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
Still trying to sort out the mess from 26th Sept 2012. Hired a van, had full cover for any damage, the van had a dent in it on the forecourt that was pointed out to us, they said not to worry as they had made a note of it on our booking form, guess what, they charged us £304. 00 for their mistake. They also decided to take out a further £288.02 from my account for a sat nav. They were ment to collect the van on Saturday morning, by tea time there was no sign of them, worried about leaving an expensive item in the van in Manchester we decided to take it into the house. They didn't come for the van until Monday, we missed them, they phoned to say sat nav missing, we said we would return it, also explained why it wasn't in the van, again, their fault for not collecting it on the day they said they would. they still charged £288.02. We returned the sat nav. Many phone calls later we got part of the refund, February 2013 still short of £54.03. Never again will I use Europcar, if I ever have to I will pay cash, not give my bank details as they just help themselves. I will be going to Trading Standards about this, also Ombudsman if needs must, we shouldn't have to put up with this.
TYRES ARE NOT COVERED IN THEIR RENTAL AGREEMENT, BUT I ENDED UP HAVING TO BUY 2 NEW TYRES FROM AN OPEL DEALER, SO EUROPCAR HAVE 3 NEW/ GOOD TYRES FOR THE PUNCTURED ONE. THEY HAVE WASHED THEIR HANDS OF ALL THIS.
ADVICE NEVER RENT FROM THIS SHONKY COMPANY
£149.37 for parts
£ 76.37 vehicle recovery
£ 27.00 admin claim handling
1st point is kwick fit replaced the tyre i checked there website and conti 215/45v17SPT3 is £128 fully fitted
2nd i did NOT have recovery
3rd admin charging is capitalising on someone's misfortune
i will NEVER rent from them again there rathes oho and ive lost my debit card and have had to call the bank to cancel it so hoapfully they wont be able to debit my account
I mean lets think of it like this £252.74 FOR A PUNTURE i am disgusted
Two days later I was shopping in Bath and my debit card was refused. Not having a credit card on me - I live in France and am not allowed one by UK law, I was a bit stuck. Luckily my bank had a branch nearby and it was discovered that Eurocar had put a deposit through of £280 pounds- almost clearing out the amount I had placed in the account for my trip. Luckily I was able to make emergency arrangements.
After my return home, I did get my £280 back but I now find I have another bill for £30.02, I had taken out full insurance so what are these charges. No one has contacted me to tell me. I had paid in full, so where do these other charges come from? Looking at the invoice it is full of jargon and incomprehensible.
This is the first and last time I will rent a car from Eurocar. I or my husband have rented several cars, and with business my son rents one almost weekly from all over the world, but never before have any of us experienced such sneaky administrative practices.
Avoid them like the plague - you may find yourself with an empty bank account the way they go on.
I wouldn't rent from them again.
They are thieves
Dear Europcar Ireland,
I hired a car last weekend for two days form Dublin Airport - original booking made through Irish car rentals, documentation said National, car pick-up from Europcar - very confusing indeed! The booking included additional insurance and a full tank of petrol - all fine, payment agreed. The pick up of the car was fairly efficient although desk staff were not exactly polite when we questioned the size of the car given to us. This is not the issue however!
I was the only driver, I am a 5'2" petite lady, and on the second occasion I turned the key in the engine the key casing literally just fell apart in my hand. All of the bits fell apart - I had not dropped the key, in fact the key had not left the car since collection! I managed to put it all back together and secure it (in the mean time) with an elastic band. The electronic key worked fine during the rental period and the casing simply needed gluing back together.
On return of the car, I showed this to the man checking the car, I removed the elastic band and, of course, it fell apart. I explained the situation and he accepted the key and signed off the form.
Whilst in the airport I had a missed call from Jennifer in the Europcar Dublin office regarding the key - I returned this call that afternoon to discuss the key. She said (in a rather rude tone) that she would get an engineer to look at the key and assured me she would call me back. She didn't! A charge of £252 then appeared on my credit card bill without explanation or discussion. I contacted customer services and spoke to Lisa Flood (I think this is the name she gave). I explained the situation and Lisa assured me that she would speak to Jennifer and get back to me - guess what? She didn't! Not even a holding call to say she was still dealing with it. That was three days ago.
The key issues here are:
I could have glued the key back together and said nothing (the key was clearly already damaged when given to us - I returned the key with an honest explanation in good faith!
The key was working - it just need repaired. There is ABSOLUTELY no need to charge for a complete replacement.
No member of staff has called back to discuss this charge and no email or letter communication as been received.
Regardless of the small print on the contract this is a completely unjustified charge made all the worse by the lack of communication.
Whilst on the phone to customer services Lisa let slip that the note on the system said that Jennifer couldn't get hold of me - there was no update regarding our subsequent conversation or her promise to call me back.
There were six of us in the car attending a friends wedding in Cork - this situation has completely ruined this trip for us.
I am sad to have turned to social media to get any response to this. I await a satisfactory response to this issue. In the mean time, the details of this issue will be collated with a view to contacting both the car rental council in Ireland and the European Consumer Centre if necessary.
Regards
Mrs Lesley McLean
If you post complaints on "www.europ-feedback.com" as stated on "Factura" you get.......NO FEEDBACK
If you have complaints about a car rental in Spain. Please don't ask anyone from Europecar Netherlands to help you. They won't help you.
Always return your car with a empty tank, cause they charge you for a full tank anyway! As you notice 2 weeks later on your creditcard account.
Unfortunately, we are used to this type of customer service in Belgium. But it seems for Europcar this type of treatment is everyone! Stay away from this company!
Fast forward to last week, he went again, in Reading with his UK licence and his old details were in their system, with his address and licence outside the UK, and I had to go and take a proof of address to prove it was him so after a year of not being able to rent a car, she wanted a paper bill as proof of address. The address is on his driving licence! We told her that we pay everything online and have NO BILLS at all that come to the house. I found one, by chance, from the bank we are just starting a mortgage with and she said, oh, Bank of China, I dont think Head Office will accept that but I'll let you have the car anyway! So I went an hour out of my way by bus, got dropped off 3 stops to early on the hottest day of the year, arrived in a sweaty mess to be told the bill wasnt valid but she'd let us take the car anyway. Ruined a weekend away before we even got out of Reading.
Never ever rent with them again. Husband has cancelled booking for Spain and will go with another company, AWFUL.
Absolutely SHOCKING customer service and petty rules.
i also would like to add my experience with Europcar Italy which is not a good one. I recently booked a car at the airport Catania. After handover of the car, i recognized that only half of the damages which existed on the car were entered in the contract. After careful check, i extended the list of damages together with the Europcar staff and left off for vacation. So far so good. Since i had an early flight, i returned my car before opening hours, leaving the key+contract into the dedicated box. When i received the invoice i found a position 'damage administration fee'. After a call to the Eurocar staff, i found out that this fee was due to a big new scratch which obviously was caused by me. If course this is [***], hence I claimed to the customer service immediately that this particular scratch was there before. I even took a picture of that before i left the parking place after taking over the car. My claim was issued exactly 15 days ago with no reply from customer service Europcar. I tried to call them now 5 times and i always receive the same stupid answer: the case is under investigation, bla bla bla...i'm thinking now to inform the Europcar headquarters about the incredible bad service in their Italian office, and further to involve a lawyer into this. A professional service company should definitely behave differently! Anyhow, this was my last rental car from Europcar!
(had all the other issues as well like 2 hour delay to pick up car, rudeness etc.)
I bet you ! Pleaseeee don't rent Europcar! they are the worst company ever ever ever!!!
Please contact me in email if you think we can do something agains the bad things they've done to me! my email is ozancan386@hotmail.com
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I didn't regret anything more but my last experiment with europcar this week.
I thought that europcar was a trustable international company and offered more than it's rivals sixt and enterprise or hertz for a less amount of money. But how would I know that some of their workers are not even close to the terms professional and trustworthy!
on 12 august 2013 I made an online reservation with the reservation number 971291182 . I made the payment of 99,76 euros via my credit cart and brought my car from schoenefeld airport berlin at 23:09 to give it back at München Hauptbahnhof at 23:09 on the next day 13 august 2013.
These are the information sent to my email by europcar@mail.europcar.com
"MUENCHEN HAUPTBAHNHOF
13/08/2013, 23:00
Adresse
Bahnhofplatz 2
Car Rental Center First Floor
80335 MUENCHEN Telefon
+49 (089) 5490240
Öffnungszeiten
am 13/08/2013:
00:00-06:59 mit Zusatzgebühr
07:00-21:00
21:01-23:59 mit Zusatzgebühr"
having these adresses noted I was ready at the given adress Bahnhofplatz 2 at 22:15 to ask for help from the office , because I had a problem to open up the benzin-cover of the car opel astra turbo.
I went to the gas station , ask the workers over there , I also asked the taxi drivers in the Hauptbahnhof but no one was able to help me because no body found it out how to open it! I also checked out the user manual in the car but as you will see in the attached picture , but althought I applied it regularly neither I , nor my friends and mom in the car was unable to open it.
The worst thing is when I get up to the office in the hauptbahnhof there were no one to help me , in fact, the office was closed! Even more , there were no instructional nor informative signs to tell me what to do with the car.
I was panicked and stressed because I was at the given adress on time ( even an hour earlier to handle my fueling problem) , but no one was there and there were no parking slots to take the car.
I called the numbers on my ticket and of course there were no one to open up the phones , after a while we finally reached someone on the phone to ask what to do and she wasn't able to help me with the benzin issue but she instructed me where I should park the car and what to do.
So , finally we went to the adress and parked in on time and get back to our way .
The things started the next day, I went to the Berlin office in Hauptbahnhof and met a really kind women and told her the story , she understood everything and called the munchen office to ask them to charge the regular benzin price, but the denied her in a very very unkindly way.
I understood why the lady in europcar hauptbahnhof Berlin was so frustrated because of the phone call she did with the Munchen office later after I called the Munchen office to talk the them face to face and telling them the problem.
There is no suprise that the women over there didn't believe me and called me lier and being more aggressive up to the level racism and calling foreigners especially the araps and the turks causing them this kind of problems often and she is full of hearing this kind of stuff.
But after checking up the bill to me I was even more frustrated and shocked because I accepted an online offer of 99,97 euros but I became a bill of 396,67 Euros https://www.europcar.de/EBE/module/showInvoice/hkIEk/+/aKg/TxbhJSI0gw== that you can see in the link .
Guess what ? She didn't hesitate me to charge another full day because she wouldn't believe me that I parked the car at 23:00 . She rather calculated another full they because the opened up their office at 8:00 the next day and she calculated the bill as I left the car at 8:00 in the morning because she saw the car first at 8:00 . I know this sounds weird even to you , but I faced all these crap , defamation ,and even racism just because trusting the " name and professionalism" of an international company europcar!
After arguing half an hour with the women on phone she "finally" decided to assume that I parked the car at 23:00 and reduce the next day charge , but even though now I have a bill of 317,67 Euros https://www.europcar.de/EBE/module/showInvoice/hkIEk/+/aKi5T0NCkLURcg== instead of 99,97 which I already paid.
Of course I am aware that I need to full the tank before I give it back and as you will see in the recorded videos. I gave everything to be able to open the benzin- cover and tried almost every way because I was aware of the "afterfueling" conditions which is written on your website http://www.europcar.de/EBE/module/render/FAQ-Returning-the-vehicule . Oh by the way I was kind of suprised when I figured out that the charging per liter was 4,10 euros instead of 3,50 euros which is written in the website. because when we even calculate the full tank with 3,50 euros per liter , it would make less the amount they charged from me just for fueling.
I am really shockingly dissapointed with all the issues I needed face in the past days. I , my family and my friend always had a positive idea about Europcar , being a professional ,serious , international company . I just want to believe that this is a personal mistake made by the women worker in the hauptbahnhof office and these are her own believes, ideas and prejudices about me and the other middle-east and asian people.
I , my family and my friends are really hurted emotionally ,and we are actually planning to report all these things to the diskrimination office Berlin and the Federal offices of Consumer Protection programs in Berlin if we can not get a responsible feedback from europcars customer service.
Trying to get "tricked" and being forced to pay more than calculated in direct words "to get ripped off" might be something that we face everyday and might understand but facing racist personals blaming us with being "liers" and "untrusthworthy" is totally unacceptable!
I might used a harsh language because I am still on the affects of the things but anyways I would still be pleased with a responsible feedback as I told earlier. Have a nice day!
Ozan Can Yuguran
Berlin
Actually this was my first time dealing with europcar and sure it is going to be the last time.
Now I have to approach emirates Airline to file a complaint against europcar.