Beware - Goldcar Car Rentals Spain

Bellshillbaker

I recently arrived back from holiday in Spain, flying to and from Reus Airport. I booked a hire car with Auto Europe in the UK to use in Spain. Gold Car was the providing company. When I arrived I was charged 182 euros for fuel and insurance but did not know that until after they handed me my papers. I asked what these charges were for and they told me fuel and insurance. I asked how much was for fuel and they said 100 euros.

You cannot get 100 euros of fuel into a diesel golf, which holds 50 litres! That meant that I was paying around 80 euros for insurance that I had already paid for in the UK. I inspected the car and found serious damage to it. The A pillar was badly damaged, the roof buckled and the front end had paint contact traces on it from a nasty collision.

I went back to complain and they said they knew about the damage, it was OK! I argued that this damage was not safe on a car and they said it was nothing. I demanded a replacement car but there was none available. I rejected the car and ended up leaving the airport in a taxi after I got my money refunded. Now I am fighting for my original hire payment from the company in the UK. Intelligently, I paid for all of this on credit card. Initially speaking to my card provider, I was told that there would be no charge back and they could do nothing for me.

After some research on your site I went back and talked section 75 and got better advice about what to do with a claim should things not work out. Even credit card companies are using sharp practice. Avoid Gold Car in Spain. They are ripping people off and on some occasions it may even be your life they are playing these games with.

We took photographs and video of the damage-just in case.

taztarrant

I am not surprised to read all the horror stories about Goldcar at Alicante but I would like to warn everyone that you could delete the name Goldcar and insert the name Firefly for identical stories.

When I got near to the front of the queue I realised that 3 out of 4 people in front of me (in from Manchester with Monarch?) believed that they had got a "zero excess" deal and spent some time waving highlighted bits of contract etc like many of the Goldcar customers. The sales reps stuck to their guns and insisted that there was only basic cover. Several people left vowing never to use Firefly again - me included.

I am in ALC working for the summer and when my family came over on holiday a few weeks ago I needed 2 childrens car seats for 1 week only. Firefly said that their policy meant that they would amend my contract from that day (22 July) to the end of my deal (31st Aug) or nothing. I had to point out their maximum hire charge for child seats (= to about 9 days hire) in the small print, otherwise they would have charged me pro rata to the end of Aug!!

I offered my local bank account debit card so that I could pay in Euros but was told that they had already debited my UK £ credit card!

Thanks Firefly, that's 1 more customer you've lost!

nickcc

It would be nice to find a car rental company that didn't try to rip off their customers, I realise that all their agents operate on commission but surely not all of them are rip off merchants. Would be good if some sort of a member survey could be started listing the most popular destinations with the various rental companies shown together with members satisfaction or otherwise.

StuieUK34

easy answer, just avoid GoldCar, and that's you done! easy peasy

nickcc

If only it were just Goldcar, or just one country. As long as agents work on commission with a low basic wage things will never change.

michael-m_3

I rented a car via the Opodo website in April, in Edinburgh where we live, in order to accommodate more people than would fit in our car (a Vauxhall Astra) for a family occasion. The size of car I booked had a photo of an Astra as a sample car - I know this is just an example, but given the number of people and their luggage, this is what I wanted.

When I picked up the car from Budget, they gave me a Mitsubishi Colt, which is much smaller (I subsequently checked - 60cms shorter, and correspondingly little space). I protested, but they told me this was the car I had booked. I felt I had no choice but to take it, but signed under protest. Our guests had to travel with their bags on their knees as the boot was so small.

I contacted Opodo afterwards and said I was unhappy and could they do anything - I wasn't necessarily expecting money back, but a £10 voucher off a future Opodo booking would have been a sufficient gesture. They ignored my email. I wrote again. Twice. Eventually they explained their customer department was very busy(!), and passed it on to rentalcars.com. They eventually got in touch to say that I had been given an upgrade, and that I was not entitled to anything. I wrote back and asked for a manager to call me. A week later - today - I received an email saying the case was closed, the car given me was an upgrade, and they were not prepared to engage further with the matter since I did not call them when I was at the car rental location.

I called them today and asked to speak to a manager. They were curt and unfriendly, but then put me on hold. The line went dead after about 5 minutes of music. I called back. The new person was equally curt after I gave her my booking number and she saw the correspondence. I asked for a manager to call me. The person who wrote me today's email called back, was rude and unpleasant, and told me he was not prepared to do anything more since I should have called when I went to pick up the car. I was one of the last customers on the day, and the Budget staff person was hurrying me along so she could go home, and I did not think to call rentalcars.com under these circumstances.

As I said, I wasn't, at first, too worried about getting real money back - a goodwill gesture of a voucher would have been sufficient. But whilst Opodo were not particularly efficient, rentalcars.com were downright rude, and said they were not prepared to enter a discussion about whether a smaller car could be an upgrade. There is clearly no sense of customer service or even friendliness in dealing with them.

If you want to be ripped off and treated badly, then go with rentalcars.com - otherwise, go elsewhere...

nickcc

I also booked through Rental cars last year for our Orlando holiday, the 7 seater was supplied by Dollar. After a bit of a battle we were eventually refunded for the usual con tricks, the people carrier was at least 3 years old but was adequate for our needs, blowing up both rear tyres every couple of days was a bit of a pain but at least we didn't breakdown.

busiscoming2

I see Goldcar have been fined 15.5 million euros.

http://alcudiapollensa.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/mallorca-today-hire-car-firms-receive.html

NNJJLL

I found on the Internet several forums and statements from more than 3.000 people that were robbed by Spanish car rental company GOLDCAR. Unfortunately not in time, as I recently got robbed too. Operating within EU laws, I would claim that GOLDCAR’s business model is illegal. Hopefully someone one day stops them from ruining people’s vacations.
I hired a car from GOLDCAR in Lisbon airport, using CarTrawler – all basic insurances included. When picking up the key’s at GOLDCAR’s new counter in Lisbon airport, the GOLDCAR lady tried very hard, to sell me additional insurances. I’m used to this, knowing it’s a part of their commission model, so I refused. Never the less, the GOLDCAR lady continued to repeat, that she recommended an additional insurance, and after answering “no thanks” seven (7) times, she told me that this was a “big mistake”, and that I for sure would “regret the decision”. She even told it in a very odd and rude way that made me feel quite uncomfortable. Working with business and sales development myself, I’m normally quite tolerant in cases where sales people get commission on their sales, but this was too much.
Now, after some days in Portugal, I returned the car as picked up (with some big scratches around, that I fortunately got marked during pickup). The guy at GOLDCAR drop point checked the car, didn’t find anything that wasn’t already marked, and then asked for my copy of the papers. After a few minutes he returned, went to the very dirty wind screen, wiped the dirt away on a 10 cm area in upper left corner of the wind screen and pointed out a microscopic, 0.5 by 0.5 mm tiny white dot placed at the edge of the wind screen. It was so tiny, that if you didn’t know it was there, you would never see it – even standing right in front of the screen with total clean windows.
I immediately felt the “setup”. Why would he suddenly come back and wipe the dust of in a 10 cm area, and point out something that you would never see, if you didn’t know it was already there? I immediately claimed that this small white dot never could be categorized as damage, and that it probably already was there at pickup. I mean, we are not talking about one of those 1 – 2 mm small craters caused thrown-up pebbles. We are talking about a tiny white dot, smaller than a single, white sugar particle, and only in the absolute top surface of the glass.
But no, GOLDCAR demanded 400 Euro for a new wind screen. They claimed that they needed to change it for “security reasons”, and I was shocked. I felt this as a really unethical way of doing business. In pure anger, I went over to the cleaned, “pickup ready” cars from GOLDCAR, and documented with my camera, that 7 out of 21 cars (30%) had even bigger “cosmetic” dots on their wind screens. How could they send all these car’s on the street, if a tiny, tiny white dot, at the very edge of the wind screen far from drivers side, made up such a big security issue, that the wind screen needed to be changed?
It’s probably needless to say, that my arguing didn’t last at all. Despite my protest, GOLDCAR kept 400 Euro of my deposit, and we all know that this wind screen won’t be changed, and we also know, that the next customer won’t see the small white dot before it might be pointed out by a GOLDCAR employee when returning the car. Being very cheap on the search engines and then robbing people afterwards seems to be their business model.
Shame on you GOLDCAR!

uphillalltheway

I booked my car through rentalcars.com and paid for insurance etc. I knew about the rip off additional insurance, but due to financial matters being very tight (every penny counted for this holiday) I decided not to take the risk and ordered the insurance as I could not afford not to (scared into it really). After my 90 minute queue at Alicante I paid up and asked to be charged in Euros. Stupid me signed the paperwork and was charged the extra 2% in GBP. So rentalcars.com charged me £323.02 and Goldcar charged me an additional £166.93 on the paperwork. Don't do rentalcars.com and don't do GOLDCAR. My advice is try to get to where your going and hire your car locally. I've done this before and got great service.
GOLDCAR will learn by it's customers going else where. You have been warned. Car rented 170813 - 300813