Europecar excess insurance "scam"

IceTry

I hired a car for two days from Europcar in UK. A tiny, tiny scratch on wheel that was definitely not done by me. The guy rude and and aggressive, saying they would charge me for a whole new wheel! Definitely scammers. I would avoid Europcar like the plague. They have access to your credit card and feel they can play fast and loose. I would NEVER use this company again. The next one would be a reputable one and I would take photos and spend at least a half an hour doing this, and take out full insurance.


If you go on "TrustPilot" website for Europcar you see constantly and continuing damning reports about this company - nearly all are one star reviews. Clearly they believe they can get away with it.

peter_the_piper

I wonder what their reaction would have been if you had said, ok but I want the wheel I'm paying for.

Crabman

IceTry wrote: »

I hired a car for two days from Europcar in UK. A tiny, tiny scratch on wheel that was definitely not done by me. The guy rude and and aggressive, saying they would charge me for a whole new wheel! Definitely scammers. I would avoid Europcar like the plague. They have access to your credit card and feel they can play fast and loose. I would NEVER use this company again. The next one would be a reputable one and I would take photos and spend at least a half an hour doing this, and take out full insurance.


If you go on "TrustPilot" website for Europcar you see constantly and continuing damning reports about this company - nearly all are one star reviews. Clearly they believe they can get away with it.

Obviously they won't replace the wheel - they're scamming you like they scam everyone else.

If you visit a Motorpoint site and find some cars that were owned by Europcar, you'll see they are damaged. The salespeople at any car supermarket will freely admit that their in house bodyshop does the repairs to the vehicles upon arrival and some are received in a poor condition from the rental firms.

All rental firms do this and sadly there appears to be no desire from the authorities to stop this fraud.

oscarward

peter_the_piper wrote: »

I wonder what their reaction would have been if you had said, ok but I want the wheel I'm paying for.

Probably in the T&Cs it says that the charge may be for repair or loss of resale value.

Crabman

oscarward wrote: »

Probably in the T&Cs it says that the charge may be for repair or loss of resale value.

There's no loss of resale value for minor defects (minor enough for the rental firms to not be charged, but major enough for the rental firms to charge customers).

In the case of more serious crash damage (where a vehicle isn't written off), sometimes this damage will be repaired and never disclosed to a subsequent owner of the vehicle.

It would be interesting to ask them to prove the loss in value that was directly attributable to one defect as I strongly suspect they would be unable to do so.