Avoid Companies that use GoldCar Car Hire

m33r4

There is still 43 days to go till we start the car hire but their policy is that if you cancel more than 48 hours after the booking was made or 3 days before the hire is due to start you get charged either the booking fee of 3 day's rental whichever is applicable.

m33r4

The rep at Carhire3000 did advise me to check the car before we take the hire and take notes and photos and to get it checked again when we drop it off and log it all with the local company GoldCar. He also said that there are lots of happy customers who don't go on the net to say how happy they are with the service but the occasional unhappy customers who make an effort to put up bad reviews. I explained to him that if his company dealt with the complaints efficiently then there wouldn't be any complaints.

Coullio

kaya wrote: »

i only paid the advertised price, i was aware of the fuel surcharge when i booked-somebody has to be paid to drive it to the garage and fill it up, £20 seems a little excessive but i was aware of the price when i booked, when you go to curry's and buy a new pc the sales guy spends an hour trying to sell you insurance that you dont need in order for the company to make extra money, same with goldcars "extra's" insurance , you dont need it so dont buy it, were you not made aware of the fuel tank policy when you booked? If this was not featured in the t&c's when you booked and it was "sprung" on you at the last min then i can understand your upset and i would have refused to pay it on the spot, but our T&C's stated quite clearly there was a surcharge when we booked, Mrs K worked for the automotive insurance industry for years and read everything thoroughly before we paid our money , did you read through all the 'orrible small print before you paid your money? did you book the cheapest deal you could find?

P.S T&C's are NOT a way of ripping you off, they are a legal requirement, would you take out a mortgage without reading them? or buuy life insurance maybe?

We never booked with Goldcar, we booked with Argus/CarTrawler. I have checked the t&c's - If you purchased the Excess Cover Insurance from a third party (such as mondial assitance), the credit card holder will be required to present his/her credit card at the rental desk in order for the car rental agent to authorize the deposit, yet we got charged by Goldcar for Super Collision Waver Damage. The fuel policy should have a min max price you will pay, small = 50 euro, economy 60 euro etc. This way you can budget. The problem is with Argus/CarTrawler no giving the full price. I contacted RecordOne yesterday and they gave me the full price, car, fuel, booster & excess protection, not the car is xyz. That what I am asking for the full price.

kaya

so you paid for some extra insurance before you collected the car then paid for it again when you got there? if i understand correctly then it seems you should be having a pop at argus/car trawler if it was them that you booked with, i suppose it is difficult to give exact fuel prices with the cost of fuel rising, the rubbish euro rates would make giving prices in advance difficult i would imagine, i know the car hire rate was changing on a daily basis for a month before we booked ours due to the currency fluctuations, maybe they calculate the charges on a daily basis due to these changing circumstances to try and give you a better more up to date and accurate price , i would imagine giving a fixed price would be a gamble if you are taking bookings well in advance on a large scale and not the best idea from a business perspective, for one car it seems petty but these compannies hire out thousands, i can only report on my experience dealing directly with goldcar which was good overall, maybe you should book direct with a comapny next time instead of using/paying for the services of a 3rd party company, either way i hope you sort your grievances out to your satisfaction

lowbrim

Ian_Muir wrote: »

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!

Yes did that to me as well on the Euro's. Never again it is worth paying an extra £20 with Holidayauto's they moved from Goldcar last year! But you have to watch they don't go back to the use or lose fuel policy.

lowbrim

kaya wrote: »

so you paid for some extra insurance before you collected the car then paid for it again when you got there? if i understand correctly then it seems you should be having a pop at argus/car trawler if it was them that you booked with, i suppose it is difficult to give exact fuel prices with the cost of fuel rising, the rubbish euro rates would make giving prices in advance difficult i would imagine, i know the car hire rate was changing on a daily basis for a month before we booked ours due to the currency fluctuations, maybe they calculate the charges on a daily basis due to these changing circumstances to try and give you a better more up to date and accurate price , i would imagine giving a fixed price would be a gamble if you are taking bookings well in advance on a large scale and not the best idea from a business perspective, for one car it seems petty but these compannies hire out thousands, i can only report on my experience dealing directly with goldcar which was good overall, maybe you should book direct with a comapny next time instead of using/paying for the services of a 3rd party company, either way i hope you sort your grievances out to your satisfaction

All they have to do is allow you to bring the car back full. It is clearly a moneymaking scam. It has nothing to do with rising fuel prices or currency exchanges!

robins66

Theres another thread about Goldcar. I posted on there on 14th June. Another victim of Goldcar. Charged double the agreed cost, for a car that wouldn't accomodate ALL the party AND had to pay for a return taxi to the resort.
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/44456342#Comment_44456342

Si67

A quick (albeit belated) follow-up to my previous posts...

Orlando rent-a-car refused to back down regarding the excess that they'd charged (as expected), but the car hire excess insurance policy that we'd taken out with worldwideinsure.com / Axa paid out within about a week of making the claim.

trets77

I recently rented a car in Alicante . knowing the horror stories about Goldcar I had made sure I stayed well clear of them.

Anyhow the queue for the Goldcar desk had at least 20 people in it and was not moving fast. no other desk had a queue of more than 3. Another reason to avoid them me thinks.We used Budget/Avis and were dealt very promptly.

Cheapest is not always the best way ..or the cheapest.

m33r4

I also read the horror stories on here but had already booked car hire with Jet2 at the time and was assigned to Gold Car at Alicante. Yes the queues when we reached Alicante in August was slow and long. The receptionists did their best to get the queues moving fast. We got a lovely new diesel car and had to pay appx £113 for a tank of petrol of 8 days excess, which got charged on my credit card. I made sure I only had max £200 credit on that card in case Gold Car overcharged my car.

Gold Car did not take any deposit for the car and when we returned it 8 days later, they didn't even check the car and just asked us if the car was good.

I found the Gold Car experience smooth, hassle free, had a new car that had only done 3K, no fuss was made about the car on its return, pick and drop off was quick once we got the keys. The only complaint was the queue.