Sicily By Car
Reviews and Complaints

I rented a car at the Lamezia airport on July 15th 2017 and returned the car on July 22 as per the contract. I have the return document indicating that the car was returned with no damage or exceptions.
On the 25th of September I received a notice from my credit card company that I had a charge pending for $107.73 from Auto Europa mule-fine. This is a complete rip-off as I did not get any violations of any kind while in Italy. I have instructed my card company that I wish to contest this charge. Please forward me all information regarding my supposed violation, date, time, location, city etc. as I plan on contesting this rip-off of a tourist to your country.

Nick Martin

Contact information
Nick E. Martin
221 10th Street South
Cranbrook, British Columbia
Canada
email [protected]@hotmail.com

We recently (feb 16th to 22nd '16) rented a car from 'Sicily by car' (tel [protected]) which I believe is part of 'Auto Europa'. After the initial difficulty of finding the right location we were offered a citroen picasso (reg nº EZ850PY). The car was kept in a dark underground car park. The car was offered in perfect condition, but upon our inspection we noticed a couple of scratches. We had to then return to the rental desk to confirm this which the attendant reluctantly marked on the documents. When we returned the car 6 days later they pointed out a small (key - possibly) scratch on the drivers side door and passenger door behind. We have absolutely no memory of this occurring and wonder whether it may have been there all along but we were unable to see it in the dark car park. We have been charged €732 (£568) for the repair of these two scratches (which we have taken photos of). As we were then in a hurry to catch our plane (with our 3 small children, we had no opportunity to object to this charge. We feel this charge is completely unreasonable and wonder if others have paid for this same scratch before us. We hope you can help us.

hi, i am complaining about a handling fee i got, my account got debited on 29th november, 2 months after i got home, i got a letter from sicily by car on 22h december notifying me about handling costs.i have not got a fine yet in mail !.i would like a copy of fine within 14 days or i will put charges in dispute with my credit union & visa .RA [protected] regards russell jessop.[protected]@live.com.au

I rented a Fiat 500 from Sicily By Car/Auto Europa Rent A Car on 19 Jun, 2015 for 1 day. I got a quote through DoYouItaly for 23 euros, I opted for the additional insurance of 15 euros, and was not able to refuel before returning the car. We did 105 kilometers which I calculate fuel of about 6 litres at a cost of about 10 euros. I expected my bill to be about 48 euros, yet the amount on my credit card is about 95 euros. My DoYouItaly voucher number is DYI-[protected], the Sicily by Car documentation has numbers 156942 and 2481438.
I have emailed repeatedly to get a credit but I am being ignored.

Do not hire with sicily by car or auto europa:
I rented a car through holiday autos / car trawler and have had a fraudulent withdrawal from my credit card since returning from sardinia where I hired a car from alghero airport. the withdrawal totals almost €370 and was taken to cover the costs of 'damages' which have as yet not been specified. I collected a car with 3 points of damage which I signed for, and returned the car 3 days later in the same condition as I collected it. with the extra insurance sold by holiday autos, my rental cost under €100. I am furious!
All the companies involved are virtually ignoring all correspondance and sicily by car is totally ignoring this complaint. they are a fraudulent and unprofessional company that should be totally avoided.in order to avoid ending up unwillingly with this company, which is under the umbrella of auto europa, do not hire a car in italy with holiday autos / car trawler. book through a reputable company like hertz, even though it may cost more. I have been involved in this case since july and I would have willingly paid more to avoid all the inconvenience since.

* february 7th 2014 *
* this is a fraud car company - stay away *

Unfortunately, I have to submit to the rest of the comments and complaints in regards to this
Company in italy. I rented a car in august 2013 and as of this date february-14
8 months later, I am still getting claims for unlicensed traffic tickets that
The italian police can not confirm I have made with the rented car.

As of today, I have received 4 claims of €60 each (total €240) charged to my credit
Card, for traffic tickets that I can not get verification on.

Sicily by car will not listen to my complaint, I have spoken to 3 different
"managers" at both the milan airport rental shop and their headoffice
- all are skipping my complaints and will not help me. as a last resort, I have
Had to get my credit card cancelled and got a new one which they can not charge.

* stay away from sicily by car at all cost for your own sale, please! *

Our Rental was originally with Thrifty but when we arrived at the airport, the agent said there was no record of our reservation. Auto Europa could offer as the same car at 11 Euros more. Since we had no options we took it. Everything was fine until we got a flat tire in Sorrento. After finding a pay phone, we called the emergency line to get assistance. We were informed that a tow truck was on the way to attempt to fix the tire. The tire repair kit did not function as the sealant and the air compressor were not compatible which was verified by the people at Auto Europa when we returned the car. The car was then towed and it left us stranded in Sorrento with no means of getting to our car at 11 p.m. when this had occurred. The emergency hot line which we called again said that we would be reimbursed 100 euros for a hotel. We wandered from hotel to hotel looking for a room however, now being midnight there were no rooms available. Due to the lack of help in a foreign country, where we did not speak to language, we were forced to sleep on the street. In the morning, we once again called the emergency hotline and Auto Europa, we were informed that a taxi to get us to our car was coming and that the emergency company would reimburse 100 euros for the taxi fare(I was told this by AutoEuropa). I was also informed that because it was not covered under my insurance (which nobody at the desk in Rome told us we could get) I would have to pay for the tire(Also told by AutoEuropa). Of course this was now well after 10:00 am in the morning. Finally arriving at the garage, I had to pay 110 Euros for the tire and 110 euros for the taxi. All this aggravation, upset and stress, cost us a lot of money and wasted a day of our vacation. Our trip was Jun30-July 14th. It is now August 10th and I have been emailing Autoeuropa since July 17th with no response until today when I received a registered letter informing me that I had to pay for the tire and that they have billed my credit card company!Needles to say this is a TERRIBLE COMPANY TO DEAL WITH!

Insurance Scam. Stay away.
Picked up the car in an unlit parking lot after a 30 minute wait at the desk in Fiumicino Airport, Rome. They never went over the car with us for damage as they said they had already done so and marked it on the rental agreement. I noticed more damage that wasn't on the agreement and insisted they mark it on. They were reluclant to do so but eventually did. After returning the car, they pointed out more damage that was intitailly on the car when I picked it up but failed to notice. It was suspicious, because in order to see the damage, you had to get down on your hands and knees and while the attendant never did this, he still noticed the damage.
When I complained, he said "don't worry, you have full coverage". I had no recourse and I'm sure that this damage was being repeatedly charged to each customer without being repaired.
Very disappointed to be used in a scam that costs everyone.

On February 17, 2011 we rented a car from Thrifty (USA) on the InterNet on-line for our trip to Italy, commencing on Jun 02, 2011 at the Fiumicino Airport in Rome for 19 days. The total rent was Euro 635.76, plus the price of the gas (we could not find a gasoline station nearby), plus a penalty of Euro 14.62, total Euro 730.28. I paid this amount with my AMEX on June 21, 2011. Thrifty has had subcontracted the rental to Auto Europa, who made up their rental contract on site, with different break-down, but amounting to the same. The Rental Agreement # 0001695, dated June 02, 2011.
In Europe, and so in Italy too, the AMEX Gold Card guarantee for car rental insurance (CDW) is not accepted, you cannot decline it! So Hertz and Avis simply include the full insurance in the cost of the car rental, which makes it very expensive. Auto Europa advertises itself as "The Low Cost car rental", and as such they did not charge the Collision & Damage insurance right in the rental cost, but they took a security deposit on my AMEX card in the amount of Euro 1485.76. Upon returning the car without any damage, this deposit is returned to the Renter, as it happened last year also in Italy.
The car we got was a Peugeot 206 with 1.1l gasoline engine. The odometer reading at the commencement of the rental was 18098 km, i.e. the car was definitely not a new car. As a matter of fact, it had small dents and scratches all around the body at least in 15 different places. The rental agent told us not to worry, everything were marked on the Inspection sheet. When we went to the garage to pick up the car, upon noticing the scratches, we inspected the car ourselves and found another 10-15 scratches, which were not even marked on the inspection sheet. We marked these also on the inspection sheet, but since we could not find a single attendant around, it was around 7 o'clock at night, we drove off.
Upon returning the car, the inspection noted a small stone chipping on the windshield at the center of the driver side. I know, it happened, but it was so small, they would not have noticed it, if the rain downpour a day before had not cleaned the windshield. There was no crack around the chipping, just a tiny dent. They also noted another scratch at the rear of the driver side, which was allegedly not marked on the inspection sheet, I repeat, the inspection sheet had about 25-30 dents and scratches marked already all around the car, so I really do not know, how they could tell, if it was new scratch! Nevertheless, they refused to return my security deposit. A month later they charged me Euro 712.79. A detailed repair bill followed a month later by registered mail. Instead of repairing the stone chipping, thay replaced the entire windshield at a cost of Eu. 556.99. A small stone chip damage like this costs $45.00 to repair in Toronto. For the allegedly new scratch on the body, they resurfaced the body with 4 hours work, which was another Eu. 148.80, very probably fixing all the other 29 or so scratches that were already there before I picked up the car, using my safety deposit. Strangely, they did not do this before they rented the car out., but now it was I who paid for it. I belived that since my Gold AMEX card has car rental insurance coverage and will take care of the justified repair bill. Never believe it! AMEX refused my request to block the payment of this repair bill, until their Insurance company investigates it, so I had to pay it. So much about the AMEX Gold card car Theft and Damage Insurance guarantee.