Warning: Marbesol Car Hire (Malaga)

dean_j_3

Just wanted to post a quick warning to anyone wanting to hire a car at Malaga Airport. I used 121carhire.com and ended up hiring a car with Marbesol as they seemed to offer a good price. Okay, it turns out they didn't have an office at the airport and we had to fight our way onto their minibus for a transfer to their office, and they have a "return empty" fuel policy, but they were cheap so no big problem.

However, unlike most car hire companies, they don't just get authorisation from your credit card for the deposit and hold that amount, they actually charge your account for the deposit. As this occurs twice (once for the deposit and then again for the refund) you will pay two sets of transaction fees. I lost £40 in fees, which obviously makes them much less competitive.

It's a shame car hire comparison web sites like 121carhire don't include the "total cost of hire" so you can do a fair comparison.

henrymoore

3 weeks and after numerous promises No refund of deposit after leaving car and all ok when car returned. Rip off fuel price. 107 euro for 1.3 litre car. many dents on car and scratches, waited ages for mini bus and no staff so another wait to pick up and return car. Now having to take legal action. The stress, is awful so hopefully this will save those who read this.

RobPersani

It was my first time hiring a car abroad, in Gibraltar, where Marbesol rent a corner of an underground hotel car park near the airport. Waited outside airport and man appeared, went back to the 'office' with another couple who'd also hired. Not very well lit, I did check round the car and found one scrape in the bumper, which their man noted on the form (all cars there have lots of bumps and scratches, and so did this one in the daylight!). I'd booked through airport-car-hire.net, car was only £12 a day, and paid £20 for extra insurance against damage. I mentioned this to their man, and he still thought I needed the 800 euro on my card, I just needed the car! So he charged 63 for fuel, 43 remaining on the car hire and the 800, and phoned it through. I guess I shouldn't have been surprised when the whole lot had come off my card when I got back! I dropped off the car at the hotel, no one there to inspect it or receive it, and 10 days later the 800 euros was recredited. So it did work, although I didn't rest till I saw it again, and they had half a tank of free fuel out of me! And of course the credit card fees...

simonapetre

Dear Dean,

I work for a car hire concierge company (for carhiremalaga.com), and i can tell you that it is extremely tricky for the car hire broker to prevent any possible situation. For example, such a mechanism for deposit is really not typical, so I advise you to contact the broker and let them know...maybe they don't even know. 121 is a really nice agency and I'm sure they would reply.

The problem is that most car hire agencies which actually deliver/provide the car do not communicate very transparently. I know this from personal experience. As a car hire concierge company for example we have to manually check every quotation to prevent situations like this, which is a treeemeendous amount of work...:think:

And the margins in this industry are already razor sharp.

Dragon92

Booked through Holiday Autos (now Car Trawler)
Had to pay 800 euros deposit as did not take out additional insurance as already had annual car hire excess policy,
Marbesol state very clearly that this deposit will be refunded within 5 days
Contacted Cartrawler who say it can take up to 28 days!!
Very difficult to contact anyone in Cartrawler, no email address and phone number goes to answerphone.

WilliamPal

Marbesol is a fraudulent company who just want to take your money in an immoral way.
If you don’t take out the ‘extra insurance’ they will point out damage to the car and claim it wasn’t there before so that you have to pay for the repairs. The paperwork showed so many marks and dents it was practically impossible to check the car beforehand, especially as they handed you the keys in a dark garage in the middle of the night.
They also charge an excessive amount for a tank of petrol. Far more than could ever be justified.
We have seen other complaints where they have used the same car (a Toyota Auris) and then point out dents they claim weren’t there before when you return the car. They even decided to charge us extra on our card a week later without contacting us or seeking permission. Luckily we had paid on a credit card and our bank blocked it and returned us the money.
Also, the ‘manager’ is never available and all the employees claim that they don’t have the authority to do anything except charge you money for damage you didn’t cause.
As one of us is from the area we have put in an official complaint to the local governing body. PLEASE DO NOT USE THEM! IT IS BETTER TO SPEND A BIT MORE AND GO WITH A REPUTABLE WEL KNOWN COMPANY AS YOU WILL ULTIMATELY END UP SPENDING MORE WITH MARBESOL.

NiftyDigits

Sara_Marbesol wrote: »

I´m a <snip>.

Look here
It pays to check the Forum Rules before posting.

Morrid48

I hired a car through Marbesol Malaga. My advice?
AVOID! AVOID! AVOID!
Rude staff. They operate the "hire full return empty" scam and overcharge for the petrol. If you opt for "hire full return full" option you have to pay a 25 Euo "administration fee". They take an 800 Euro deposit off your credit card and take their time to repay. The car we hired had 8 areas of damage listed and another six that we had to get them to acknowledge before we took the car, and that was a scribble on the form with a dodgy signature. When we returned it "the guy in the tie" wouldn't sign the car off, because he didn't know who had filled in the form. After being ignored for half an hour, and refusing to let the car go to cleaning he signed it off. I reckon if I hadn't done that I would have got a hefty bill.
I've hired cars all over the world. This is the first time I've felt at risk of being seriously ripped off.
They act for HOLIDAY AUTOS. I'd avoid both.

ask66

Have just returned from Malaga area, got a 5 door diesel Corsa for 17 days via DoYouSpain/Marbesol, cost 51EUR (£38) for the hire plus £58 for a tank of possibly overpriced diesel. But overall a pretty good deal I think!

Yes, both DoYouSpain and Marbesol tried to sell me their overpriced insurance, but I have an annual policy covering this for around £35. The car was 5 years old, with a few dents and scratches and 120,000 km on the clock. But the fuel consumption was astonishingly good.

I don't really have any sympathy with those complaining about credit card transaction charges (elsewhere on this site you will find info on plenty of cards without these), or full-empty fuel policy (if you don't think you will use a full tank during your hire, then either factor the extra cost in, or go somewhere else... I've returned a car with over half a tank of fuel still in it, and still saved money over the cheapest full-full deal).

I would rather Marbesol had blocked the 800EUR deposit, than actually charging it to the card as they did. But it was automatically refunded within 4 days. I would rather they had given me the option of paying in EUR and not £ as they are required to do under VISA rules, instead of pretending the machine converted it to £ automatically, but you can always get any difference refunded by your card company on return to the UK, and ironically I gained from this because they also refunded in £ and the currency rate had improved over the period.

I found most of Marbesol's staff to be really helpful and pleasant. I always video the car inside and out on collection and return, including the mileometer reading, and ideally make the staff aware that I'm doing this. That way, if there's a problem I have some evidence on my return. I've hired many cars over the years and never had a problem yet (always fingers crossed of course).

If you're not prepared to play the "cheaper car hire" game, by all means use the established companies - Hertz, Avis etc. You will probably have a smooth experience and a lovely new car. But it will cost you!

akhilgupta981

Having read a lot of bad reviews i shouldn't have thought twice about booking a car hire with Marbesol. I ended up committing this cardinal sin and here i am contributing to those negative reviews. My advice to anyone out there who has stumbled upon this thread:

DO NOT BOOK WITH MARBESOL. PLEASE BOOK ELSEWHERE!

The girl who "greeted" us at the reception at the airport was the single most offensive person i met on a 3 week long trip. Their car just about ok. Arm-twisting me into buying your exorbitant insurance was bad enough as well but then this happened. I returned from the trip and checked my credit card statement and these !!!!!!s charged me twice for the entire car rental. TWICE!!! So you book the car via an agency (Cartrawler, 121carhire, etc) and pay the booking amount to them and then get charged the whole amount again at the time of pick up. Now because they sold me the additional insurance and charged a lump-sum amount that is different from what Cartrawler charged me just for the booking, the credit card company has reasons to believe that these are two separate transactions.

I am highly doubtful that i will ever get that money back and have only myself to blame for losing out big in order to save 10-15 euros.

PLEASE BOOK YOUR CAR HIRE ELSEWHERE. THESE GUYS MIGHT SEEM TO BE CHEAP BUT THEY REALLY AREN'T. AND DON'T EVEN MENTION THE WORD CUSTOMER SERVICE.

dedzaboy

AVOID LIKE THE PLAGUE!!!

I recently hired a car from Marbesol in Malaga through Holiday Autos, and will not be doing so again!
On arrival at their yard I was told that I had two options:
1. Pay €160 and that would cover fuel and full insurance, or
2. Pay a €1500 deposit and an additional €107 for fuel (returning the car empty).
I have annual excess insurance so chose option 1. They were plainly not happy with my choice, and in fact the staff were abrupt and rude to all of the customers I saw them dealing with. Rather than either pre-authorising €1500, or charging my card with €800 (both as stated in the Holiday Autos rental voucher) they charged my card for €1607 (1500 deposit and 107 fuel). They then gave me some keys and told me where the car was, which turned out to be a dirty Volkswagen Golf with lots of minor damage to the paintwork. They also pointed out (and hand wrote on the rental papers) that breakdown recovery was not free, again contrary to what is stated in the Holiday Autos voucher. When I queried the damage they (eventually, when I could get someone’s attention) told me it was all noted on a diagram included in my paperwork. I then attempted to match up the 15 items of listed damage to the car, difficult when it’s under cover at dusk and the car is dirty. Eventually I took the car and left.
It was no great surprise to learn that on returning the car they found “new” damage (a small scratch) to the left front wing and charged me €140 for it. I have no knowledge of causing this damage, it is extremely likely that it was pre-existing when I took the car, and I’m absolutely certain that Marbesol have no intention of repairing this damage – they will leave it, along with all the other bumps and scrapes, and charge the next poor sap that comes along for causing it.
Naturally they were not remotely willing to do anything than charge me an arbitrary €140 and it’s plain to me that this is their business model – get the customer to pay for their “insurance” and make some money that way, or screw the customer for imaginary repairs if he hasn’t paid for their insurance. It was notable that a car being returned after me was given a very cursory inspection – he, of course, had taken the Marbesol “insurance”.
I was so angry with their behaviour that I omitted to take a photo of the so-called new damage and am consequently unable to make a claim on my excess insurance, but frankly it would feel dishonest to do so as I’m convinced it would not be a legitimate claim.
The price I paid for the car hire was of course very cheap (although it was a dirty car with 64,000km on the clock) on the face of it, but once I add up the “extras” of overpriced fuel (€107 for a tank of diesel? Really?), charge for non-existent “repairs” and credit card fees (since I used a sterling card and they charge in Euros for the €1500 “deposit”, that cost me £35) it was far from cheap. Worse than that of course is that I feel robbed by their use of underhand tactics. Add all that to their rudeness and it doesn’t make for a good deal – having belatedly looked for reviews of this shady bunch I see I’m far from the first to be robbed in this way and am consequently disappointed that Holiday Autos are associated with them. Steer well clear!