Beware - Goldcar Car Rentals Spain

jassboyuk

We were first of all forced to wait with about 30 other people for Goldcar Malaga, who Holidays Autos sub-contracted our car hire with. Almost all of the people waiting, ended up sitting or lying on the floor - something I've never had to do before. When we reached the desk, there was no apology for the wait, instead, I actually thought the agent was so arrogant and rude to start with. We were then forced to pay a deposit insurance on credit card direct to Goldcar. Even though we were told by Holiday Autos that this was covered in what we'd paid them in the UK. We were also forced to pay a 40 euro "after hours" collection despite it saying in our contract that we would need to pay 0.00 euros after hours. We pointed this out to the agent, who totally ignored us and demanded the payment. The Dutch member of staff at the Goldcar desk, who was assisting us, was the worst mannered person I've come across yet in customer service - "if you keep disputing this I will cancel the car" - "you are in the Kingdom of Spain, not in England now" - what a disgusting way to treat anyone, let alone a paying customer. The form they gave me to sign for the car only had a couple of marks to show previous damage on the car - when we got to the car, we saw that there was at least another 20 marks which they had failed to include, so went back to the desk with the marks pointed out along with photos we had taken. On bringing the car back to the drop off point, I asked four different members of Goldcar staff to come and check the car but all refused and said they did not check cars coming in after 10pm (despite their staff walking around taking photos of other incoming cars) and now I see that they are still holding £1200+ on my credit card which they said would be released when the car was returned - appalling way to run a business. All recommended by Holiday Autos too.......really do not use Goldcar, nor Holidays Auto. I've hired cars all over the world and this last hire was nothing like any of the others I've had over the last 25years.

TONY_WOOD

Do not use this dishonest company, they are thieves and robbers so hire from them at your peril.

abacab

Watched this firm in action myself at Lanzerote airport on Wednesday.They told a family a new scratch had appeared,and they had to go to the desk to sort out ,even though the family were adamant no damage had occured.Dropped my Autoreisen car off with nothing more than a verbal assurance that it was returned with the same fuel level.
Yet Goldcar continue to be popular?

nickcc

Only popular because the initial cost is extremely attractive, add on all their underhand practices and soon more expensive than the likes of Avis etc.

Gill_Buchanan

I had a really bad experience with Goldcar in Spain too - Madrid Airport. It was the most stressful car hire I have ever done. They charged £45 for the car hire and an additional £120 when I got to Spain! It was outrageous. It also took over an hour to get the car. It was parked in another car park and they made us go and get it with all our luggage.
On the way back the entrance to the car hire section was blocked so we left the car in the car park as they had done. They told us that we had to return it to them. In the end we just had to leave it or we would have missed our flight. Please everyone reading this DO NOT USE THESE PEOPLE.

daturaman

I hired from Goldcar Chania for the first and last earlier this month, whilst enjoying an otherwise excellent holiday in Crete.

I always buy third party excess insurance before hiring a car abroad, knowing just how exorbitant hire firms' own insurance usually is. When I went to pick up the car from the Goldcar Chania office - which was booked via Travel Republic/Car Trawler - at no time was I offered the option to buy additional insurance. It was simply added to my bill, which was all in Greek, by they way. When I queried what the additional charge of 148 euros was for, I was told that it was the holding deposit for fuel. This was a flat out lie, plain and simple. It was in fact a charge for "super relax" insurance and Goldcar had no intention of refunding me that amount.

I returned the car at the end of my holiday with no damage and a full tank. It all seemed too easy to hand back, in hindsight. It was only when I had been back in the UK for a week and noted that the only charge from Goldcar had not been refunded, that I checked my rental agreement again and saw that the charge on my credit card corresponded to the cost of this "super relax" cover. They'd also added "mega relax" cover too - I mean, if you're going to fleece your customers, might as well go the whole hog, eh?

Needless to say, I did call Goldcar Chania and spoke to the very "lady" who had served me. All I got was some glib BS about how she always offered people the option of "super relax", and that I must have requested it - I didn't, thank you very much. I'm not stupid. She said that it wasn't possible to refund the £135.33 and gave me some bizarre email to contact her manager. I'm not going to have much faith in that line of enquiry either.

I haven't given up on this, in spite of my credit card company refusing to claim back the money. What I do know is that, if I am ever at an airport and see people queuing at a Goldcar desk, I will stop and let them all know just what pirates that company is. I will do everything I can to persuade them to take their custom elsewhere, and I suggest everyone else who has been duped by these cowboys does likewise.

JEZZ

This is our third trip and car hire to Spain this year. We are members of Gold Car Club as we are frequent users.
When we arrived at the airport this week to pick up our pre booked and prepaid car, we were told that on our last visit of four days, we had left the car in a "dirty" condition and had to pay a clean of €150.... yes €150 before they would give us a car! We contested this immediately as we had barely used the car and it was left in immaculate condition. There had been no rain, neither had we been to the beach. We asked for evidence and were briefly shown a photograph of what looked like a water damaged seat. We were not allowed to analyse the picture to see details as we were hurried out of the room. We, vehemently insisted that we had not left the car like that.
On asking why they had not contacted us to tell us, they said they have so many car hire issues to deal with, that they have no time. So we were left in a situation where we would not have our prepaid car unless we had given them €150 to clean the previous car.
It was extremely distressing, embarrassing, unjustified and totally immoral.
Let this be a warning to others to take photos of their car hire when picking up and returning. We had no evidence to defend ourselves and they were not interested in our side of the story.
Needless to say, we will NOT be using GOLD CAR again.

landsberger64

Goldcar made the Guardian "Hall of Fame" this week with another disgruntled punter being told staff were "too busy" to inspect his car, and then whacking him with "damage" costs.

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2017/jul/09/car-hire-goldcar-take-photo-damage

We hired a small car for nine days from Goldcar at Malaga airport in April last year for €41.69. We paid a deposit of €1,205 by credit card. The car was great and we had no problems. When we returned it, the returns officer told us it would be “at least a 40-minute wait” before anyone could look at it, so recommended we leave the keys. With a plane to catch we took his advice. I took photos of the exterior in case of a query. A week after returning I received an invoice for €180 to cover the cost of a supposed scratch to the back door, with a photo attached. But I’d taken a shot from almost the same angle, and there was no scratch. We disputed the damage and sent our photo evidence (complete with time and date stamp). I then discovered Goldcar had charged us €300. Its only response was, “I can confirm the charge has been applied correctly”. When I pursued the issue the response was “someone will get back to you”. It never did. I requested a chargeback via my credit card company, and the eight-week period in which Goldcar could challenge our chargeback has passed. We aren’t surprised it took no action.

mclarbj

Utter crooks, shamsters and highly untrustworthy. On a recent trip to Rome Gold Car tried to con us into taking out their insurance as our credit card was really a charge card (it was a MasterCard credit card) so they couldn't reserve the excess. Told us we would lose all we had paid and not get a car if we refused and they shouldn't really do this but were doing us a favour. We refused, got an immediate refund from Expedia and booked with Sixt. Subsequently heard many similar stories re this shameful outfit

HannahHewetson

This is a scam company. I am in an ongoing dispute with them about charges for damage which they applied in Turin. They are charing me their standard care of 480 euros for a 3mm scratch to the windscreen. According to their own T's and C's they should get an independent assessment of the damage to the car and then adjust the charge accordingly. They are not doing this and are insisting that the windscreen has to be replaced. Carglass Italia which I have researched independently do not state this at all as the scratch is on the passenger side in the corner. They are total thieves and do not care about their customers one little bit. AVOID