EUROPCAR CAR SCAM IN UK - Beware!!
Complaint
Sammy
Country: United States
Hello everyone:
Beware of the rental car companies overseas if you are a traveller like me. I am describing about a recent experience I had in London, UK. I booked a car from EuropCar UK website and paid almost week in advance for the type of car I needed as I was travelling with my family and had 2 large suitcases. When I went to receive the car, they told me their system shows I had reserved an Economy (Pinto to be exact). They were trying to squeeze my blood in paying 30GBP extra a day + 10GBP for GPS and other non-sense taxes. I fought with them for half hour to convince them to give me the car I booked for the price I paid already. I was tired of the whole situation and forgot to note small scuff marks on the rear bumper and tire rims. When I returned the car, they showed those scuff marks and asked me to sign the paper. I remembered I never parked in a crowded place and was mostly driving outside of London crowded city. They try to catch you with some claim or the other as every rental car does. I request you to be aware of all these scam artists overseas.
Beware of the rental car companies overseas if you are a traveller like me. I am describing about a recent experience I had in London, UK. I booked a car from EuropCar UK website and paid almost week in advance for the type of car I needed as I was travelling with my family and had 2 large suitcases. When I went to receive the car, they told me their system shows I had reserved an Economy (Pinto to be exact). They were trying to squeeze my blood in paying 30GBP extra a day + 10GBP for GPS and other non-sense taxes. I fought with them for half hour to convince them to give me the car I booked for the price I paid already. I was tired of the whole situation and forgot to note small scuff marks on the rear bumper and tire rims. When I returned the car, they showed those scuff marks and asked me to sign the paper. I remembered I never parked in a crowded place and was mostly driving outside of London crowded city. They try to catch you with some claim or the other as every rental car does. I request you to be aware of all these scam artists overseas.
Comments
• Why isn’t Halina commission pay closely monitored by Human Resources, senior management or external sales companies.
• What is Halina doing everybody else isn’t doing to be the top sales person consistently.
• By working at the branch for so long has Halina learnt how to manipulate staff or even customers to get the same big buyers every month.
• Why aren’t senior staff Jacqueline or Paven who are close to Halina say anything, are they getting a pieace of the pie or cash in hand.
• What customers is Halina selling on to get higest pay and do these customers allways end up being checked out by Halina.
• Does Halina keep the big full credit voucher account to herself were she can add
o £60 a day upgrade for up tp 3 weeks.
o 0 excess including personal cover.
o Also keeping these multiple customers in same account, who are easy sellers because you just add it on and customers don’t care as its big engeneering company with full credit voucher account.
• What are these accounts ALFING MONTAGETECHNIK , CAF SA and others ??????
• Also has Halina learnt how to obvoid the long term non buyers. Does she do the following when non buyers arrive:-
o Tell them we do not have any cars available or the car is ready in 30 minutes so come back then, by that time she gone.
o Tell them we don’t have the car that you booked it will take 40 minutes but I have car you can take now but you must pay for upgrade or wait.
o Walks off and has chat with AVIS staff who are next to europcar desk so she can still keep an eye on the desk, when customer arrives.
o Pretends theres something wrong with the computer or printer so she can pass the customer on to someone else.
o
• Ethically everyone should have a fair chance and share of customers who would buy or not and its morraly wrong to tell customers to just wait for them only when customers arrive.
• Rental agents work shifts, what happens when the big buyers pick up a car when Halina is not on shift ?
o Does she stay over
o Does she swop her shift.
o Does she personally contact customer so she can rehire paperwork herself.
o Theres whole host of things she is doing to cheat systems and people like her allways find a way to cheat the system by violating ethics.
They thing i m gonna pay £850 for those damages?! * them all!!!
Got to the desk at Gatwick and these sharks say they do not accept third party insurance on the WHOLE value of the car so I would need an additional $24 a day.
I showed them the email which said "you are fully covered"
If Europcar won't accept the insurance provided by Rentalcars.com they should not be partnered with them.
Rental cars.com were excellent, cancelled everything and waived any cancellation fees. I've used them a lot in the past and they are great.
Europcar suck, Avis rented me a car all included for less than Europcar.
I hired a Volkswagen Polo from Europcar Innsbruck to drive my family to and from a ski resort up the valley.
The car was parked all week in the hotel car park and then driven back to the airport. The Europcar rep asked if the car was
ok so I said yes thanks it was great. He then said have you got ten minutes whilst I check the car. He disappeared then reappeared
to say I had damaged the wheels. In disbelief I went to inspect the slightly damaged hub caps / wheel trim. They were scratched but certainly not by me. He said the car was new so the damage must have been done by me - but I categorically disagreed.
He said his manager would email me then next day - I haven't received an email yet and the "next day" is over. However if I do receive a bill for damage that I am not responsible for I will contest to the bitter end. I'm disappointed with this company as they should make an honest profit and not try these scams on their very bread and butter - it's pathetic.
Best
Jason
Tried to scam me for a scratch on the bumper that we couldn't even see. Got me to sign a form claiming liability. Been a week and the agent wont sent any documentation except trying to claim 100USD .
I have used many rent a cars over the world. .. Europcars been the worse and my first bad experience. I thought being a reputable company I was safe.... Unfortunately I was very wrong. BEWARE
We have been scammed into a car upgrade at Europecar Heathrow after prepaying car hire via Europecar Australia. We were told by a young Russian salesperson on arrival at Heathrow, that a car upgrade would only be slightly more for a car with built in navigation than the portable GPS at a cost of GBP 14 + tax + admin fee per day plus a deposit of approx GBP 300, paid at collection. The total extra was going to be GBP 280. At the same time of reviewing the contract the sales guy kept saying repeatedly we would get a GBP 200.00 refund when we returned the car. He kept repeating this in front of myself and my wife. This seemed like a good fair upgrade of around GBP 100.00 over three days. We would have paid GBP 45.00 on a portable GPS. He mentioned this refund of GBP 200.00 everytime he circled the contract upgrade price in the contract. This confirmed he was refering to the car upgrade price. I signed the contract. On reurn of the car I asked for my GBP 200.00 back onto my credit card as the sales person said would happen. The Russian women in the Europecar Heathrow returns agreed to this and said they could not give immediate credit but it would take a few days. I asked them to confirm this in an email giving them my email again. I never received any email and no GBP 200.00 rebate. Europe car Australia says they cannot help as no voice recordings are taken to capture conversations to confirm what was said.
I am now stuck with paying over 800.00 AUD for a 3 day car hire! that was originally prepaid for around 288.00AUD. Europecar tells me to take it further with Europecar Heathrow UK customer service. What a joke. Unless Europecar Heathrow will standby their little Russian sslespersons lies and deception we will take this further, considering fraud charges. I am sure giving us back the promissed GBP 200.00 would go a long way in great customer services and help restore public faith in Europecar and especially the Heathrow location that has this reputation of no customer service skills at all and only interested in taking travellers money fraudulently. I hope to hear back with some positive reply otherwise we will have to take this issue further with higher authorities.
Thank you.
Darrell
Brisbane, Australia
Most rental car companies (even Europcar in France) accept your word and/or have you sign a form when you say you have insurance coverage. Not in the UK. You must provide proof on the spot.
If you get a ticket they will try to charge you $50 just because they had to look up your name and give it to the authorities. Has nothing to do with whether or not you paid the fine.
I won't ever rent from them again.