Avoid Companies that use GoldCar Car Hire

lowbrim

:mad: Be warned if you don't want to be ripped off avoid companies that use GoldCar Car Hire in Spain!! Just returned from Valencia Spain and made the mistake of booking with Goldcar.

First of all they charged me £96 for a tank of diesel for a Fiat Punto with no option to bring a full tank back. Whilst I realise they load the price a 30% mark-up is way over the top.


Then despite taking out a zero excess insurance they wanted me to pay another €5/day to cover all the other eventualities that might happen! These ranged from a puncture, broken windscreen, catalytic convertor, exhaust etc etc all consumables. But to top it all they then had a get out clause that if in there view it was due to negligence then you were not covered anyway. I can guarantee if any of these consumables went they would say you were negligent

What I thought was a cheap car insurance turned out to be an expensive one just because of the way they charged for the fuel! I will be sticking with Holiday Auto's next time who I believe do not have the fuel policy that does not allow you to bring a full tank of petrol back.:mad:

Si67

£96? Flippin heck, what a scam!

We hire cars regularly in Spain (well, Lanzarote) and we always avoid the car hire companies that make you buy a full tank of fuel. You have to read the individual suppliers' T&Cs though, because even with consolidators like Holiday Autos the T&Cs can vary.

Nothing is ever certain though. Last week we hired a car in Lanzarote through Holiday Autos. The local supplier was Orlando rent-a-car, and all seemed well. However, after returning home we discovered that Orlando had retrospectively sneaked 175 Euros charge onto our credit card, citing some damage to the bumper; (damage that we did not cause). We did take out separate car hire excess insurance (worldwideinsure.com), but we need to provide the insurance company with the damage report and invoice, and I cannot get Orlando rent-a-car to provide this documentation. In summary, a 3 day hire that should have cost £30 has ended up costing nearly £200.

zagfles

Si67 wrote: »

£96? Flippin heck, what a scam!

We hire cars regularly in Spain (well, Lanzarote) and we always avoid the car hire companies that make you buy a full tank of fuel. You have to read the individual suppliers' T&Cs though, because even with consolidators like Holiday Autos the T&Cs can vary.

Nothing is ever certain though. Last week we hired a car in Lanzarote through Holiday Autos. The local supplier was Orlando rent-a-car, and all seemed well. However, after returning home we discovered that Orlando had retrospectively sneaked 175 Euros charge onto our credit card, citing some damage to the bumper; (damage that we did not cause). We did take out separate car hire excess insurance (worldwideinsure.com), but we need to provide the insurance company with the damage report and invoice, and I cannot get Orlando rent-a-car to provide this documentation. In summary, a 3 day hire that should have cost £30 has ended up costing nearly £200.

I'd ask your credit card for a chargeback - if they are claiming they are charging you for damage and can't even supply an invoice then what basis is there for the charge? May not work but worth a try...

MasterChief_3

Si67 wrote: »

Nothing is ever certain though. Last week we hired a car in Lanzarote through Holiday Autos. The local supplier was Orlando rent-a-car, and all seemed well. However, after returning home we discovered that Orlando had retrospectively sneaked 175 Euros charge onto our credit card, citing some damage to the bumper; (damage that we did not cause). We did take out separate car hire excess insurance (world wide insure . com), but we need to provide the insurance company with the damage report and invoice, and I cannot get Orlando rent-a-car to provide this documentation. In summary, a 3 day hire that should have cost £30 has ended up costing nearly £200.

The fact that you can show a damage charge on your credit card related to this should be enough, along with any copy of the car rental agreement. Otherwise, write to Miles Brignall at The Guardian newspaper, he looks out for customers who are let down by products and services which don't do what they should.

Ian_Muir

I just had the bad GOLDCAR experience in Spain as well! Rented a Yaris at Reus for 7 days and was charged €82 for a tank of fuel. After doing 500km it was still half full but no refund given.
They also sneaked a payment in Pounds onto my card, when I asked for the Euro amount. They used a ridiculous exchange rate (0.92 instead of 0.88) and added a 2.5% exchange rate charge.
I will not use them again anywhere!

Si67

MasterChief wrote: »

The fact that you can show a damage charge on your credit card related to this should be enough, along with any copy of the car rental agreement. Otherwise, write to Miles Brignall at The Guardian newspaper, he looks out for customers who are let down by products and services which don't do what they should.

My worldwideinsure.com car hire excess policy (underwritten by Axa) states:

DOCUMENTS THAT MUST BE INCLUDED ARE DETAILED BELOW. FAILURE TO PROVIDE FULL DOCUMENTATION AS DETAILED BELOW MAY JEOPARDISE YOUR CLAIM.

1. Certificate of Insurance (if issued)
2. Rental Contract.
3. Charge Receipt (if separate from the Rental Agreement)
4. Law Enforcement / Police Report (if applicable) for Damage / Loss over £50.00
5. Rental Company accident damage report. -
6. Invoices / Receipts / other documents confirming the amount you have paid in respect of Accident / Damage / Loss etc. for which the Vehicle Rental Company hold you responsible.
7. Copy of the driving license of the person involved in the accident (the driver).
8. Copy of your credit card statement showing payment of the damages claimed.

Of these, we only have 2, 7 (not sure why we need this anyway as there was no accident!) and 8 , so not holding out too much hope for a hassle-free claim. Naturally I'll let everyone know how worldwideinsure.com / Axa handles it. Maybe they'll be OK. The claim is genuine so they might not let us down, but to be honest I'm starting to lose faith in everyone I deal with these days . Any problems though, and I will be writing to Miles Brignall at The Guardian newspaper - thanks for the suggestion!

zagfles wrote: »

I'd ask your credit card for a chargeback - if they are claiming they are charging you for damage and can't even supply an invoice then what basis is there for the charge? May not work but worth a try...

In the meantime I will try the credit card charge-back idea - thanks for that suggestion too! The credit card in question was Nationwide (although to confuse matters we paid for the rental using Tesco!) Again, everything is a battle, so not looking forward to it. I'll report back!

Being charged exorbitant prices for fuel you don't even want, and damage to a car that you didn't even cause is unacceptable, yet it's standard procedure for some firms. Why is it allowed to happen? The law doesn't seem that interested in protecting the consumer, so we need to look out for each other. There needs to be some form of system (lawful obviously) for naming and shaming, warning of the predatory sharks and their unscrupulous business practices that the unsuspecting public might find themselves falling foul of. Fora like this are great (anyone who reads this one will probably steer clear of GOLDCAR and Orlando rent-a-car!) but they're still not high-profile enough.

Ideas?...

Coullio

Just back from Majorca and had the same experience. We booked in the uk through Argus/Car Trawler. We paid 9.50 euro and £33.39 to mondial insurance for CDW. We received a e-mail from Argus telling us "ONLY" 95 euro to pay. We arrived at the airport and heading over to the Goldcar desk. We got charged the following 95 euro for the car, 80 euro for fuel (1.4 diesel 207, went back half fuel), 28 euro for a booster seat, 21 euro for additional driver (wife used her credit card and they charged us for it) & 35 euro for "Super Collision Waver Damage". So we had CDW & SCDW??? We got charged 259 euros = £237. So the car cost us nearly £300.00 for a week. I will never again hire a car in spain and the next time I hire I will be check out the countries hire policy. This is a blatant rip off.

*****PLEASE REMEMBER AND TAKE PICTURES OF THE CAR BEFORE DROPPING IT OFF, THEY MIGHT TRY AND CHARGE YOU FOR DAMAGE THAT'S NOT THEIR*****

Coullio

I have contacted Don't get done get Dom. Maybe worth a few contacted Watchdog.

Coullio

Just contacted Mondial Insurance used my Argus/Car Trawler and they have refunded our CWD originally bought in the UK. So there are decent companies in the UK.

Coullio

I have now contacted Watchdog. We need to warn other people.

m33r4

I have booked a car on the Jet2.com website along with flights to Alicante. I am due to pick the car up from Alicante Airport. After reading this thread, I notice that Jet2.com uses Avis, Alama, Eurocar, Sixt, Solmar, Record as well as GoldCar. I suppose once I get to Alicante I will get allocated a car from any of these companies without a choice? Of course after reading this thread I wish to avoid a car from GoldCar.