Car Hire

This is very common for my friends when they hire too. Now they just get taxis as last time after leaving Spain car hire charged them over 400€ for damages that never happened . You should name and shame. People should know 

Hi Kathryn, this also happened to me. I hope you paid by credit card although I believe that some debit cards also now have payment protection.

You need to contact your bank and explain what has happened. They may ask you to raise a complaint with the car hire company and then they need to be given a certain time to respond. Your bank will refund your money and then claim it back from the car hire company.

It’s shoddy practice and adopted by a lot of car hire companies. I think they assume we are here on holiday and won’t bother with the hassle of going through a complaints procedure once home. Good luck and please let us know how it goes😀

You are definitely using the wrong hire company. Malagacar.com is THE best and worlds apart from all of the others in terms of friendliness and flexibility with the added bonus of offering a fully insured insurance package with no excess. In a word - Brilliant !

I totally agree with Billy

Hi Billybilly, they all offer this, usually at exorbitant rates. 

Oh ! Sorry - only tying to help. Obviously our charge of £15 per day with a complete package is way too much to pay. Please let us all know where you get a better deal - asking for a friend. Cheers.

Not sure how you thought your post was helpful. The woman wanted to know if there was anything she could do to recoup her losses, not who the best car hire company was. Thanks for the info anyway. I’m sure we will keep it in mind should we ever need to hire a car.

Hi Kathryn 

I assume that you paid with an English credit card and, if you did, then the credit card company is jointly liable.

This means that, upon your return home, you can take this up with the credit card company and ask them to refund the charge.

Usually, you will start by a telephone call but ask them for an email address, set out your complaint in writing, send a copy of the hire contract and also the photographs.

It is then up to the credit card company to chase Record Go and ask for their version of events.

The last time that happened to me, with American Express, the car hire company replied on the last day, in Spanish, and the American Express agent just said to me 'This is all in foreign', filed it in the shredder and approved the refund.

Unfortunately, it is the business model of car hire companies to quote hire rates at which they make no profit, or even a loss, to get your business and then they make the profit on exorbitant rates of insurance (€15 per day x 365 = €5,475 per year - which is about 10 to 100 x the going rate for car insurance) or, alternatively, if you decline this, try to withhold your deposit for damage by previous drivers for which, of course, they never waste their money and repairing.

This is a deliberate business model, started by GoldCar, who make €500,000,000 per year, so it seems to work for them.  There have been numerous Court cases against GoldCar and now they probably are better than most. In August 2021, I hired a VW Golf with GoldCar and they gave me an immaculate Citroen DS3, that had done 400 km since new.  I returned it in the same condition and there were no 'extras' charged to me.

You can get annual insurance for about €40 online.  On one occasion, when a car hire company in Sicily wanted €300 for a tiny mark on a rear bumper (which would have polished out), I referred this to the insurers and they coughed.  That is money well spent if you do not want to pay the exorbitant insurance rates charged by car hire companies.

If you want the minimum hassle, then it is best to pay for full insurance damage waiver, typically between €7 to €20 per day.  Then it does not matter if the car is damaged during your hire and before and after photographs aren't really necessary.

Good luck with your complaint and let us know how you get on.

Best regards 

Philip

Just an update on Car Hire from Malaga. My husband has just contacted his Bank. They receive at least 10 complaints a week and have a department set up to deal with this. That is only Santander bank so goodness knows how many other car hire firms are fleecing their customers financially.

They will take up the complaint on his behalf.  Terrible way to treat people.