Gold Car hire car - Leave well alone

Alan_Chambers

I have recently returned from Portugal where I hired a car at Lisbon airport from Goldcar via Expedia. I was charge 650 euros for a small scratch and a stone chip to the windscreen - I am wondering if anyone has managed to challenge the rip off repair costs. If anyone wants more details and paperwork I have it all and will happily share.


Unfortunately I was unable to argue any further with them as I had to run to catch my plane.


The below response to a their survey, hopefully sets the scene:


1 - I was made to walk to the car park and inspect the car in the dark and then return the paperwork to the customer desk in the airport, which added at least half an hour to the process of collecting the car.

2 - On return of the car, I was "fined" 650 Euros for two very small blemishes to the paintwork and windscreen, that I was reasonably certain did not happen when I had the car. I have asked for evidence why I should have to pay such extortionate costs and evidence of the charge scales, so far without success.

3 - On inspection when collecting the car, it had several large scratches (one around a meter long) and bumps around on the body work from previous accidents and I am being made to feel that I am paying for the whole vehicle to be repaired. In England an invisible windscreen repair would be £25 and I am being asked to pay 450 Euros - I feel this is extortionate! I cant believe the airport staff picked up on two small blemishes when it was in that state to begin with. The scratch was less then 5mm long and would probably disappear with some wax applied.
For reference, I have hired cars many times before (at least 20) for collection at Lisbon airport and have never been treated like this by any of the other car hire companies.

I am extremely upset, about how I have been treated and feel it is only fair to advise as many other people as possible not to use Gold car for car rentals in the future.
Any help would be welcomed to try and get at least some if not all of my money back.


Cheers


Alan

a&akay

Can't help with your incident but I've just had similar with a stone chip on an alloy wheel with Europcar at Newquay airport in Sep 17. I Googled this before travelling and saw similar previously. I wasn't prepared to pay their excess charge so went with Allianz as a company with a UK, not Irish, office in case of Ombudsman involvement down the line. Just made the excess claim online so await developments. Bit of a faff but I scanned all documents to Pdf and my Halifax account shows my BIC and IBAN so just a copy and paste into their claim form. Took about 3 minutes to complete it.

agrinnall

I believe if you look on the Overseas Holiday board or its car hire sub board you will find other complaints about Goldcar, although I think I used them in Malaga once many years ago and they were fine.

But in this case I'm not sure their assessment is too far out, just because you think a scratch would polish out doesn't mean that is the repair option that they have to choose - if it was your car and someone else had scratched it wouldn't you want a respray of the area rather than a polish?

brianposter

Have they repaired the car ? If they have not repaired the car they can only claim for the diminution in the value of the car and it sounds like the diminution in value of this particular car was negligible. So ask for evidence of repair.
Start with Goldcar but assume you will be claiming from Expedia (or your credit card ).

agrinnall

brianposter wrote: »

Have they repaired the car ? If they have not repaired the car they can only claim for the diminution in the value of the car and it sounds like the diminution in value of this particular car was negligible. So ask for evidence of repair.
Start with Goldcar but assume you will be claiming from Expedia (or your credit card ).

Is this in Portuguese law? Because in the UK there is no requirement for a repair to be made.

brianposter

agrinnall wrote: »

Because in the UK there is no requirement for a repair to be made.

But if they have not made the repair they are presumably claiming that the car has declined in value (which would usually be quite reasonable, but the OP appears to describe an already battered car).

worried_jim

agrinnall wrote: »

I believe if you look on the Overseas Holiday board or its car hire sub board you will find other complaints about Goldcar, although I think I used them in Malaga once many years ago and they were fine.

The consensus is to avoid them at all costs as they are famous for this stunt.

cubegame

Goldcar are fine. You just have to make sure that you let them know what they are up to. They'd rather prey on the gullible rather than the savvy.

Mercdriver

brianposter wrote: »

But if they have not made the repair they are presumably claiming that the car has declined in value (which would usually be quite reasonable, but the OP appears to describe an already battered car).

Which bit of case law did you find that the OP can legally challenge the hirers with?

peter_the_piper

I wonder how many drivers have been charged for the same faults.

brianposter

Mercdriver wrote: »

Which bit of case law did you find that the OP can legally challenge the hirers with?

No case law. I suspect that is because car hire companies are quite good at backing down if they are likely to lose, so I have never had to learn how to look for case law.