Goldcar Malaga Airport - car hire scam

ChastenedTraveller1

Hi - I'm new to this - hopefully it will help someone get their holiday off to a better start than mine

Had booked car hire online for holiday a month or so in advance with Holiday Autos to be provided by GOLDCAR in Malaga airport - started with MSE and was referred to Moneysupermarket - I checked reviews and didn’t find anything untoward -
I arrived at check in desk late in the evening to complete arrangements to take delivery of car - handed over driver’s licence, passport and credit card & copy of booking slip - ‘Sorian’ at the counter advised me I had to pay €295 for insurance - I said I had gap insurance (cdw) arranged and that I didn’t need it - he said that was irrelevant - that my insurance only covered a small part of the risk to the car and to other parties in the event of accident - I said my booking included insurance and showed him the booking terms and conditions - I said that the additional £7,000 covered a lot of damage to any car but he was adamant that I needed comprehensive insurance to cover the car being written off - I said this was extremely irregular and that I had never come across this in a long experience of car hire -
I raised my concerns with the booking agent Holiday Autos who did not help - in the end without any viable alternative I had to pay just under €500 on top of my car hire charge to get the car - they charged me €183 for a tank of petrol which they say will be refunded when I bring back the car full - guy had the cheek to say I didn’t have to check for any damage to the car as it was insured - I don’t think mine was an isolated experience as there were others in tears with the shock of the extra charges - car hire in Malaga used to be a dreadful experience when I was coming here in the 1990s but I thought they had got their act together in response to customer feedback - this was a throw back and worse to those times - people need to be aware and to avoid this company - Holiday Autos & Gold Car Malaga
PS
On returning the car that I had filled with petrol, guy wouldn't accept tank was full - charged me €15 plus a €60 refuelling penalty - really think I'm off car hire for good - it seems to be the wild west of business practice

Hoenir

Tourists have always been easy targets. 

jbrassy

Avoid these cheap car hire companies like the plague. Stick to the mainstream ones and you should be fine. When I say mainstream I mean: Alamo, Avis, Budget, Hertz, Thrifty, Enterprise, Europcar, Keddy, Sixt.

Then buy excess insurance from Money Maxim and you'll be fine. 

If the car hire deal seems too good to be true, search for reviews on Google.

brianposter

When you have this sort of problem in Spain you should automatically ask for the complaints book - which is actually a set of forms which can be filled in in English after the event.

Assuming that you have not omitted any information from your account you should be able to recover the excess charges from Holiday Autos with your phone bill being important evidence.

mark_cycling00

Sorry to hear what happened to you 

Similar happened to a colleague from US who collected a car from Heathrow. 

I always find that Google reviews are much more accurate than trust pilot, TripAdvisor etc 

The pattern to look out for is
Lots of 5star reviews from locals 
Lots of appalling 1star reviews from tourists 
But the average score might be more like a 4/5

jimjames

jbrassy said:

Then buy excess insurance from Money Maxim and you'll be fine. 

Thanks for this tip, big saving compared to the company I've used in the past

Neil49

If you simply type in the word Goldcar into the search box at the top of the screen you will find complaints about them going back for years. 

They have a very poor reputation and I would avoid using them at all cosrs. 

531063

As above, if you are thinking of using Goldcar google reviews for them first