WARNING! CarTrawler / Argus Car Hire - PepeCar AVOID!

hold on. If you checked what you were purchasing, you'd know that the car rental company was correct. There are theoretically 3 ways to hire a car:
1) No insurance/ Collision Damage Waiver
I think this is illegal in most countries, though apparently some US World Master cards provide insurance that cover you in event of an accident;
The car rental company could require security of something like $50,000 to cover you writing off their car.

2) Normal - CDW with excess.
The rental company will put a hold for the excess - usually $1000-$2000.
Good travel insurance will cover you for this excess should you have an accident.

3) Super CDW or total (no excess) cover
This will cost you an additional $20 or so per day, and avoids the need to inspect car before and after rental because you're covered for any damage you do.

Thus you were given the choice - allow the excess to be held on your credit card, or pay the premium so there would be no excess.

Perhaps the agent wasn't clear in what they were selling you, but in my experience if you check what you agree to, you can see what you're covered for and it seems reasonable to know that anything you're not covered for is going to cost you when you pick up the car (which is better than finding out you're up for the cost of the car and perhaps damage to third parties after an incident).

I'm sorry for your loss and inconvenience. I really hate these businesses that require us to give them "open access" to our credit card (I think it's just car rentals and hotels??)
I requested a credit card company chargeback an unauthorised charge by a rental company once, but they treated it as fraud and cancelled the card, so that was still inconvenient, although I escaped the charge.

I have learned a couple of things though - deal directly with whoever is providing the car. These 3rd parties are just a point of confusion.
And accept that there is going to be some additional costs if something happens like a puncture. It's very unfortunate that it happened on way to airport so I presume you couldn't get it repaired yourself. Obviously the rental company's repair rate will be higher, but that seems excessive and I would have refused to authorise. (I'm sure they would take the charge anyway, but I would be initiating charge back proceedings through your credit card company.)

Only booked a car to them once and I won't do it in the future.
When arrived we've been asked for additional insurance and we said no the person in charge... We didn't notice he added it + 126 euro! anyway
Last day, the car was out of order and we couldn't give it back to the car rental center, we called customer service that sent us a tow truck.
We had to pay additional charges : Fuel ( no problem with it as we have to give the car back with full tank) but also additional charges because tank was not full ( how could we do that if car is out of order??) plus the famous insurance we didn't ask for...

Bad experience, customer service not helpful and very slow to answer...
I will pay more to efficient and honest companies in the future

This company act as an on-line broker and claim to find you the best price for a hire car. They hold your deposit and get a commission from the hire company when you collect.



DONT USE THEM !! Go direct to the hire company and don't get over charged like we did.



The price I was quoted by Argus to hire a med sized saloon car seemed reasonable. I made the booking online and made sure I read all the small print.



The price quoted, I was told, would be fixed and allowed for a second driver. This was important as we were travelling around Scotland and so wanted to share the driving. The paperwork gave us the name of the Car Hire Company and told us to make sure we had all the documents and refences required to hire the car at the airport.



We did this to the letter and arrived at the nominated car hire company just off the airport in Edinburgh. The car was ready but when I presented them with the paperwork they said they could not hire the car for the price on the Argus paperwork.
Price quoted £143.00 incl 1/4 tank of fuel and second driver.
Price we had to pay to take the car was £224.00 incl ¼ tank of fuel and second driver

The guy at the car rental company was very apologetic but said this happened all the time with Argus. On the Argus paperwork although we has put all the details in for the second driver it failed to add this to the booking cost. This extra price plus VAT bumped the cost up by £81.00.


In addition the paperwork from Argus stated clearly that a deposit of £500.00 would be held on our credit card until we returned the car. I had agreed to this but the hire car terms were £1250.00.


When we returned the car there were no problems so this was refunded and the car Hire Company gave me all their rates and paperwork to help me and support a claim to Argus.



I called them and was told to put my complaint in writing. I e-mailed them 5 times over 3 months as they never got back to me. I wrote to the HQ in Ireland (twice) and they have not even had the decency to contact me.


It seems they have your money so tough !!


Well now I have written this review I would strongly recommend NOT to use ARGUS CAR HIRE as they have no customer service and no regard for the customer.

[FONT=&quot]Booked a car for NY while I was in Italy.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Big ridiculous joke when I arrive there and they refuse to give me the car unless I present them an Italian license or international once . ????[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]They say I made a reservation on an Italian web site so I am an International driver??? I tell them they are out of their mind and ....by the way my US driver license is indeed international. They keep refusing me the car. Not wanting to lose any more time I ask if there is a different of price I could pay. Nothing, I need to do a new reservation. Furious I call the Argus help number and they tell me there is been some kind of confusion and Dollar probably will refund me . This is never happen, I call back Argus and they tell me they are not going to refund me because I stated in the reservation that my country of residence was Italy. I would never have done that because my insurance is American and would never have covered me. Not only....in the contract I have there is no sign of "Italy" anywhere. I rent cars 7 months a year and this bs never occured to me. I decided not to deal with third part site anymore. Just deal directly with rent a car company![/FONT]