CarTrawler cancelled my car hire and kept the money

Polyglot2026

I rented a car with Europcar via the EasyJet website (= CarTrawler is their provider) for a week's holiday in Sicily pre-paid for a total of £489.51. On arrival at Palermo Airport, having spent some time getting thru the EES process and queuing at the Europcar desk, we realised that my husband didn't have his International Driving licence and Europcar would not accept his old UK licence. They agreed that a name change was possible on the rental - to my own and I have an EU-style licence - but that CarTrawler had to agree to the name change. I rang CarTrawler there and then and they said yes this was possible but that Europcar had to agree. Europcar were confused by this and said no, it was CarTrawler's decision. So I spoke again with CarTrawler and at that point they announced that my rental was cancelled because we arrived 'one hour later for the pickup' and no refund was permitted. I ended up renting the same car from Europcar - as my vehicle was still available and Europcar had not cancelled my booking. So effectively I paid twice for the same car! How can CarTrawler unilaterally decide to cancel my booking with no refund when the car supplier had an active booking? I tried contesting this with CarTrawler and they flatly refused any refund. How can that be? Has anyone else come across this with CarTrawler?

brianposter

What are the T&Cs concerning the licence that should be produced ?