Beware - Goldcar Car Rentals Spain

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  • nic_c
    nic_c Posts: 2,928
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    There was an article in The Guardian in February (put "goldcar the guardian" in a search engine to find it) about cases where Goldcar malaga took money off credit cards after people have returned cars and flown home.
  • After having read all of the posts regarding this company, I have to say I Totaly agree with what has been said. LEAVE THIS COMPANY ALONE. DO NOT DEAL WITH THEM. GO ELSWARE. YOU WILL WISH THAT YOU DID IF YOU DEAL WITH THEM.
    At Alicante airport in January of this year they ripped me off with both fuel charges and more important credit card charges for converting Euros to Sterling even though I CAREFULLY STATED THAT I WANTED MY CARD BILLED IN EUROS. You are asked to sign a blank computer screen after having discussed the contract and like a fool, I trusted the receptionist that all was well. The following morning I checked my contract and found that I had been billed in POUNDS not EUROS AS REQUESTED and had been billed 2.5% for a poor exchange rate, FOR THIS SCAM. Not only that but also overcharged for my hire as well as the disgracefull cost of fuel.
    It gets worse.! I thought that this was a genuine mistake, however my son booked the same vehicle with them in May of this year and guess what. THEY DID THE SAME TO HIM.
    I HAVE STOPPED A NUMBER OF GOLDCAR CARS AND ASKED THE DRIVER TO CHECK HIS CONTRACT , AFTER EXPLAINING WHAT MY PROBLEM WAS WITH GOLDCAR AND GUESS WHAT. THEY HAVE DONE THE SAME TO THEM.
    No mistakes with this company. It is deliberate. Stay AWAY.
  • Armchairfan
    Armchairfan Posts: 141
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    I've only just caught up with this thread. We booked through CarHire3000 and they came up with Goldcar. This was in Fuerterventura in April. They pulled the insurance trick and I noticed later on the receipt that there was also a 5 euro upgrade charge. Needless to say there was no upgrade to the vehicle.
  • robins66
    robins66 Posts: 83 Forumite
    Yet another Goldcar victim. Booked 7 seater Fiat Doblo for Majorca. On arrival allocated a 5 seater Berlingo. There were six of us. Staff unhelpful and wouldn't allow us to contact car rental agent for assistance. I had no battery on my phone and no coins for the payphone. She told us they didn't do a 7 seater, therefore why did it come up with a costing on the vehicle search. Eventually left with no option but to pay 85 euros for a taxi to send someone to the hotel. My husband was asked to sign a space on a credit card machine, which he did. Subsequently found that we had been charged 95 euros for fuel plus an additional 15 euros diesel charge, an extra euro per day for the additional driver on top of the already agreed 2.14 euros per day AND she had taken the payment in sterling with a 2% mark up on the exchange rate. Our rental costs were double plus we ended up paying 154 euros taxi fares. Awaiting their response but considering raising a cross border complaint through the UK European Consumer Centre: http://www.ukecc.net/sub.asp?id=211
    I would encourage others to do the same.
  • If you do not take out full insurance with this companies insurance at 35 euro per week.You will be in for avery large bill if you breakdown,
    they say roadside assistance(IMPLYING AA OR RAC) but only if you have there insurance.When i picked up the car it had a small dent in the rear passenger door but nothing stating this on booking form VERY DODGY i informed the only man issuing keys, who said DON T WORRY ABOUT IT(O YES).I always get my wife to video my inspection of cars i hire,and also the reporting of the damage to the goldcar employee in case goldcar say it was damage by myself.
    On returning the car to malaga airport there was only one man in the goldcar portacabin office who only wanted the keys and would not come out and inspect the car. Again this is wide open for goldcar to
    levy a charge for any damage they say was caused by myself,or after the date of return when the car is refuelled (THAT S A RIP OF TO FOR FUEL) Hope this helps other hirer s of cars from GOLDCAR
  • We go to Tenerife every year and always rent from Autoreisen. This year I was tempted by a cheap deal from Goldcar through car hire 3000. It ended up costing twice as much as quoted.

    You pay 55 euros for the fuel (we only used half a tank and this is much more than it costs to fill up a tank in Tenerife anyway). The full insurance is not included (it is with Autoreisen) another 72 euros. An extra charge for a diesel car (which we did not request). A charge for an upgrade which we did not get.

    As well as the extra cost the staff were rude and brusque and the car had been driven by smokers and reeked of cigarette smoke - disgusting!

    I will never rent from them again and would advise others not to do so either. I wish I'd read the reviews first - you live and learn.

    This company needs to make its extras more apparent and stop charging for things you have not received and did not request.
  • Could not agree more with the above posts. We rented a Belingo in Palma
    I was forced to take out the "Relax" insurance as I was told there was essentially no cover for the car and I would be liable for all costs in the event if an accident. This is despite having my own car hire insurance excess policy but this is only valid up to £3K. I have never come across a car rental company that provides no basic cover for the car.

    I also got stung for the rip off furl policy. I was charged €105 for 65 litres of fuel. This should cost around €75 at 1.29/litre of diesel. So a whopping 40-50% mark up and thats not accounting for the fact that it's impossible to use a whole tank. I used 1/2 tank.So a cool €70 odd profit to Goldcar for the fuel.
    I also got ripped off on the credit card scam being charged in £.

    I did complain to Car 3000 who of course got the standard response from Goldcar that it's in their T&C's. Car3000 cannot wash their hands of this as they are acting as the agent for this company.

    I cannot emphasise enough that this company should be avoided at all costs. They are an utter and total rip off and happily hide behind their T&C's to protect themselves.
  • We have just returned from a holiday in Lanzarote. We had booked a hire car through autoeurope, and my business was contracted out to Goldcar. Upon arriving at Lanzarote airport there was a HUGE queue for the Goldcar desk - this is in March, I dread to think what the queue would be like in July/August. Having little choice we joined the back of the queue, but after 1 hour and 15 minutes of queuing, we had only progressed one third of the way along the queue. This was with four goldcar staff present and dealing with customers. Shortly after, 2 of the Goldcar staff disappeared completely, and the queue slowed down even more. There was no chance we were going to spend what looked to be at least another 2 hours queuing for a hire car. We approached one of the Goldcar staff and asked how we could cancel. She took one look at my paperwork and said "you phone this number" - no appology, no shame, no customer care and very rude. We then approached the other car hire companies at the airport. Full credit to Payless car hire - with just one woman on the desk, she found us a car, took details, took payment and explained everything within 5 minutes. Now why can't 4 Goldcar employees do the same job as 1 Payless employee?? There seemed to be such an unnecssary amount of dithering and form filling at the front of the Goldcar queue. We weren't the only people in the queue who were annoyed with Goldcar. We saw three couples leave the queue to hire cars with other companies, and a lot of disgruntled people who stayed in the queue to collect their car.
    Upon returning to the airport 10 days later to return our car, the queue was even longer then the day we had tried to collect it.
    If you are reading this and considering booking with Goldcar please, please, please - do not book. You will be very disappointed.
    I contacted Autoeurope upon our return and obtained a full refund. I explained that for a company established since 1954, it was very disappointing that they were to be associated with a company so poor as Goldcar.:( It really put a downer on the start of our holiday.
  • This is a particular problem in Spain, not just with car hire but any form of debit or credit card transaction I've found, if you hand them a non-Spanish card to pay for purchases, quite often the software will swap the transaction over to pounds, which you have to ask the seller to amend. More than once, I was told this was 'no possible' and that I HAD to pay in pounds. Fortunately, I have a Euro denominated FairFX card and said I would pay in Euros on that. Further discussion led to them saying that I 'had to be charged in pounds because I am not a Spanish citizen' at which point, I just tore the slip up, left the goods at the counter, and walked away.

    Any halfway decent vendor will allow you to swap currencies. Often, if you're handed a console to put a PIN in, it will ask - in English or Spanish - if you want to pay in pounds (YES/NO) and the amount you will pay. It's amazing the number of people who fall for it, to be honest. It is almost always cheaper to pay in euros. Cash machines there will also try this on.
  • Pugwash69
    Pugwash69 Posts: 136 Forumite
    I rented a car for the first time in Valencia last month at Centauro, who were bliss compared to what I read of Goldcar here!

    They met us with a minibus about 5 minutes after we exited the airport and drove us to their deport near the south end of the runway. We waited a couple of minutes at the depot to get seen to and handed the exact car we asked for, a Ford Focus automatic. He made it clear not to worry about bodywork damage as it was all covered, and the vehicle already had a few minor 'modifications'.

    When we returned the car two weeks later they did a quick check and gave us the lift back to the airport entrance. All very pleasant and understood English easily.
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