Europcar Serenity Pack Scam - Nice Airport

Robert_Johnston

Hello,

If I had read this forum before hiring a car from Europcar, I wouldn't have touched them. Sadly I did though and this is what happened....

I pre booked and paid for a car from Europcar this 14th to 28th August. When I picked up the car additional insurances were offered which I verbally declined and I was informed by the Europcar agent that the car needed to be returned with a full tank of diesel. I used my American Express card to pre authorise a 400 Euro deposit against any damages incurred during the rental which I signed for on an electronic pad and at no point was I given the opportunity to view the hire agreement prior to signing. The car was duly returned unmarked with a full tank of diesel on 28th August.

I then received an invoice with an additional charge of 429.77 Euros to my American Express card for a full tank of diesel, refueling and the Europcar famous"serenity" pack. At no point did I agree to these extra charges, which have been charges without my knowledge. This was more than I originally paid for 15 days rental of the car!

A quick search on Google for "Europcar Serenity Pack Scam" produced a page from BBC Watchdog detailing exactly this practice maintained by Europcar agents in France, I queued at the check in alongside Alice Beer, formerly of Watchdog, at Nice airport, sadly I didn't know of this scam then!

I contacted Europcar repeatedly to no avail, even quoting BBC Watchdog, then I found www(dot)bvrla(dot)co(dot)uk who mediate between hire car companies and customers. Two emails later and I received a full refund.

Regards, Robert

fdivor34

Thanks Robert for detailing your experience with Europcar we too were caught at Nice airport with the same scam in August. We are into our 3rd week of dispute (as its only just showed up on our M'card statement) with them insisting we agreed to the unaptly named 'serenity' pack, will let you know how we get on, the irony is we have used Europcar for the past 6 years at Nice with no problem until now! we were charged £206 renters beware!

Howardcarradus

We picked up a car at Nice 2 weeks ago and have just had the final account which shows a charge for a Serenity pack plus at a shade over 300 Euros for the 14 day hire. We agreed to pre-authosise a 400 Euros deposit -in the same way as Robert Johnston did. We had already prepaid the car in May and didn't expect,with other incidentals of which we were aware, to have the cost almost doubled.
At no time did we agree to this extra charge and I'll be fighting them get my money returned. The original booking was at the time we booked with Easyjet and I'll be complaining to them as well. They shouldn't be seen as supporting Europcar if Europcar is continuing to scam their 'joint' customers years after it was first exposed. Let you know how I get on. I'm waiting to hear back from bvria.co.uk and hope to enlist their support in fighting this.
Bob