Rentalcars.com

We hired a family saloon car for our trip to Dortmund via Rentalcars.com. When we arrived at the Dollar desk, we were informed that we could only have the one car that they had. It was a 7 seater van, meaning that the 1st row of passenger seats were facing backwards. This meant we would not be able to see our baby and toddler in their baby seats. I said I cannot take the car as it is not the family friendly car that we had originally booked. I was told by Dollar to take or leave it. While at the desk, I called Rentalcars.com and spoke to someone who, after themselves speaking to the Dollar staff, confirmed what I was saying, and replied said that I could hire a car from another agency and that they, Rentalcars.com, would pay the difference, and the original booking fee. The only other car I could get was through Europcar and cost about 460 Euros. Before I took it, I again contacted Rentalcars.com and thrice confirmed the refunds due, and then booked the car suited to a family of 4 with two young children. I had been informed by Rentalcars.com, that as long as I show the receipt to them, that I would then get my refund of the original booking, and a refund of the difference in cost of the new booking.
So on our return to London, I forwarded the receipt as advised, and then got an email to say no refunds would be forthcoming. I called Rentalcars, and was again advise that I would be due a refund by the different staff members I spoke to, and that they would look into it. I advised them to read the transcripts, and listen to the recorded conversations, and understand that I was told several times that refunds would be due. I was told that they would have to investigate it and it would take up to 4 weeks!? All this despite all the conversations I have copies of, and the conversations being recorded, showing the facts. I am still awaiting reimbursement of the refunds, or any communication whatsoever. Terrible terrible service. I will go to small claims court pending the outcome of their investigation.

I booked a car with rentalcars.com in Mexico city and paid the total price of $240 CAD by credit card including insurance, which was supposed to be excellent with total coverage and no deductible. Their partner insurance company also indicated in their voucher that the coverage was totally valid in Mexico. And finally in addition, they also at time of booking promised free cancellation.

When I went to the car company (Europacar) in MEX airport terminal, they would not accept the insurance coverage that rentalcars.com had provided and would not release the car unless I bought insurance from them for 240 US dollars. In other words, Europacar expected me to purchase insurance again a second time or they would not release the car. Obviously I was not going to agree to such an absurd idea.

I tried to cancel the rental car booking (and even the booking time of pickup had not started) but their online system would not let me cancel the booking at all. I had no choice but to abandon my entire plan of renting the car and just caught the bus to my destination. Later I asked rentalcars.com to refund my money and all that is happening is me being transferred from one agent to another. It seems clear they want to steal my $240, since their partner never released the car.

So not only did I suffer enormous inconvenience, but now I am engaged in a struggle, with my credit card provider to disallow the charge so I can get my money back from these parasites, who are clearly dishonest on two counts i. E. (1) they don't keep the deal they agreed to and (2) they don't even let you cancel.

The whole thing is a nightmare. Don't ever deal with these people.

Total waste of time. Took my booking and full payment. Email received saying booking will be confirmed in 24 hrs. Was not confirmed after 3 days so i called Rentalcars.com who asked me to wait 3 more days. I did. Then I got email to say wait another 7 days. I called Rentalcars.com several times asking for my booking to be confirmed as they had already taken full payment. They kept on telling me to wait.
I asked to speak to Manager = No.
Do you have an Escalation policy that I may follow = no.
Do you have a Complaints Policy that I can follow = no
Can I speak to anyone in UK so that someone can take a look at my booking = No we don't have UK number.
I gave up at this point and directly rang Budget Rentals who were going to provide the car.
They told me that they only have 2 types of vehicles for Phuket and not the SUV I made booking for.
So in short. RentalCars.com are selling rentals that they cannot honour. I was told by Rentalcars.com that my car was guaranteed and I should not worry.
It took me just ONE phone call to Budget Car Rentals to sort this out and get clarification. I had called Rentalcars.com about 8 times.
So I booked a car and fully paid for it but there was no car.
Its the most ridiculous service I have ever experienced.
They are not hiding behind a website but their Customer Service, though very polite, cannot do the simplest action by contacting Budget and get an update.
RentalCars.com - STOP selling rentals that you cannot honour. You're just attracting customers to your site fully knowing you are listing cars that are not available and hoping we will select something else. Its a good tactic and I got roped in but didn't fall for it.

First of all, we were given a terrible car... smelly, full of scratches on the outside and stains on the seats, and very unbalanced wheels. The steering wheel shook like crazy on the motorway. The GPS was so old that it didn't contain updated motorways and roads. We did not know where we were going for a while...

We had made the reservation to include a different drop-off location on our way back. We drove around the Pisa Airport for about 45 minutes, looking for the Ecovia drop-off location. We asked various staff there working for the rent-a-car companies and no one had ever heard of Ecovia. We NEARLY missed our flight back to Denmark because of this incident. Finally, we called the local Ecovia number. Hearing my desperation over the phone, they calmly agreed they would pick up the car at the airport. And we had full insurance. However, they later charged us a penalty fee of 60 euros since they "hadn't been able to find the car" and it had been in "an insecure area" (whereas we had parked it in monitored parking garage and had clearly told them over the phone).

After our trip, suddenly 200 euros-worth of extra charges appeared on my credit card bill. First of all, for the above-mentioned 60 euros penalty. Then, another invoice included a charge for the different drop-off location (which we had already booked in our original reservation) and an overpriced GPS rental of about 30 euros. (and, again, old and not updated with new roads).

When I tried to dispute all of this with a representative at Rentalcars.com. They said that they had "warned" of the different drop-off charge in a roll-over icon as I made my reservation. I NEVER did see that icon, nor was that extra fee ever included in my original reservation and payment. (although we had specified the different drop-off location).

I will never again use this shady company.

I booked a small pickup car with RENTALCARS.COM for the Carnival period, in Brazil. I did it 3 weeks before the desired dates and soon I received an email confirming the pickup, and the total rental amount was charged on my credit card. Just 3 days before the beginning of the rental I tried to print the booking voucher in the website but, surprisingly, the booking as
Turned into "awaiting confirmation" status! They deceived me! I paid for a pickup car which they had confirmed but the car was not available, they just gave me another car. This is a huge mistake in the reservations administration process and a radical violation of the consumer rights as the service was already paid and was not avaiable! To cancel the rental would be a disaster for me as there was no more pickup cars avaiable at the time I found out the pothole. Although they gave me another car (not a pickup one), it does not eliminate
The severity of the situation, and did not satisfied me indeed. Therefore, I DO NOT RECOMMEND RENTALCARS.COM UNDER NO CONDITION, they do not know how to work, they do not honor the rental commitments and do not provide a standard of quality as it should be offered due to the prepayment they impose on their customers.

Delayed services. I booked a car in May for my trip to New Zealand in September, but a typhoon disrupted my plans one day. I informed customer service to keep my booking and pick up the car later. The provider was Europecar. When we arrived at the counter in Queenstown at 14:45, the staff told us our car wouldn't be ready until 20:00, leaving us curious about what happened in between. We had already fully paid for the rental fee.

Wrong type of car provided. We had booked an AWD (All-Wheel Drive) car and had contacted their customer support with Ryan Christopher and Cresden Leilan, who confirmed my booking was indeed for an AWD car. However, Europecar staff informed us that Rentalcars had booked a 2WD (Two-Wheel Drive) car for us. We demanded that Rentalcars arrange the AWD car, as per my original booking. They simply asked us to make a new booking and promised to refund the credit. We were travellers and needed the car, it's no use they would refund us! We couldn't believe their response, as we spent around three hours dealing with the issue, and it felt like they were just repeating the same words. One particularly odd part of the conversation was when they claimed that the function of the 2WD car was similar to an AWD, which indicated a lack of knowledge about their products and an unwillingness to rectify the mistake made by the rental car company. They kept pushing the responsibility onto the customer to resolve the issue themselves.

I wrote to rental cars several times and received no help:

Hi Alex
Thanks for coming back to me.
I don't agree that it's the customers responsibility to ask for an explanation of charges except in the instance where the agent has already proactively explained the charges through verbal explanation and pointing on where in the document these charges are hidden.

I reiterate:
1. The agent added on charges which I did not request
2. The agent did not verbally explain the charges
3. The agent did not point out where in the paperwork the charges were hidden
4. The agent rushed me (impatiently) to sign the document

By taking this approach, rentalcars are not protecting their customers and are contributing to the poor ethics this industry has.

It is the agent's responsibility to ensure the customer has understood the t&cs and this did not happen, irrespective of my signature.

This is exactly the same as all the customers (including me) that signed for PPI without it being requested or being explained and look what happened next.

Further when you take a loan or a mortgage, it is also the responsibility of the advisor to ensure the customer is verbally and contractually clear BEFORE they are asked to sign the document (re Key Facts document under FCA).

I again request a refund of these unauthorised charges which have been taken from my credit card under protest and that have been levied upon me.

Can you honest say that you'd be happy if you were conned in this way and the retailing organisation hid behind "well, you signed the document". It's a cop out which continues to bring the industry into disrepute.

If I don't get suitable recompense from rentalcars then I'll be initiating a section 75 complaint to initiate a chargeback and escalating the complaint further.