Car Hire Overseas

[scary34]

Booked car hire through Argus/Car Trawler, was quoted a price and paid a deposit and was sent confirmation document stating final price to pay which we had to produce on arrival, we were then subjected to additional charges which we had been lead to beleive by Argus/Car Trawler were included. As we had just had a 8 hour flight we paid the extra just to get the car and take up our complaint on our return. On approaching Argus/Car Trawler they ignored our e-mails so we are still left out of pocket. We contacted the hire company in Barbados and they were toltally disgusted with the treatment we had received from their agents and have offered us a substantial discount if we book with them direct on our return to island. Our advice is don't use internet agents but search direct for a company in the country of your destination.

[dzug]

Well my advice, for most places, would be to use a better agent in your country of departure.

What extras did you actually pay?

[mervyn11]

Presume you paid by credit card???
Take it up with your credit card company and if you play it right you will probably get a full refund

[Parisien]

Yup, there a re a few sharp practice sharks out there.....if you got the quote via the travelsupermarket section attached to this board, take it up with Martin too!!!

[dzug]

Depending on what the charges were I think it could be argued it's the car hire company in Barbados who have conned you and have the cheek to try and put the blame back on Argus and win your repeat business at the same time.

Argus should still be trying to help you more though.

[magictown]

Well, I am very pleased with CarTrawler. Upon paying a small admin. charge, £16 I think, we turned up at Zurich airport last weekend and went to the SIXT car hire desk. The car that I had reserved was not available (I try to choose something that may not be, i.e volvo estate with auto) and got an upgrade to a lovely new black, BMW 325i with NAV and what seemed like every concievable extra! - All for very little money.

The same happened when we went to Tenerife and had a Megane convertable for the price of a volkswagen golf.

From experience.. some smaller hire firms in warmer counties try to charge for "extras" this usually includes CDW and other insurance add-ons... these are usually included up to a reasonable level by more reputable car hire firms. Just be aware. I expect, as was mentioned above that it was the Barbados firm that ripped you off.

[Parisien]

Argus/cartrawler car hire

Has anyone actually been able to take advantage of their price beating guarantee? I tried but ended up sending and recieiving 12 e-mails as they tried to make it very difficult to honour this promise.......so be aware of the way they do things! Had to cancel my booking eventually as it was way too much hassle!!

[John-L]

Reserved a 206 Cabriolet with aircon via Cartrawler. Arrived at holiday destination, offered a VW Lupo: a tiny car with no room for bags and no aircon. Eventually managed to get a car similar to the one reserved by paying some £200 locally.

CarTrawler's response? An automated email: 'we are looking into it'. Six weeks later in response to my chaser: 'still looking into it, thanks for your patience'. Ten weeks now and my patience has run out, they are about to receive a County Court summons.

Suggest avoid this firm.

[tedlinton]

I got the same runaround from cartrawler after a car that I had booked in Geneva with Sixt didn't exist even though I had a valid voucher. I had to get another car through Hertz on the spot at over twice the price. despite sending the documentation and numerous e-mails there has been no reply from one Barry Collins at Cartrawler.
As you only pay under £100 to Argus for the booking, you have no claim through the credit card. That only leaves the court.. As Cartrawler are based in the Republic of Ireland then you can't really go through the UK small claims court to get your money back. And as for Cartrawler/Argus - They don't really give a toss!