CREDIT CARD SCAM
Complaint
Norbert Spichtinger
Country: Germany
On Saturday, October 18, 2008 THRIFTY agents at Munich Airport claimed a few minor scratches on the door that I did not cause. The delivery of the car on October 14 took place in darkness. The agent on duty, Karsten Sowa, promised to contact me by e-mail the following Monday with regard to this minor issue. He never did but charged immediately 1.000 Euro (one thousand Euro) to my credit card. Several attempts to contact THRIFTY Munich and their headquarters in Duisburg, Germany, remained unsuccessful. Fax messages are not answered. AVOID THIS COMPANY! My lawyer will now take over.
Comments
A word of caution to everyone, who intends to rent Dollar/Thrifty cars in Germany. Dollar/Thrifty has a licensee in Germany by the name of Terstappen with very dubious, misleading, deceptive and fraudulent business practices. When you order the car on the Dollar or Thrifty website, you will receive the usual confirmation, which breaks down the rental cost in its subcomponents such as airport fees, VAT, road tax etc. Nothing was mentioned of a mandatory insurance premium of €20 ($28) per day. For every car I ever rented anywhere in the world, the credit card always covered the insurance premium. The AMEX Gold card specifically mentioned this coverage. It was the counter agent at the airport, who insisted on another €400.- ($560.-) insurance premium. It is highly immoral to spring this surprise on customers who just arrived on a sleepless trans-Atlantic overnight flight. This made the car the most expensive car I ever rented.
In addition, the car had no air conditioning and when I started phoning the agency on the 0700 number supplied on the rental agreement, I was constantly put on hold and transferred to other agents and found out later, why. The 0700 is not toll free number, but costs appr €1.- ($1.35) per minute, an attractive side income for the agency. Should you be in the unfortunate position to have to call the agency for help, use their German direct dial number 0203-348-5422. It will still be a long-distance call, but infinitely cheaper than the 0700 number. I spent an additional $50 in calling the agency for help, which I never got. I drove around in an oven for 3 weeks with temperatures of over 30C (85F). It later turned out that the connecting hoses for the A/C on this brand-new car were missing.
Complaints about the terstappen co date back to 2007 or longer.
I booked through expedia and thought to have rented a car from dollar rent a car.
Little did I know that Terstappen was handling them.
They made me buy insurance too. I have never had to do this with any rental car agent in the world.
They took my 600 euros of mycredit card. They told me that they would not do that. I got that back but because of exchange rate I got 60 dollars less.
NEVER NEVER RENT FROM THEM AGAIN.
I just got the same situation with dollar thrifty MUNICH airport. They sent e-mail to me after my trip last week that they will charge for damage by stone at windscreen which I never did. I am waiting for image for reference.
Margriet, could you advise how you took your 600 Euros back? Complain to Expedia??
so far i have not received any kind of proof about the alleged damage. only an estimate
Fighting it now with Chase. Wish me luck
18days later I get my visa statementand noticed the charge, I assumed they had made a mistake and it would be returned. I contacted thrifty several times via the website and telephone but no responses were returned or explanations made by the Germany company.
A month later I get a dated invoices, it arrives via postman for a damage to the car that I can only assume was done by their Valet.
Their business practice of never telling the customer that the hire car is damaged and just charging is Immoral and I hope illegal.
When I received a car I took its pictures, added some more scratches to the paper from Thrifty and they signed it. On the return I took the Check In Protocol at the parking went to Thrifty booth and they released 1000 Euro from my credit card. So everything went fine.
Of course they where some misunderstandings like "second driver": in the terms it was stated that the official spouse is free but at the booth they declined it and wanted extra (did not took it - too expensive 7 Euro per day) also more extra for some airport tax or fees...about 10 Euro if I don't mistake ...
I later learned that hey scammed my mom. She had a very minor fender impact by another car. She drove the car to Thrifty, just to make sure that there is no damage. All appeared fine, but they told her that she has to pay another deposit ($550) for another car, while they check the car out. When they were returning the next car, they asked if there was any damage detected, but got no response. They asked for receipts of any repairs, no response. Then they were notified that all of the deposit if forfeited, because the car was "totaled". There was not even very noticeable scratch on the car. Thrifty agents took their money, wrote off a car in a perfect shape and likely pocketed the proceeds from that as well.