Poor customer service
Complaint
clarion
Country: United Kingdom
I rented a car from Europcar in April while in France. I was not satisfied with the service offered and the additional charges I received afterwards.
First, I had to wait more than an hour to get my car which I rented and paid for well in advance. I was on a tight schedule and that delay unacceptable.
Second, When I returned home, I received a bill from Europcar where they charged me for two extra days, and some damage charge. I tried to investigate what damage was done to the car that I needed to pay for but got nowhere.
First, I had to wait more than an hour to get my car which I rented and paid for well in advance. I was on a tight schedule and that delay unacceptable.
Second, When I returned home, I received a bill from Europcar where they charged me for two extra days, and some damage charge. I tried to investigate what damage was done to the car that I needed to pay for but got nowhere.
Comments
To: reservas@booking-centre-online.com
From: "Ian Lewis"
Subject: Re: RESV.:N¼1029632 BCO
Date: Tue, 16 Sep 2008 08:47:33 +0100
Attachments:
I did in fact hire the vehicle on the 6th of July and drove to Denia on the
East Coast of Spain for a 16 day holiday.
On the evening of Sunday the 6th of July i was parked outside of a grocery
shop at the side of the road with the engine switched off with my 2
children while me wife was buying some groceries. A car (Audi Q7) which was
parked behind me tried to pull out in to traffic and rubbed his bumper off
my hired car and caused 2 black lines approximately 3 inches long. I made
the man stop and i completed an accident form and ensured i took all of his
details correctly and had him sign the accident form while my wife rang the
customer services number which had been supplied by your Company. This
telepone rang out on about 5 occassions as nobody answered so we were
unable to obtain advice from your company.
On returning the vehicle the damage was not noticed by your attendand until
i brought it to his notice whereupon i was told i would have to pay for the
damage. Your company wanted me to pay for the damage immediately and to
then attempt to claim back the loss from the insurance of the man who
damaged the hire vehicle. Your company wanted me to attempt to claim from a
French Insurance Company for an accident which occurred in Spain while i
lived in Ireland, for a car i didnt own and had no control over arranging
an inspection by the French Insurance company for the smallest of damage
which was not caused by me. Your counter staff were rude to my wife and
raised their voices at the desk in the terminal of the airport and were of
absolutely no assistance whatsoever other than to advise us that senior
members of your staff were on lunch, knowing that we had time constraints
in order to catch a flight. I have now been charged for the damage to the
car even though i have provided your company with full details of the
person who caused the damage. Name, address, insurance details,
registration number,signature of the insured, everything your company would
have needed to collect from the insurance company of the man who actually
caused the damage yet you have charged me for the minor damage to the car.
We travel approximately 3 times a year and most times hire a vehicle to get
to our final destination and yes, we go on line to shop for the best deal
available at that time. In the future we shall exclude your company from
our search. Your company in my opinion is a sham. We shall never attempt to
check out any deals or offers your company offer as our experience of your
company was a most painful one. We shall of course discourage our large
number of friends and work colleagues to do the same, none of which have
ever heard of such treatment and thought it was a joke. Nor have they had
such a bad experience from a hire car company. Your Company being a
worldwide name ought to be offering a better service than the one given to
me and certainly should be in these present times.
I dont expect your company shall reply to this e-mail even though your
e-mail finishes with "we are at your entire disposal for enquiries or
future reservations", believe me, there will not be any and should anybody
mention car hire to me in the future i will have a bad taste in my mouth
from my experience with your company and i shall enlighting that person of
my awful and most frustrating experience my family had with your companys
treatment of our situation and i shall discourage any use of your company
in the future.
I would further intend to pen a short letter to the Dublin City papers and
get a 'letters page' discussion started to highlight peoples bad
experiences of hire car companies, i'm sure your Company Name shall feature
quite a lot.
Ian Lewis
I had a AutoEurope voucher when I picked up a car in Paris last September. They managed to charge me twice the amount on the voucher. Impossible till now for me, or Autoeurope or Visa to have an explanation, by phone or email. They have completely barricaded themselves. And mind you, they probably get away with it most of the times. Who wants to start a court case in a foreign country for 1000 CAN$ ?
We flew with EasyJet and through EasyJet booked a hire vehicle with Europcar.
At the Europcar counter at the airport the gentlemen in question refused to give me the vehicle claiming that my drivers license was not valid as it was a South African drivers license.
I have been renting cars for over 15 years in Europe including countries such as the UK, Germany, Spain and almost every year for the last 14 years, Greece. This is the first time that I have been refused a vehicle because I hold a South African drivers license.
After an hour spent arguing with 'gentleman' behind the Europcar counter at the airport, I went across to the next Car rental agency, which in this case was 'Sixt', and in a matter of 10 minutes I had a hire vehicle.
The unfortunate thing is that it was at a substantially higher cost due to it not being pre-booked. I requested to 'gentleman' behind the Europcar counter that he should consult his supervisor as this was the first time that this has ever happened to me, to which he answered to that he did not need to and even had the audacity to tell me that he had cancelled my reservation!
To date, I have not been refunded by Europcar for the vehicle I was wrongly denied (pre-booked for an paid for up front) nor for the additional expense incurred by going to the other rental agency.
It appears that nobody at Europcar is prepared to assist and neither are EasyJet. This issue has been dragging on for nearly six months and on two occasions have been told that a supervisor would contact me in 48 hours!
I do not know who to turn to assist in getting my money back. The amount is not a lot, but its the principle! My family and I were seriously inconvenienced and even distressed for that hour as the whole holiday hinged on having a hire vehicle to get around!
Thank You SIXT!
Similar thing happened too me, if you booked with a bank card contact your bank, I am with HSBC they have department for card disputes they sent me a form which I completed & returned, I had to write a cover letter of the incident & any evidence, e-mails, phone calls etc. They refunded the money into my account & dealt with the company directly. I was lost also after several months trying to resolve the issue with the company directly & getting no where I eventually turned to the bank & they got on the case immediately. I hope this is of help to you.
Andrew
I made a booking that was not honoured and again this money not refunded either. My main issue though is the stress caused.
Europcar
Mr Carlos Sardinha
AMAG Services AG
CH-8302 Kloten
January 13, 2009
Reference XXXXXX
Sir,
Let me address to you directly this complaint since I have not heard any reply since my first fax to your Accident Department on January 7th, 2009.
First of all, let me express my surprise when I received a Europcar letter dated December 24th related to the debit of CHF 490.75 for a minor scratch on the car I rented in November in Switzerland.
When I returned the car in Geneva airport, I discover this minor scratch with your agent on duty which I did not relate to any incident during the rental. Your agent asked me then to sign a form in which I declare “not responsible” since this wasn’t caused by myself. Your agent then said “it’s OK” which I understood that it is not an issue as cars have normal wear and tear during parking stations that you cannot control. So you can imagine my surprise for this CHF 490.75!
I do not agree with this automatic debit of my MasterCard and find it abusive for a minor scratch (without even any deformation of this plastic piece of bumper) to be charged CHF 490.75 when the rental cost was CHF 621.75.
I am very angry with this whole story and find it excessive knowing that these cars are rented to thousands of peoples during the short time you possess them and you try to recover money from customer for minor scratched which are part of day to day life of a very “exposed” car in this type of business. Don’t you have your own insurances to cover these kind of minor scratches. I remember from previous rental with Europcar that often scratches and damages are present when you rent it and you do not systematically repair them between each rental, so why this time you take the time to repair it at very excessive cost (anyway all documents are in german which I cannot read) and charge it to your customer?
I was a loyal customer who rents every year a Europcar vehicle since almost I am abroad and was satisfied with the service, the price and the quality. With this incident, if you persist debiting me, I will never again rent a Europcar vehicle and make this story known to all my relatives, friends and contacts to avoid Europcar in the future.
Trust you do not want to loose a valuable customer and prefer to have good publicity.
I hired a Europcar via the Easyjet website for a car hire in Pisa, Italy, paid in advance and all was well. Now I suddenly notice they debitted an amount of €240, more than the initial cost of hiring the car!
First of all I want to contact Europcar and get an explanation about what they debitted from my account. When you debit an amount from someone's account I think it is not more than logical that you send them an invoice.
Second, I would like to reverse the payment or get my money reimbursed.
After my car hire in Italy with Europcar via Easyjet, I hired a Europcar car again in France last week. How will I know this unauthorized debitting of my account will not happen again??
Anyone any advise on the right road to walk? A telephone number of a Europcar call centre in Italy or elsewhere in Europe? Or an address which I can write to?
How did all of you solve the problem?
In any case, no one will ever hear anything positive about Europcar from mpe again, very bad advertising fore them!
Thanks in advance.
They said there is a police fine i have never received even when i tried three times through their customer service.
DO NOT RENT EUROPCAR!!!!!!!!!
I don't mind paying for a police fine if I really got one, but then I do want to see proof that I got a fine!!!
DONT USE THEM
Hope that this is not too late and you can still get things ok.
Here is the telephonenumber for Pisa airport (39) 41081 and also faxnumber (39) 41017 You can try contacting them directly, unfortunately in Italy their english is very bad. Also you can contact your own country's Europcar customer service if they can help you.
I'm very sad to read your comments about Europcar. I,ve been renting from them over 10years in many locations in different countries and never had problems. One advise I have, never use brokers such as Kemwell,Holiday autos,Auto Europe etc. If you book with them you are usually charged only their own fees and nothing more. This is something that they never tell you. Do not pay in advance (even if you save couple of euros) and always ask receipt when you are returning a car.
Did you ever find a number for them in your search last year? If so, I would really appreciate you sending it to me. Actually, on this last trip I decided that I would get the CDW and it turned out to be a good thing. I returned the car with 2 scrapped fenders and didn't have the hassle of dealing with my credit card company.
Happy travels, Lee