Europcar Gozen charges

greenbunny_12345

Does anyone have any experience in being charged a Go zen charge by Europcar?
We hired a car at Nice airport and the rental agent led me to believe I was signing for a security deposit and no money would be taken from my credit card however I was actually signing for a 'Gozen' charge and the money was taken from my credit card.
Europcar are refusing to refund the money (250euros) because I signed for it (the document was in French).
I have been to my credit card company and the British vehicle and leasing Association (BVRLA) none of which are interested. 

anonymous_mee

This exact thing has just happened to me - also at Nice airport, last month.  I am disputing the charge - will keep you posted.  We already have separate cover from Questor and said we did not want insurance. At no point did the man behind the desk tell us that we were being charged for it! We picked up our car on the 13 September - I suspect we both encountered the same rental agent

CARHIRESCANDAL

This exact thing has happened to me also at NICE AIRPORT - we hired a car from 5th - 12th September 2025.
I have disputed my charge through ZEST based in UK (Who I made my booking with) and after three weeks they replied that Europcar had said that as I had signed for the cover and already had the benefit a refund wasn't an option.
I then contacted Europcar directly at "FR_customerservice@europcar.com" and got a similar response.
My issues are
1. I had taken a much cheaper (but equally comprehensive) policy from ZEST - I told the Europcar employee this and he advised me that this was fine - their cover was optional.
2. I was given a document to sign in many places. I noted that lines named "Protec. Dommages" and "Protection Vol" were showing Nil sums due but there was a line called GoZen that was showng €202.86. I was asked to sign by this sum. I had no idea what GoZen was but thought I was signing for the car hire - not insurance. The form was all in French and with the benefit of hindsight I feel it was designed to mislead.
3.I was told that as I had had the benefit of the cover a refund could not be considered. I dispute this as I didn't know I had the cover and would therefore not have pursued a claim, even if an incident had occurred.   
4. I had taken out top-up cover from Zest so I could never legally claim on GoZen as I would potentially be claiming twice for one incident - which I believe is classed as Fraud.
5. I was asked for a card swipe of my credit card to cover accident damage. I believe that it is this card-swipe that has been used to cover the GoZen premium. It is my belief that the card swipe was only to be used for accident damage - and not for other costs e.g. GoZen premium
6. I told the Europcar employee that I had taken extra cover through Zest, and so even if I had requested his extra insurance, he should surely have pointed out that even if I have two identical policies, I can only claim once, or will need to make a 50% claim from each policy. 
7. I note that the debit on my credit card was applied on the day I returned my hire car. From my experience with insurance companies, cover does not normally commence until the relevant premium has been paid. Most strange. 
It seems that here are three of us on this forum with identical claims. I am going to bring this to the attention of my contact at Zest and take their guidance on the way forward.
If there has been any further developments since the two posts above were made I would welcome an update from you. I am not going to give up on this as I feel we have been scammed.

jbrassy

I'm speculating, but could they have kept back some of your deposit to cover any toll roads you drove through? It's quite common when hiring on the continent.

FoxJet

@greenbunny_12345, I was doing a search to understand what is EUROPCAR GOZEN and got to this forum.

The exact same thing also happened to me in summer 2025 (July-August period).

I rented a car from EUROPCAR NICE AIRPORT, I already prepaid the entire rental at the time of booking. The rental agent printed the contract and clearly said that everything was already paid and that no other paiements were required and that the only thing left to sign on the contract was to approve the security deposit. Those were exactly his words (in French).

Once the car was returned, a charge was put on my credit card a day after I returned the car, no e-mail about the transaction, no invoice, no nothing.

I contacted EUROPCAR in September through their customer support page once I saw this extra charge, I never received any reply from EUROPCAR concerning this request for about month/month and a half. I thus requested my credit card company to reverse the charge since this looked like a duplicate charge. So they put the charge on hold and also contacted EUROPCAR. Again, no reply from EUROPCAR for another two months or so. The charge was thus reversed.

Now, another month or so later, EUROPCAR started to send me e-mail directly saying that I did not pay the rental and that they would send the case to a Debt collection agency if I did not pay. I did reply to them, but they kept sending this e-mail every week and ignoring my replies, until about two weeks ago, when they finally answered and said would look into it. And a few days ago, they sent me another e-mail saying that I had to pay because I accepted the EUROPCAR GOZEN. So I had to search what this Gozen was about. I never ever take any additional insurance from the rental car companies as I am covered with my credit card. In my case I also rented a second car from EUROPCAR in August, also prepaid during the booking, from London that time. That rental agency did not try to screw me and no GOZEN fees were charge after returning the car.

This is clearly a rental agency (EUROPCAR NICE AIRPORT and EUROPCAR by default) abusing their customers. Looking at comments from others on this forum, we can clearly see these different cases repeating from the same departure point, EUROPCAR NICE AIRPORT rental agency.

We are the few who noticed this extra charge, just think about how many other people did not notice this extra charge or, that saw it, but did not come to this forum.

That is clearly a case for a class action lawsuit.

Sandybanks

Europcar staff get commission on selling these overpriced insurance packages. Do you have a copy of the typed Rental Agreement you signed in the Nice branch? It's the white one that does not have your signatures on it. The UK version of the form is double-sided with all the additional products on the back. It has space for the Europcar agent's name and signature, as well as the customer. I'm guessing it was done like this by Head Office in an attempt to stop what has happened to you guys. If it's not completed, I would say they cannot demonstrate that they followed their own procedure. I would also have a look at the terms and conditions and see if there is anything you can use to make the insurance void. I can see it says if you are under 26 you cannot use it, but I'm guessing you can pay for it. In the uk the terms and conditions updated in Jan 2026.

I would recommend that everyone hiring a car slap their phone on the desk at the hire office and say "you don't mind me recording this conversation" especially if you don't speak the language natively. That's on top of the mini movie of the state of the car when you pick it up and return it. If you have a complaint with them, get Resolver involved if you have not had a reply to your email within 14 days. My UK rental agreement says that "the cost (inclusive of vat) of any additional products you choose to buy at pickup will be shown on the Rental agreement overleaf and included in the Rental Price Estimate.

If you did not claim on the insurance policy there is no real loss to Europcar as they self finance their insurance.