RentalCars.com
Reviews and Complaints

I took out a car insurance with you on 11th August for seven days at Catania Airport, Sicily. My Policy No is RFI/[protected]/1 for a Fiat Panda petrol to be insured from 10th - 17th Sept. This was a full cover insurance at a price of £61.18.

When we got to Maggiore desk we were told in no uncertain terms that this was not valid, he did not speak a word of English and said we either pay the extra £243.51 with them for full cover or we don't get the car.

I was shocked and very disappointed and am looking for a full refund of the £61.18 from you as we took this out in good faith. I also feel you need to be looking into this with Maggiore yourself.

If I do not receive a full refund then I will be taking this complaint to the Ombudsman and will write some very bad reviews about your company, I hope it does not come to this.
Regards
John Wise

Itinerary Number is [protected]
George Sutherland
Summary of Charges:

Subtotal of the Rental: USD $143.12
Taxes and Fees: USD $121.31
Amount Due at Pick-up: USD $242.33

When I arrived at Jet Car Rental (Economy Rent A Car) I was informed that I had to take their coverage as the coverage I had purchased in advance was not good enough as the booking was done through a third party and if we didn't take the extra coverage we couldn't have the car, I added my wife which was an extra $10 but I ended up paying a total of $412.52 CAD ($315 USD + the $50 USD advance coverage payment). really felt the rental company were not entirely honest as I have never been forced to take insurance and I have rented in the U.S., Canada, Scotland and England, I think I should at least receive a refund for my $50 advance payment for Collision/Damage/Theft coverage, please advise at your earliest convenience.
George Sutherland
[protected]@laturbine.com

Itinerary Number is [protected]
I rented a car online from your organization. I went down to JAX but the rental facility was off site. It DID NOT say that on the website. THEN we were required to give a $200 deposit -- also not mentioned on the website. The agent told us that we were not qualified to rent from them because we could not put the unexpected additional $200 on a different credit card than the one we were planning on using. We were instructed by the agent to call to get our money back for the additional insurance cost ($60) but we have been unable to do that. We've called repeatedly over the last week only to have the phone ring continuously. The website gives me a message to call the 646 number because we can't cancel on line. I would like to get our money back on the insurance for a care we never rented.

I booked a reservation through www.rentalcars.com for $177.48 out of Nice France. A week after I returned the car to Hertz and my card was charged an additional $76.71 for local taxes and fees. The problem I have is the reservation reflects total charges for this rental to be $177.48. No where on the website, during my reservation confirmation or when I picked up the car at the airport was I made aware that there would be additional charges and fees. In fact, I chose www.rentalcars.com because it was the least expensive of them all. It appears they bait and switch and intentionally leave off the local taxes and fees so that they can lure customers to book with them appearing to be the better deal. This is the first of several steps I'll be taking to escalate their unethical business practice.

So I've purchased car hire and insurance cover three rentalcars.com in the uk and then I get to Majorca to collect my hire car, and to my knowledge of what the Spanish woman was saying is sign ere sign this and it's for the ooh service and the block on yr credit card ect... totally hard to grasp when it's 1am and she's Spanish.
So all seems to go ok but when I've got to the hotel on that morning I'm looking threw this and in Spanish is 6-7 different things all with a price in euros on, low and behold I've been ripped off!
Rings rentalcars and gets fobbed off with so many different persons to ring ect!
Checks my credit card when home £312 taken as well as what I've paid ere in the uk which was £94 so we'll over £400 I've paid for a fiat or whatever it was.
Finally after weeks rentalcars r saying they can only refund me my excess of £52 because I've signed this paper work!
Yes I did sign it but what would anyone do when they haven't a clue what's going on and it's 1am and I've kids And 1.30hr drive to my location stand and argue toss to someone who doesn't speak English and end up not having a car..!
I'm absolutely fuming about this they should not be allowed to do this and it's happening constantly by looks of it on other reviews.

Stay clear of rental cars and goldcar in future as there probably both in this together.!.

Your REF no [protected]
21-6-2018 Strabane northern Ireland
Have a claim going through but am hitting a brick wall everytime I try to speak to someone
The other party have still not admitted liability after 12 weeks +
Girl called Aaliyah dealing with the claim but doesn't seem to be getting anywhere
Please look into the matter ASAP please
Paul.[protected]@hotmail.co.uk
Mrs Anne Burns
48 Valley Court
Padgate
Warrington
WA20TY
Tel [protected]
Photos of other car and their insurance details attached
Crime reference number : [protected]

Ref. No. [protected]

I booked a car through Car Rentals in February 2018 for the dates of August 22nd until September 6th total of 15 days. This was a total cost of £446.96. Car insurance was £98.55.
When I picked the car up at Hetzt Dublin Airport I was informed that I would have to take their insurance out at a cost of £94.04. This car cost me £771.77 between 2 companies.
I am now claiming back car rentals insurance and review the costing of this car. I am very unhappy that I have been charged insurance by car rentals to be told by Hertz it was not valid.
I appreciate if you could look at my complaint and refund me back money that is owed to me by car rentals.
Denis Farrell
denis.[protected]@gmail.com

I recently had the most awful experience with both Rental Cars and Alamo. We flew from Hartford to Indianapolis to visit relatives then to travel to Canada to see a sick relative with cancer. We booked a saloon car through Rental Cars to pick up from Alamo at Indianapolis Airport. We arrived around 10.00pm to pick up the car. I was assured at the booking desk the car or something similar was available. After getting me to sign all the forms I was directed to a car park to collect the car. When I arrived I was told the car I had booked was not available and the only vehicles available was a Kia Soul or a van. I advised them that the Soul was too small for 5 adults and 3 suitcases. The van was totally unsuitable. I was told to go back to the booking desk. I went back and told to contact Rental Cars. From the relatives home I phoned Rental Cars in UK for around one hour. I asked if he could phone me back. He said he could not. I* was told it would take 10 days to look at my booking. No refund was offered. I asked to speak to a manager which was refused. I asked to email or phone me with a decision re my booking and poor service. I arrived back in UK and phoned Rental cars 14 days after the phone conversation. I was told the matter was closed as I had picked up the car. I told the operator at Rental Cars that I could not have picked up the car as I had not taken a car back. I also mentioned Alamo had emailed me whilst in UK as they seem to be unaware that I had not taken a car. Alamo seemed to think I had taken a car. The operator in UK said she would re-open my complain and forward to Customer Service. I was told someone would contact me. Today I received an email to advise that a refund would go into my bank in 5 days. No apology, no phone call, no human contact. As a result we ended up with a horrible experience, cost of £300 per person to fly to Indianapolis and stay there for 5 days as opposed to driving to Canada, we were unable to visit the sick relative, feeling of not being believed, very poor customer service from Rental Cars and Alamo and both companies displaying a very uncaring attitude towards customers.

hello, not really a complaint, but I have been locked out of my account, e mail address is [protected]@virginmedia.com. I have forgotten my password and have tried on many occasions to ask for it to be reset, but have never received the email back from you. I know I have a account with you as booked before and I get regular offers from you. please help
also why is it cheaper to book a car for 16 day twice ie £305 twice = £610.00 and if I get a quote for 32 days it well over £800 upwards.
thank you
Mr I Thomas
[protected]

Dear,

I am turning to you regarding a car rental I've made reservation for on Friday, Sep 7th, at Madrid Airport, confirmation number 42706035GB1, booking reference [protected]. I've had terrible experience regarding this car rental I want to share it with you, with the intention to avoid these situations from happening again.

At Budget's rental desk we've been greeted by a certain woman employee who wouldn't want to share with us her name, saying that she doesn't need to (a photo of this employee  is in the attachment). 

After some discussion regarding paying card, during which this lady was extremely rude, raising her voice, screaming and pointing finger at me, the employee has told me that since I don't have two cards of my own, she can give me the car of the lower category but by the same price. After trying to change reservation with her, she told us multiple times she cannot do that and that we have to call the customer service from Rental cars (which I did and they told me only at Budget's rental desk the reservation can be changed). 

After agreeing to accept the lower class car by the same price, the employee flipped and said 'I don't want to give you car'. She returned my documents and refused to service us. I have tried explaining that she cannot make decision like that by her own, but she insisted on being rude, yelling and eventually threating to call the police. We have moved from the spot without any information what we can do from here.

We have tried to talk to manager, who has been there when we've arrived, the employee called her and said she cannot come. 

In conclusion, the experience with which my supposed vacation in Madrid has started, was really bad say the least. I couldn't get the car which I paid for, while having a really unpleasant encounter, which made my and my family's plans for getting proper vacation ruined.

On top of that we paid for a service which we didn't receive and they took the deposit from the card without giving the car.

This is unacceptable.

I am waiting for your response. 

Regards 

Yoav Murlager

Dear Sir / Madam

We are writing to you to raise an issue about our recent car rental.

We have just come home from a two-week holiday in Northern Spain. We hired a vehicle through Rentalcars.com. The car itself was very good and we had no problems with it throughout our trip. However, on returning the car to Budget at Bilbao airport on 21st August 2018, we were informed that we had to pay an extra €63.65 for an additional driver.

This left us confused since we had pre-specified that we wanted to include one additional driver when we booked and paid for the car in full.

We cannot see anything within Rentalcars.com's terms and conditions suggesting that this additional charge was warranted. Please could you consider this case carefully and, if necessary, facilitate a refund of this unforeseen cost?

We have a receipt from Budget which lists the unexpected cost above and our email confirmation from Rentalcars.com. This states clearly that we had requested an additional driver. Unfortunately, this form does not allow us to attach them here.

We look forward to your prompt response on this matter. As recommended by Trading Standards, we would like to keep a complete record of our case, so please reply back via this email account.

Yours faithfully,

Hannah and Iain Turnbull

8 Springfield Road 
Quenington Cirencester 
GL7 5BU
[protected]@doctors.org.uk

P.S. We have attempted to contact Rentalcars.com on three previous occasions and have yet to receive a response. Your customer service and complaints procedures are not in any way transparent. If we do not receive a satisfactory response to this message, we will be escalating our concerns to Trading Standards.

 

Dear Rental Cars

I ordered a car from you just over a week ago, for my trip to France. I had ordered it, paying for my full coverage insurance.

When I arrived at Goldcar in Marseille, they told me I was not covered and I could not take the car with full insurance unless I paid about an extra 100 euros, to ensure my full coverage.

I showed them the email you sent me, which did not state that I needed to pay any further insurance, but that I was covered. They themselves could not see this either and were incredibly difficult and would not budge and would not let me take the car unless I paid extra.

I had spent over one hour in the car rental shop, Gold Car, disputing this with them- they said I could go elsewhere, but would still be charged.

I would like to be reimbursed for the extra 100 euros I spent on my insurance, as I believe you sold this deal to me under false pretences: [protected] is my booking number.

I very much look forward to your reply and would like this resolved ASAP.

Kind regards

Supriya

Hello,

Date of the incident: 25th August in Avis/Budget pick up station at London Stansted Airport
Reservation number: 41838458GB4
Name: Christian Jeffery

The reason of the complaint is that upon picking up our vehicle we were charged 195.00 for a late fee. However, the plane was delayed and we only arrived at 12.45 (instead of 11.30pm as planned). This seems an obscene amount of money to be charged for being 1 hour late in the middle of the night.
We therefore requested a refund of the upcharge, by email and we also tried to call several times but no one picked up.
In addition, we would like to complain about the salesperson working at Budget because we were not made aware of this upcharge until after the transaction was completed and given the receipt. This is totally unacceptable and un professional way to treat customers and unfortunately although it is a Budget issue, it also reflects very badly on rentalcars.com as well.

Our booking reference [protected].
10 day hire Renault Trafic. Cost £848.34 + £80 ish insurance cover.
We arrived at into Palma airport at 9.55am, with a pick up time of 10am with OK RENTAL for our vehicle.
We arrived at the rental pick up point at 1015 as we left family members to pick up our luggage from the belt, then arrived at the building approximately 1030am to discover we had to pick up a ticket, R119 was our ticket number. Unfamiliar with the system there was an add on option of paying an additional 18 euros to reduce your waiting time! We were not aware at the Waiting time would be 3 hour and 15 mins before we drove out of the company car park. Even with the extra charge the wait time was more than half of the time we waited. Complete joke!
We were ticket number R119 and the screen was showing R56; a massive 63 people in front of us, oh but we hadn't added on the many people who knew the system and had paid extra for speedy passes, another 30 people in front of us with ticket numbers with the letter S in front of their allocated number. Making the grand total nearly 100 people to receive their cars before we got served.
We had not prepared for this, we had 3 children who had been up since 2am in the morning, who had eaten at 5am before we boarded in the uk, we didn't get our car until 1:44pm, they were absolutely starving, boiling hot waiting, thirsty and shattered, also to top it off we had to fight to get a plastic chair to sit down on (we stood for 1 hour of our wait). Great start to our holiday, when they should have been enjoying the pool in expensive villa we had booked. We lost half a day waiting in terrible conditions, completely stuck waiting for a vehicle we paid nearly £1000 for. I find this totally unacceptable.
At 12:38 I called ur company, rental car at to ask if this there was anything u could do to assist, or any compensation you could offer, such as adding another additional driver for free, this isn't something ur team could confirm we would have got a refund for if we had booked the extra driver on. Told to complain when we returned, it was acknowledged that the wait time by this point was unacceptable and not something customers should be expected to do. It was mentioned to take pictures which I have done to prove the complete chaos in the building, the ticket system and the and the waiting conditions. Little did I know it would be yet another hour on top of before we would receive the mini bus.
The customers in front of us were on hiring the car for 1 day and they were upset because they didn't get their car until the afternoon either, lots of customers were angry and complaining. The staff were unhelpful and unsympathetic, the member of staff we had was extremely rude, didn't apologise once at the desk and even stated that we were lucky as some of the customers had been waiting since last night! She said well if we have r delays this is what happens, in a Manner like it was our fault! I pointed out our flight was early so we shouldn't be penalised for this, nor should those who's flights were delayed. She said it was always like this at this time of year and you just have to wait!.
After our horrid encounter with the staff member at ok at the desk which was at 1309, we then discovered the mini bus we were allocated to hadn't even been through the car wash at this point, then we had to take the time to check the car ourselves and return the paperwork to the desk with the disinterested staff member.
I work in the airline industry as cabin crew and I regularly hire cars all over the world when I visit countries with my job, we have limited time in some destinations! I have never experienced anything like it. I will be telling my passengers about this horrific experience and to avoid ok at all costs especially if you have young children. OK surely have a duty of care to their customers, if such waiting times are ‘normal' they should at the very least provide appropriate seating and refreshments.
This wait cost us 1/ 18th of our available days on the island, in money we lost £55 worth of daytime car hire time and £250 worth of villa time, although u many as well double that as it destroyed the complete first day of our holiday.
Below the picture u see is the queue of people all around the building. Note how hot it is. U will see my watch and waiting for the car and as we left, my phone time is still in uk time so is an hour behind. The last two pictures show a ticket I pulled off after the call to rental car, ticket number R187, (at that moment this ticket had 79 R's infront of them and god knows how many S numbers). The last picture shows the screen with S numbers and R numbers, at 1258 our number is R119and the screen number after all the S numbers is R108, it was the most frustrating situation.
This needs to be addressed and I would like some compensation for the inconvenience, the horrendous experience and the lost time which can't be replaced from our holiday
Regards Michelle Ellis

I have rented a car from the rental company. I would take the car at the Bergamo airport Italy.
I also made the payment 4 months ago for 10 days rental fee. They had 50% for the first reservation and also had the other 50% 1 week later from my credit card.

I checked the pickup hour as 12:00 on the website. Due to late flight and also baggage pickup I was at the rental car point at 14:10 which is 2 hours and 10 minutes. They told me that I can only be 2 hours late and they have given the car to somebody else 10 minutes ago. I told them that they do not have the rigth to do this because I paid the rental fee completely 4 moths ago. They never listened us and we left the rental office.

At the airport, I called the rental company many times and finally contacted a representative. They told me that he would be help and ould call me back. Of course, nobody called back. After this, we had to rent another car at the airport with double price of rental fee. We finally wrote everything to the rental company. They replied 10 days later as you can see in the attached email.

You may please read and think what ever you think.

This rental company is a liar, thief, cheater.

I booked a vehicle through rentalcars.com, paid for 17 days. On arrival at my Destination Funchal, the plane was unable to land due to strong winds. We were flown to Porto Santo and put on a ferry to Funchal. Due to this reason I was unable to pick up the vehicle on the confirmed day and only collected it the following day. I therefore only used the vehicle for 16 days but paid for 17. On contacting rentalcars.com I was advised that they understand my situation but are unfortunately unble to reimburse me as it is against their policy, they also told me that I should have amended the booking before hand (like I was able to do this on a plane) I explained I had no email access they told me that they understand my situation but are unable to assist. Please do not use them for your bookings as once payment has been made you will not be refunded, rather go directly through the car rental company. On collection of the vehicle at Sixt I asked the assistant if I would be able to get a refund and her remarks were basically that rentalcars.com rip you off and I should have booked with them directly. My reservation number for this booking is [protected] and I do believe that companies have policies as guidlines however in this incident the problem was out of my control and I believe that if they really understood my situation they would agree to reimbuse me for one day as Sixt is only billing them for 16 days and not 17.

I prepaid for a compact car rental for June 21-30, 2018 pick up and drop off at Birmingham Airport UK. My flight was two hours late, which the car rental agency knew about. When I arrived at the pickup counter (Europcar) I was told the only car available was a large Mercedes. I am a small person and would not be able to drive such a car. I told the agent that it was not suitable. Since no other car was available I rented one from Hertz at the next counter. Now rentalcars wants to charge me $352.33, the whole rental cost. This was not my fault. How can a company be so unfair?

To whom it may concern,

I (Eugene McIntyre) called up earlier in regards to an issue we are having with your company, and Hertz. Before detailing the complaint, we have been in conversation with hertz and they have informed us that it is not their responsibility and you are accountable. They will be sending through an email to confirm this which once we have heard from you we are happy to forward.

On the 12th August, we picked up our rental car from Chicago North Clark Street, Hertz. Prior to this, we received a voucher from yourselves that explained the fees and charges that would be paid on pick up. When we arrived to pick up our car, we were informed by the Hertz employee that the only charge would be the security deposit of $200. After questioning this, she reiterated that this was the only charge and it would be in the form of a holding deposit. In light of this, I decided to use my English American Express card as the money would be returned with no charge. However, I had with me my second card which is a Revolut MasterCard. This card can be used in America without incurring fees. I had always intended to use my Revolut to pay the one way fee. I would have used my revolut for this fee (as there would be no additional currency conversion charges or credit card interest).

Once returning to my car I presumed that I would not have to pay the one way fee which I had fully been expecting to pay. However, after a few days travelling I decided to look into this further as my greatest worry would be that we would have to pay the one way fee on drop off. After checking the voucher once more, and the terms and conditions, I was confident in the knowledge that the fee would be charged at pick up.

I decided to call your offices and was put through to a rather unhelpful man who had very little clue as to the answer to my query. After a lot of umming and ahhing, he said that it was always the rules to pay at drop off. I was very confused by this as I had my voucher in front of me which said I had to pay at pick up. Shortly after, your employee then changed his mind and said "maybe you don't have to pay at all then". I am sure you can understand my frustration as all I wanted was clarity after the few days I had had of worrying. He then said he would contact Hertz as they were responsible after we had picked up the car. He left us on hold to then return and say he couldn't get a hold of them. He told us that if he wanted this query resovlved, we would need to contact Hertz directly.

We then called hertz, and hasten to add got through straight away. After a long conversation with them and being put through to the manager, they informed us that we had already paid using our English American Express. This means that we will be charged currency fees and interest even though we had our MasterCard present at pick up. It is once again important to reiterate that we were fully prepared to pay the one way fee but were told that the only fee that we would need is he $200 security deposit. Hertz informed us that this is your responsibility and have told us that any compensation would need to be made on your behalf.

Although we have been informed that we can switch cards at drop off, and therefore "hopefully" not incur credit card charges, we now have the immense worry of watching and saving our money in hopes that nothing goes wrong on our journey. We are doing this just so that we will be able to pay the $600 one way fee at the end.

To summarise, we feel that due to the innefficiencies of your employee who had no idea and Hertz employee who told us no extra fees other than the $200 security deposit would be charged, and your differing accounts of the booking voucher and T&c's, compensation and an apology is most definitely needed.

If you are going to query your accountability, then we ask that you contact Hertz rather than making us ruin our holiday due to your incompetence.

We also ask that for future, you are fully aware of how your suppliers operate so that no other customers are left in the appalling situation that you have left us.

I look forward to hearing from you soon as to what you will do to solve this issue.

Kind regards,

Eugene
[protected]@gmail.com

I filed a claim on your website www.rentalcars.com/CustomerService.do and received an email dated 19 July requesting a number of documents which I had already submitted with the website claim. However I replied to the email on 19 July at 15:48 and attached the claim documents again but since then, despite reminders dated 31 July and 1 August I have heard nothing.

My Policy Number is RFI/[protected]/1 and is in the name of my wife, Mrs Gillian Rankin. The total amount claimed is €206.33 which has been debited to our credit card account as £182.95 plus a non-sterling transaction fee of £2.65 making a total claim of £185.80.

I have already submitted twice the invoice from Locauto Danni Milano Ita and a copy of our credit card statement.

Please be aware, rentalcars.com website mislead customers - they allocated a price for you from a supplier and then in very small footnotes hide the massive covers (total or semi) - you only see the fill amount when it goes through to your credit card.
Very clever then, if you want to contact them their phone listing is not answered, the web chat connectivity is not available and the forms that you must compiled for feedback is out of order! - Be careful