Short changed after car hire - what to do?
Discussion
Hi all. I'm a long time reader of PH but posted before but looking for some advice - perhaps someone has had something similar. After returning from a trip to Spain I feel I've been ripped off during car hire. I am relatively new to hiring cars and my only experiences to date are ones where I have been happily driving off in a car within 20 mins of landing. Perhaps I made a mistake this time, please feel free to tell me where. If not take this as a lesson of some sort. I'll try to keep this to the facts and not share with you the grief I got over this at the airport from SWMBO....
Order of events:
1) Booked car hire through a broker online, DoYouSpain (DYS) about 5 months before our 2 week trip. After comparing prices I decided to go for an SUV (Nissan puke or equivalent) and paid ~£250. I paid an additional ~£50 for an excess waiver online and received in the email instructions that I should not take out additional insurance and instead leave the security deposit of €900 on a debit/credit card. Fine.
2) After taking the Goldcar (GC) shuttle to the off airport car hire location (which I knew about) I then took a ticket and waited 70 minutes to be served at the counter. I am then given the hard sell for additional insurance (at a bargain price of €278). I explain repeatedly that I have already have an excess waiver and want to leave the deposit. I am repeatedly told of the all the things (helpfully on a laminated prop card) which will surely go wrong and the many times the value of the car I will have to pay for broken windscreen/ flat tyre / recovery yada yada yada...
3) After 20 minuted we agree I am silly and will leave the deposit. Now the credit card machine is not working, screen shows some messages in Spanish and my card is, according to the assistant, being declined because '€900 is too big'. I call the credit card co, who confirm that no transaction is being blocked and can see that Goldcar are starting a transaction but not completing it. Same scenario debit card (also confirmed no blocked transactions at the time).
4) been hanging around 3hrs and had enough now. Call broker and explain the above. Response is immediate and along the lines of 'ah it's Goldcar? Yes they are always trying stuff like this to sell you the extra insurance to get their commission. Tell them you really don't want it. Call back if you have any problems.'
5) Return to counter, repeat step 3.
6) SWMBO is now letting me know that 1) this is my fault and 2) she would rather not be on holiday now.... Call broker again, tell them they need to sort this out. I've given up on GC at this point. I am offered a refund or 'the only car they have available in Barcelona' which is a fiesta and is back at the airport. I've already looked on my phone and can't find any car hire for less than £500 in Barcelona now. I ask what discount I will get and am told none. I explain I am not happy and take the car.
7) Now all the afternoon flights have arrived, I/ we enjoy a 2hrs queue in the airport (where I observe the incredible business model of 'a fast track ticket' where you take a slightly better ticket from the queue machine which cuts the queue time by 1/2hr for only €50 extra to collect the car you already paid to hire...) and leave a €1200 on the credit card for a smaller car from a Firefly (where, don't get me wrong the service is terrible, but not quite as bad as GC).
Upon return to the UK, I explain to DYS that a fiesta was cheaper to hire at the time booked but am told 'sorry you had a bad experience but nothing we can do except a discount next time' (which I won't be taking them up on). My credit card company (with which I made the original booking) say as I 'accepted the service provided' there is nothing they can do.
I'm annoyed that being strong-armed while at the airport / being reasonable about accepting an inferiors service has now left me being short changed. Perhaps I could have rejected the fiesta, paid x-hundred more for an alternative car hire and then persued DYS for the extra? Whilst this is only a relatively small amount of money I feel sufficiently annoyed to want to follow this up. Regardless of the outcome of this, I'll be booking direct with a premium brand next time (and not hertz, or any part of the group found in the log book of the firefly fiesta)....
Let me know what I did wrong!
Order of events:
1) Booked car hire through a broker online, DoYouSpain (DYS) about 5 months before our 2 week trip. After comparing prices I decided to go for an SUV (Nissan puke or equivalent) and paid ~£250. I paid an additional ~£50 for an excess waiver online and received in the email instructions that I should not take out additional insurance and instead leave the security deposit of €900 on a debit/credit card. Fine.
2) After taking the Goldcar (GC) shuttle to the off airport car hire location (which I knew about) I then took a ticket and waited 70 minutes to be served at the counter. I am then given the hard sell for additional insurance (at a bargain price of €278). I explain repeatedly that I have already have an excess waiver and want to leave the deposit. I am repeatedly told of the all the things (helpfully on a laminated prop card) which will surely go wrong and the many times the value of the car I will have to pay for broken windscreen/ flat tyre / recovery yada yada yada...
3) After 20 minuted we agree I am silly and will leave the deposit. Now the credit card machine is not working, screen shows some messages in Spanish and my card is, according to the assistant, being declined because '€900 is too big'. I call the credit card co, who confirm that no transaction is being blocked and can see that Goldcar are starting a transaction but not completing it. Same scenario debit card (also confirmed no blocked transactions at the time).
4) been hanging around 3hrs and had enough now. Call broker and explain the above. Response is immediate and along the lines of 'ah it's Goldcar? Yes they are always trying stuff like this to sell you the extra insurance to get their commission. Tell them you really don't want it. Call back if you have any problems.'
5) Return to counter, repeat step 3.
6) SWMBO is now letting me know that 1) this is my fault and 2) she would rather not be on holiday now.... Call broker again, tell them they need to sort this out. I've given up on GC at this point. I am offered a refund or 'the only car they have available in Barcelona' which is a fiesta and is back at the airport. I've already looked on my phone and can't find any car hire for less than £500 in Barcelona now. I ask what discount I will get and am told none. I explain I am not happy and take the car.
7) Now all the afternoon flights have arrived, I/ we enjoy a 2hrs queue in the airport (where I observe the incredible business model of 'a fast track ticket' where you take a slightly better ticket from the queue machine which cuts the queue time by 1/2hr for only €50 extra to collect the car you already paid to hire...) and leave a €1200 on the credit card for a smaller car from a Firefly (where, don't get me wrong the service is terrible, but not quite as bad as GC).
Upon return to the UK, I explain to DYS that a fiesta was cheaper to hire at the time booked but am told 'sorry you had a bad experience but nothing we can do except a discount next time' (which I won't be taking them up on). My credit card company (with which I made the original booking) say as I 'accepted the service provided' there is nothing they can do.
I'm annoyed that being strong-armed while at the airport / being reasonable about accepting an inferiors service has now left me being short changed. Perhaps I could have rejected the fiesta, paid x-hundred more for an alternative car hire and then persued DYS for the extra? Whilst this is only a relatively small amount of money I feel sufficiently annoyed to want to follow this up. Regardless of the outcome of this, I'll be booking direct with a premium brand next time (and not hertz, or any part of the group found in the log book of the firefly fiesta)....
Let me know what I did wrong!
I had a shocker of a rental car experience in Canada earlier this year. Fairly similar. They must just hire out all the cars they have to Joe Punter who walks in off the street, then decide to deal with the people who've actually booked on an ad-hoc basis. This mob were called "Budget" if I recall correctly.
Is the TL;DR:
You thought you were paying £250 + £50 for a Juke or equivalent, but actually paid that amount for a Fiesta? And had a shockingly long wait and customer service/hard-sell nightmare on top?
That does sound like a bit of a mare. Perhaps you can take it further up the DYS chain of command with your complaint - was it an appropriate value of compensation, do you think?
Is the TL;DR:
You thought you were paying £250 + £50 for a Juke or equivalent, but actually paid that amount for a Fiesta? And had a shockingly long wait and customer service/hard-sell nightmare on top?
That does sound like a bit of a mare. Perhaps you can take it further up the DYS chain of command with your complaint - was it an appropriate value of compensation, do you think?
Budget are part of Avis I think... That only leaves Europecar of the big boys I know about.
Yes the annoyance is both really, however I think I've come to terms wiTh the fact I'm never going to get any adequate compensation for the poor customer service (which isn't entirely DYS's fault, but not exactly inline with the statements they make about the companies they use on their website - especially when all the call centre staff seem to know exactly what's going on 'on the ground'). The least I would have expected is a sincere apology and a refund for the extra I paid for a Juke over the price of a fiesta at the time I booked. As far as I am concerned I was let down as GC would NOT allow me to leave a deposit and therefore hire to me the car in line with my agreement. This problem should have been between DYS and GC.
I have tried speaking to DYS at length and have been offered a discount on a future rental ( I did entertain this for a future visit to Sardinia but the discount was only going to be €12 so I declined). The fact their customer services is based in Spain on a Spanish number doesn't help either!
Yes the annoyance is both really, however I think I've come to terms wiTh the fact I'm never going to get any adequate compensation for the poor customer service (which isn't entirely DYS's fault, but not exactly inline with the statements they make about the companies they use on their website - especially when all the call centre staff seem to know exactly what's going on 'on the ground'). The least I would have expected is a sincere apology and a refund for the extra I paid for a Juke over the price of a fiesta at the time I booked. As far as I am concerned I was let down as GC would NOT allow me to leave a deposit and therefore hire to me the car in line with my agreement. This problem should have been between DYS and GC.
I have tried speaking to DYS at length and have been offered a discount on a future rental ( I did entertain this for a future visit to Sardinia but the discount was only going to be €12 so I declined). The fact their customer services is based in Spain on a Spanish number doesn't help either!
Unfortunately yes. And unfortunately I didn't read that before I booked. Probably the most annoying thing was the fact that on top of all of this I effectively missed a entire days holiday. I paid to hire, and arrived to collect at 10:30am. I signed the damage inspection form for the fiesta at 18:00.
Perhaps I should open a car hire co at Heathrow. Simply refuse to take any credit card payments when people arrive and not allow any refunds. I imagine that would be far more profitable, I probably could get away without any cars even!
Perhaps I should open a car hire co at Heathrow. Simply refuse to take any credit card payments when people arrive and not allow any refunds. I imagine that would be far more profitable, I probably could get away without any cars even!
Rangeroverover said:
I made the mistake of using Gold Car in Majorca, never again, similar experience, ruined what was only a short holiday........so so tempted to exact some mechanical revenge, (sand in oil or similar) but figured it would only ruin the holiday of whoever had the car next
I booked through DYS (as usual) for Mallorca this year. As the OP, paid about £40 extra for the excess insurance cover. Ended up with Gold Car booking which I had no previous knowledge of. Having seen the queues for them and Record Go at Palma previously I was expecting a long wait and was prepared for it. At least the offices are on site! Happily, it was a mere 5 min wait to get to the desk which was well populated with staff members despite it being midnight. They didn't have the DS3 that I booked so I was given the choice of Fiesta or a brand new Clio. Chose the latter. Was offered the excess insurance. Said I had it already and that was the end of it. Had to leave a £1000 deposit block on the credit card and pre-paid a tank of fuel.
Fifteen minutes later we were loaded up and off. Returned the car with a full tank and handed over the keys and it wasn't even looked over. Fuel pre-payment was refunded within two days of getting home.
No problems.
Seems standard. I've been stiffed by Firefly via Argus Car Hire. Got to the airport, the phone number to contact the car hire company didn't work. No way to find out where their office was...
Asked for a refund from Argus, and told yep that's fine, just call us when you get home.
When i got home, i called back and I was told Firefly was open, and it was my fault. Then I was told I was delayed (I wasn't), and it was my fault.
So angry.
Asked for a refund from Argus, and told yep that's fine, just call us when you get home.
When i got home, i called back and I was told Firefly was open, and it was my fault. Then I was told I was delayed (I wasn't), and it was my fault.
So angry.
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