consult the details and progress of your query at any stage on our webpage www.goldcar.es, in the Customer Access Section, supplying your customer or agency details and indicating the file number quoted above.

We would like to take the opportunity to thank you for using our services and we hope to see you again in the near future.

Regards,

Contract No [protected] Vehicle 4641 JXC
The above vehicle was rented from Alicante for just under a month. Upon collection the vehicle had numerous small amounts of damage, not all of it recorded on the collection sheet. Before I left I asked a member of staff to record the damage but she refused saying that it was too small, but assured me that she would electronically update their system with other, larger damage that I found.
Before returning the vehicle, as I always do, I thoroughly washed the exterior and hoovered the interior. The vehicle was returned in an immaculate condition and to cover ourselves we took timed and dated photos of the exterior. Below you will see two pictures of the same area on the car - mine is the slightly darker photo clearly showing an undamaged car, the other GoldCars photo showing an alleged scratch. If you can blow up the picture you will see how 'false' the scratch looks! Even though we have submitted the photographic proof that the vehicle was perfect upon return GoldCar have charged us €200 for this 'damage'.
Without supplying any evidence GoldCar have also charged to our credit card €40 for damage to the interior?The interior was left perfect - it was actually cleaner than when we rented the car.
All emails and contacts via their website have been ignored and we are now pursuing legal remedies to recover the money.
We have been renting vehicles in Spain for over twenty years from Hertz / Avis without problems, this is the first and last time that we will ever use GoldCar.
I would thoroughly advise that before using GoldCar search the internet and read the adverse media reports about this company

We had rent a car for 1 day at the offica in Bilbao. When we picked up the car the responsible at the desk don't want to comes with us to check the car. When we came the car, to check for damage the car was complete scratched and other consequences of attacks. So will tried to fill in the damage form as correct as possible. We brought the car back, then they checked the car and by change the first thing they cheched was a damage I didn't see at the pickup. This is a complete ripp off. I think they rent these damage cars en never repaired them, because everytime their will be somebody that will miss some damage.
A rent al lot of time cars, and the first time at Goldcar, but this is a company you can't trust. Below you find a lot off other complaints:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/money/experts/article-2224704/Goldcar-car-hire-complaints-rack-Spain.html
http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/goldcar-car-hire-spain-c271520.html
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=2744712&page=1
http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/experts/article-2224704/Goldcar-car-hire-complaints-rack-Spain.html
http://www.reviewcentre.com/reviews236975.html http://www.lonelyplanet.com/thorntree/thread.jspa?threadID=2261435

I pre booked car hire via Expedia and received a confirmatory e mail and my payment was taken from my account. After arriving at Palma Airport and queuing for over 30 minutes at the Goldcar desk I was simply told that the booking had been cancelled! The Goldcar representative just shrugged and could offer no explantion, nor did he attempt to help etc. other than to offer me another rental at a hugely inflated price to the one I had already paid for! I contacted Expedia who said the booking from their point of view was live. I had not received any e mails from either company prior to this to say the the booking had been cancelled and no money had been returned to my account. To cut a very long story short and following a very upsetting two hours for myself, Expedia told me to go ahead with the new booking and that they would pay the difference once I submitted the new invoice. Upon my return I duly contacted Expedia, but it turned out Goldcar had charged me for CDW at huge cost and Expedia were disputing paying this. I had already taken out cover before my holiday with a separate company at a fraction of this cost. The Goldcar representative NEVER mentioned or asked if I required this, nor did he explain all the charges which were all in Spanish and by this time I was so distraught I just wanted the car as it was also getting late into the evening and I had a fairly long journey ahead. I cannot find an e mail address for Goldcar to submit a complaint and do not know how to proceed. Totally ruined the start of my holiday and now have this hanging over me. Completely unacceptable, but they have my money so I dont suppose they care less? CAn anyone out there help me? I would agree with everyone about the fuel prices - also when I did eventually get a car it had a huge dent and scratch along the whole one side of the car. I took a dated photo just in case and then queued again to report it to be told that they already knew about it. Probably get a bill for that too!? Waiting to be reimbursed for the fuel.
Contract [protected]

We have had 2 separate issues with Goldcar for contact #[protected] car rental at Marseilles Airport. The first is we were forced to take their insurance despite having excellent coverage already. We were told that we could either pay 125Euros or not take the car. We accepted that this may be an issue with the country and reluctantly agreed to the charge as we needed to get going and no one seemed to be sympathetic and able to truly explain why we needed to pay despite having 2 types of insurance.

When we returned the car, we refueled within 200 meters of the rental return. For some reason, 3 days later we received an invoice for 59Euros charging us for 9Euros of fuel plus a 50E penalty. We had completely filled the tank, so we are unsure where the extra several litres would be required. We returned the car on August 18 and did not receive notice until August 21, so we no longer have the fuel receipt, assuming all was well. The individual working for Goldcar checked the car before we left and assured us that all was good. If they felt more fuel was needed, they should have notified us at that time, but we know that is was completely full at the time of drop off. Perhaps a staff member drove it around before checking again?

We would like a refund on the fuel charge. I know that there is little that can be done about the false insurance charge that we were forced into but would like an apology for making us use a service that was not necessary or at least admit that we should have been given the option to put a hold on our credit card for the balance. No one has wanted to take responsibility that there was misconduct in this regard.

I hired a vehicle on 4 August from Malaga Airport. On collecting the car I noticed a number of marks and scratches. The checkout form was amended to reflect this at the Goldcar office and signed. I have a copy of this and have attached. On my return on 18 August to Malaga Airport the cue to return the car was very long. Having a two year old daughter and knowing that she takes a little longer to go through the airport check-in, security and gates etc I talked to one of the Goldcar attendants and they said to place the car keys in the green box and the deposit will be returned. However, on returning to the UK £75 of the deposit has not been returned to me. Please look at the enclosed pictures and return the additional deposit. Thank you.

I booked a car with GoldCar before leaving for my trip to Malta, in the booking confirmation, for which I paid 17 euro only as booking fee, I received a voucher to be presented at GoldCar front office (at Malta Airport in my case) with the amount that I should have paid.

I specifically booked the car for midnight and neither in the confirmation or the voucher or somewhere else in their website was stated that I should have paid an extra fee for collecting the car after 10pm, that is what happened to me when I arrived at the front office.

I got quite disappointed for this extra money (almost 50Eu more, on top of 170EU for the car) so I asked explanation about it and the guy became very rude, he started shouting and threatening me.
Eventually I decide to just pay, and I started filling in and signing all the papers, then I received a second threat when I decided to not pay for an extra insurance, the guy stated that "serious problems could happen to me if I hadn't applied for the extra insurance..." but I was firmly convinced to not pay extra money, since I had in mind to make a video and take pictures of every single part of the car (that seems to be not sufficient anyway since they may charge you for mechanical problems).

After having completed everything, and paid, the guy told me to go with another person to the parking to collect the car... when I arrived in the parking another person showed up and speaking in a very threatening way he said that he was going to bring me to my destination with HIS car and that in the morning after he would have brought me the car that I rented.

Of course I started complaining because, first of all nobody told me about this, the guy at the front office did not mention it at all, and secondly because me and my friend planned to use the car to go around that night, hence we really wanted to use it at that moment.

The conversation got ridiculous when the guy in the parking said that was the normal "procedure" since, normally, "people go at home to sleep at night, and in the morning they go around"...
Me and my friend got very disappointed and we started arguing heavily and then the two guys in the parking started shouting and coursing and menacing us to tear up the papers and leave us without car or giving money back.

I can ensure everybody that will read my post that I've seen already the same behavior, sadly to say, in mafia movies... we got scared and we decide to step back and ask to cancel the reservation at the front office, since we didn't want to have something to do with them anymore.

We cancelled the reservation and I got the money back, except for the booking fee of course, but the amount that they blocked on my credit card as a deposit, 1900 EU, is still not released, hoping that I will get it back...

We asked the other rental services at airport and nobody had an available car for us, but for sure, they knew about the "GoldCar procedure", it seems they always [censor] people, always and everywhere.

Eventually this accident ruined a bit our trip since we managed to get a car only two days after, we got a very bad car by the way because it was the only available, and we had to pay for the taxi from the airport to our place in Malta.

I hope to receive my money back, I'm wondering if I can block the payment through my bank if needed...

To conclude, NEVER RENT A CAR WITH GOLDCAR, they cheat, they scam, they threat people... we should maybe report these things to the police

Contract number- [protected]
Client code- [protected]

We hired a car from Nice airport during dates 22nd May- 1st June 2017 we had to pay a deposit for fuel which is fine however we haven't had this deposit back when we returned the car with the same amount that we received it with. I have photos of receipts if needed.
This simply just isn't good enough and I am very disappointed with the service we have received.

I rented my car the 10th of July until the 17th of July.

My client number is [protected].

I was charged with damages that were not there when I delivered the car, which is unacceptable. I was naive and did not take photos of my car when I picked it up and when I delivered it. Lesson learnt. Afterwards I was charged 200 euros (+ 56 euros for gas), but my final invoice from my credit card company was 376 euros from Goldcar without any explanantion.

I am having a very hard time submitting my complaint directly to Goldcar, due to me lacking information about my client code, which i am unable to locate.

[removed]

[protected]@gmail.com

Dear Madam, Sir,

Booking Reference - [protected]

I am shocked by how I and my family were treated this morning at Palma airport at Goldcar.
We arrived at 1.40 a.m. The Goldcar desk was open but they said we had to wait until 7 am because we had not paid the 40 euros extra for an out of hours car. I offered to pay the 40 euros but was told it couldn't be done.
We stayed waiting through the night until 7 am. My wife and I and my three children, the youngest being 10.
At 7 Miglena served us. She said that we had no insurance and should take out insurance for over 200 euros. I said we were insured in part, because it wasn't legal to drive otherwise, but we didn't want the extra insurance. She insisted it wasn't extra but the only insurance. She warned us that any scratch on the car would be charged, even if not done by us. I found her bullying.
She then asked me to signs a screen, which I did, thinking it was related to the credit card, and then she asked me to sign a form that said the car was fine except for three marks. I said I couldn't sign without seeing the car.
She then said suspiciously that she had to change the car for another car and I had to sign again.
I explained that I didn't understand why she had suddenly changed our car and why I had to sign a screen again and wanted to know what she was asking me to sign. She wouldn't show me.
Then her colleague, a younger blond haired woman joined her in being rude to me.
Then I turned on my camera on my phone and explained that I was being asked to sign a screen that was blank and that I didn't know what I was signing, and was recording my signing as evidence of my concern at what was happening.
Miglena tore up my contract, said she wouldn't let me have the car and I would have to go elsewhere. She said she was calling the police, even though I had been polite, calm and reasonable throughout.
I phoned the helpline and a kind gentleman heard my story and he phoned the Goldcar desk and spoke with the blond women. After the call the refused to give me the car. I told the man this and he spoke with the woman again. She and Miglena still refused to give me the car. He then used my phone to speak to Miglena who still refused to give me the car. Again he spoke with her and this time she agreed to give me the car but only if I deleted the evidence of her rudeness.
I deleted the evidence and she then said I had to go and check the car and return to sign the document and get the key. I did this and was made to wait at the back of the queue to be seen again.
Then three police arrived and began speaking with Miglena.
The whole process lasted from 7 am until about 8.20.
It was outrageous and most unsettling for our children and a ruin of the start of our holiday.
I am 60. I am an archbishop. I have hired cars throughout my life and never ever have I encountered such an experience. It was traumatic and disturbing. In fact, I have never ever been treated with such aggression, disrespect, lack of humanity and lack of empathy by any such operative.
I ask for a full refund of the car hire charge.
I ask for an assurance that Miglena and the blond woman will be sanctioned and re-trained.
I ask for an apology from them for the appalling manner in which thy treated me and my family and for the distress they caused to us all.
Yours faithfully,
[removed]

Good morning, we recently returned from Spain. Prior to our holiday we booked car hire through Gold Car for our ten day stay, receiving confirmation via email of our booking .
When we arrived at Alicante airport we were informed BT the Gold Car operative that without our knowledge our booking had been cancelled apparently due to lack of availability. We were not informed of this and were unaware that the payment had been returned as my visa bill is set up to pay off in full each month. We were then told they could provide a car ( exactly the same one that was meant to be unavailable)! But not at the online discounted price. Our original price was £238 we ended up paying £507!
We tried to reason with the desk clerk, asked to speak to a manager etc to no avail. Due to the lateness of our arrival and the fact we still had further to travel to our villa we felt we had no choice but to pay and try and resolve it later . The card we were given with a contact number for complaints was useless, we tried visiting one of the local hire centres and I emailed the complaints line where the only response I had was to say that because we hadn't had a confirmation email (we do have one ) they would not consider any refund. When I sent copies of the email to prove the booking had been confirmed we didn't receive any further contact at all. That was a week ago and we feel we are banging our head up against a brick wall! I am also sending this to the Daily Mail as they have just done an article on British holiday makers getting scammed and Watchdog. Please advise us on what to do next.
Kind Regards,
Samantha Maltby.

Contact Number - [protected]. Although I have used you before I will never use you again due to you inflexiblility and lack of compassion. Most unhelpful, unflexible company. I have had to fly over as my father who lives out here is very sick. I got a one way flight as I didn't know how long I needed to be here for but I had to put a return date on the hire car. I flew into Murcia airport and picked up the hire car there. My father is now over the worse and I have managed to book a fight back home. Unfortunately there are no available flights out of Murcia so I have had to book a flight from Alicante. There is also a Gold Car office there so I thought I could call (even if I had to pay extra, to drop the car off at Alicante). My car is booked until Sunday (13th) and I am going back a day early (Saturday 12th) than I booked the car hire. Phoned customer service and have asked them because I cannot get a flight out of Murcia whether I can drop the car off at their Alicante drop off point. Answer was no because of the category of car! I DIDN'T CHOSE IT, IT WAS AN EMERGENCY AND I TOOK WHAT WAS AVAILABLE. No flexibility at all and I have used before but will never use again. Really unhelpful company...Be warned...lots of hidden charges too. Also took out insurance through the broker I booked through when I booked to find out it wasn't accepted at the desk so had to purchase another. You con your customers. I will review your service wherever I can so people see how unhelpful and inflexible you are. I have now got to drive to Murcia to drop off the car and then find someone that could then take me to Alicante. You have added to the stress of what has already been a horrendous week.

FAO Notification - Contract: [protected]
Dear Sir/Madam,
Goldcar has turned out to be the worst and biggest cheat car rental company i have come across in 22 years of renting cars around the world. One charge after another keep getting added on at every step of teh way... one nasty surprise after another.

I will be exploring avenues of suing you for all these illegal charges. I am aware of the EU regulations for protecting customer rights in car rentals. http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-15-5334_en.htm

At the airport when I went to collect the car, you first charged me 359€ on top of the 200€ rental charges with full cover that I had already paid AutoEurope.eu.
In addition to that, you collected 132€ towards deposit for fuel and Via Verde charges.

This deposit has not yet been returned to me even 1 week after i returned the car.

On top of that, you have the nerve to send me emails from noreply addresses wherein you tell me I have to pay €7.15 for Via verde charges... and 30€ towards cleaning!

In what way do I have to pay 30€ to cleaning, when I have paid an extra 163€ for all risk cover? Where was this mentioned when I went to take the rental?

I am furious with your attitude and 100% going to find a way to make your company be answerable for this!

I hired a car from auto Europe the for gold car when we go to Spain to pick up the car the woman tried to scared me into buying everything but I made it very clear that I was very happy with what I've paid in England. Our flight was delayed so didn't pick up the car till after 11pm we had a an extra £89 for this which at the time it seemed a lot but I was too tired to argue so I just paid it. but when I got home and looked at the receipt I found out that we were charged for a lot more than just that which I never ask or was told about when we picked up the car. I know but I was so disgusted by this and make me wonder who else have they done this to you and got away with. So if you are thinking of Home in car for these people I would read very carefully at everything before you sign because they will not tell you everything you're signing for because if they had told me I would not have signed it
Sarina smith kneil