Europcar Reviews

I have emailed Europcar requesting documentation in English. These companies are happy to use English to get the business but then can't be bothered providing the legal documentation in the language of the consumer once you've been hooked in. Also for payment, there is a form for me to fax internationally with my credit card details for payment. I am not prepared to send credit card details by fax or email. A large international company like Europcar should have its own secure site where one can pay by card in the appropriate currency. I have also asked for a secure site through which to pay. I am still waiting.

And now as per others' experiences, all they have to say - I agreed to it/signed for it... despite all the other anecdotal evidence and common sense (such as "why would I need two lots of excess cover??") - or prove to me your operator offered it? If the front desk had said... do I want to pay an extra $20 a day for something I already had/paid for... What would my answer have been!??! And why did they wait 28 days to take payment for the cover (?) when all the hire/original excess was taken upfront... If they had taken it straight away, I would have seen it, but no... Then I find out a friend of mine traveling with Alamo will get most of his excess insurance refunded once the hire is complete and no claims made! Talk about add insult to injury! It was never discussed, offered or agreed - just posted on my contract without my permission... BE AWARE OF THESE CONS...

The type of car I booked was not available so I accepted a lesser vehicle with no discount offered. Once I checked the vehicle that I was going to rent had no scratches or dents I returned to the office and signed the agreement without paying any attention to it (bad mistake). No charges were applied to my credit card and everything looked to be in order. During the hire period I requested to have an extra day rental and to drop off at a different location. I accepted the additional charges that applied. I returned the vehicle and there was no damaged so I expected an invoice for an extra day's rental and a drop off penalty for a different location. I was stunned when a few days later I had approx GBP750 taken off my credit card.

On enquiry I was told that this was for insurance that I signed up for. I asked that this be reviewed in light of what I have explained above. They reviewed and told me that as I had signed the agreement then they would do nothing. I have looked at internet review sites and see that this is a common issue with EuropCar. Even though I did not want this insurance was I actually insured as they did not invoice it until the vehicle was returned. I would really like my money back and for someone to thoroughly investigate the practices of this company.

Then I contested the charge with my bank. The rep. at the bank said Europcar claimed they were never paid by Alamo. I said that was not my problem because I clearly paid Alamo and it appeared on my statement. So the bank issued me my money back. Then I got an email from Europcar stating that there was damage done to the car while I had rented it. I strongly denied this and had pictures to prove my innocence. They in turn provided pictures that were so low quality which were undated and unmarked. They could have been taken any time and anywhere. They stated I damaged a mirror casing and took a picture of the back of the car [not the mirror casing]. They stated I damaged a tire and took a picture of some tire with a nick in it- but it could have been any tire taken anywhere at anytime.

They stole nearly $400 from me for these bogus charges! I called my bank back and they said, "We have no jurisdiction over foreign companies." They know this and these cases happen quite frequently. Foreigners beware!

When I later explained how robbed I felt to the clerk who quoted me 226 without any mention of distance charges, I asked him to please ask people where they're going when people ask, "How much for a car for two days?" He responded indignantly that it wasn't his business where people were going, and he wouldn't acknowledge that he was verbally hiding information from customers as a business policy. He pointed out to me a small price chart on the wall, not even directly in view of customers making purchases at the counter, where an absurd 450 euros/day was quoted in small print for unlimited mileage. Meanwhile there are deals online for under 50 euros a day for cars with unlimited distance included. The extra hidden mileage charges were outrageously extravagant, and if I'd been duly informed about them from the onset, I certainly would have chosen another service.

Anyway, no problems on journey and dropped off, some 14 hours later in the evening in their return bays putting keys in box. 2 days later, an email with invoice for damage done to the car! There was of course none done so I tried to stop the card payment but it had already been taken. I complained to Europcar who sent me a photo of the front of the car (but not in the return bay) and a separate photo of a damaged wheel rim but not on the car so could have been any wheel! I know I hadn't damaged because I didn't hit any kerbs on route (mostly motorway) and parked in Emirates - there are no kerbs in the parking spaces!

They also sent a damage estimate for the amount taken which was dated 5 days after the event/taken my money and after they had received my email/letter of complaint. I am still pursuing the matter through Action fraud and have written to the Glasgow Trading Standards and hopeful that a disputed transaction charge will be successful. If not, I will look into filing a small claim against them as the sooner rogue practices are cut out the better for all. Meanwhile, I only use car hire once or twice a year but will stay well clear of Europcar in future so at least my small loss of business will ultimately lose them more than the $92 they falsely claimed in damages!

Apparently, giving you a copy of the terms and conditions when picking up the car counts as advised up front, even though it is not mentioned anywhere in the booking information and any reasonable person would think the statement "Rates include 100 Kms per day, licenses and fees, damage liability fee. Additional distance charge may apply 0.30 AUD per km. Minimum age of driver 21 years" would simply mean you get charged an extra 0.30 per Km over what is included in the agreement... not a whole change/increase to other fees and charges also. This is a very underhanded/misleading interpretation of the terms and conditions on their part. Beware - their quote will increase with unexpected costs, even though it might appear good initially (and to top it off, I didn't even get the vehicle I requested).

The first thing that happened was the clerk changed our car from gas to diesel adding $5/day to our fees. That was ok, but I then realized what they had done on Expedia's website by offering a low rate. They hoped to get customers in the door and talk them into something more expensive, so I was on the alert for any other changes. At that point, the clerk said I had to buy insurance. I provided her the voucher Expedia had provided proving I had already purchased insurance. She said it was not insurance, although it clearly stated it was. She insisted I take out a $30/day policy with them or leave a $5000 deposit. I told her I wasn't doing either of those.

After 30 minutes of this, she got her supervisor, Karen, who continued to insist that I had to leave a deposit. I finally pointed out the website that the voucher mentioned. Karen and the clerk read the terms and it was clear they realized they were wrong at that point; however, they refused to honor the terms and insisted that I still had to leave a $5000 deposit. They then said, "Let's start over and just see how much it will cost if you didn't have reservations." At that point, I called Budget RentACar. Karen said she would beat whatever price they offered.

Once I told her the price, she said, "You should go over there." Obviously, she didn't want to beat the price. She also told me the company would sue me for libel once I told her I was going to tell of my experience with them on review sites. Do not use Alamo in Europe or Europcar as they really are a horrible company with no ethics or standards. They know once you are in their office, you are their prisoner and they will not have mercy on you.

I have traveled to 40+ countries and the so-called service we received was appalling. Our driving licences were in order. We had ample funds (both cash & credit) so our fundamentals were not the issue. Since virtually the only people who rent vehicles at the airport in Manila are foreign visitors, this behavior is astonishing. I have used AVIS and National in Manila also. They were far from perfect but much quicker to process the booking and the case of National, they delivered a car to a rendezvous point near T3, so we avoided the traffic. If I had a business renting cars, who had business volume of 3 units by 18:00 h, I would strongly consider my business practices and personnel applying them. Never again will Europcar get one $ from me.

They took money from my bank account without any reason. When queried, they said that there was no parcel shelf on the car when returned. I have rented hire cars from Malaga Airport for about 30 time over the past 6 years. When I returned the latest car to Europcar, they had their reps shine a torch to spot any tiny blemish. They spotted a 1mm mark on the windscreen, but failed to spot a parcel shelf (1200mm by 300mm) was missing!!!! After a long battle, I got them to refund the full amount. It is very easy to book a car at the same time as booking an Easyjet flight. I have a lot of respect for Easyjet. I am surprised that they associate themselves with the bunch of crooks at Europcar.

I initially booked an "Iveco Daily or similar" from the largest van bracket online (there are 2 sizes of Iveco Daily). I found some information on their site which said you needed a category B license to drive this so I thought I was fine. After speaking to friend, he suggested that the laws have changed about what you can and can't drive on a standard license so I emailed customer services and they said I needed a C1 license to drive a Ford Luton, which is what he said I had booked. I was confused as I had booked an Iveco Daily so rang Europcar Tonbridge.

They said I had booked a Ford Luton, which whilst I understand falls under their 'or similar' bracket, at no point was I notified. The vans are slightly different sizes and require different licenses. However, the lady on the phone said that customer services don't know what they are talking about and that I was fine to drive the Luton, and as it was a bit bigger than the Iveco I stuck with it.

Further investigation by myself pointed towards this being false information so I rang back again and spoke to someone else who confirmed I couldn't drive the Luton on my license, so I changed it to what the lady on the phone referred to as an Extra Long Wheel Base. She said it would be a Mercedes Sprinter or similar and was pretty much the same size, but when asked for the exact dimensions couldn't provide me with them. So, I just thought I would look up the dimensions on the Mercedes website.

I checked the dimensions of a Merc Sprinter XLWB and found the load length to be 4.7m, which was great because it meant I should comfortably have enough room for my stuff; however this didn't tally with what it said on Europcar's website so I again rang back for confirmation. I was told I had booked an XLWB with a load length of 4.3m. When I explained that this couldn't be the case because the Merc website suggests a load length of 4.3m is a LWB I was hung up on. I rang back and spoke to a guy to explain again and he was very rude and seemed to suggest I would get what I was given. At no point did he try to address the disparity between the information or suggest any concern about it. At one point he was so noticeably agitated that he just suggested I cancel the booking rather than trying to understand the problem. He just wanted me off the phone.

A string of further emails to customer services, who again struggled to give me any concrete information about sizes without a lot of persuading, revealed that Europcar have come up with their own sizing categories which don't match the manufacturers. So what they call an XLWB is actually a LWB and what they call a LWB is actually a MWB. This to me is blatant misselling, and particularly devious as there is no information informing the customer of this and an almost impenetrable wall of staff trying to hide this information.

During this process I had been reading reviews of other people's experience with Europcar and without fail they were 1 star reviews across the board. There were many other examples of people not receiving what they had paid for and a fair amount of people turning up on the day to be told they didn't have anything. In addition, I had read about many people being charged after they had taken the van back for a multitude of reasons, few of which seemed legitimate. One of these reasons was congestion charges. After reading the reviews, I asked Europcar whether my drop-off point in London was in the congestion zone and they couldn't tell me, not to mention that congestion charges weren't mentioned at any point during booking, email and phone conversations, of which there were many.

The reason I opted for Europcar in the first place was the price, but I have since cancelled and found a man with a van for a little extra and for peace of mind it is most definitely worth it. It's a shame because all of the issues could be fixed with a bit more transparency and better customer service. Europcar seem to operate on the basis that most people won't question what they are given because they don't usually drive vans and don't know what to expect. I understand why this works as there are many such people out there, but for anyone who wants to actually get what they are quoted for or ask any questions I would go elsewhere.

We submitted their form and our receipt, but they never did. We requested that they reimburse us for the lost 7 hours. They did not. We asked that they reimburse us for the difference between the more expensive rental of an automatic to the less expensive manual drive replacement. They did not. Then they sent us a bill for 671,99 euro for replacing the second car's rims due to scratches on them. We refused, since we do not believe the damage was that cost or that we caused the damage. They will not give us a receipt that proves they replaced the rims or have even been charged for this.

To my surprise I got 701 GBP surcharge on damages, this was blocked on my account without any warning. I complained, but the complain system they operate is designed to push off any blame from them to you. Copies of signed forms were sent and the bill from the repair shop. No photos at all. Very much pre-digital era. There is a fair chance you will be ripped off when you rent with them. They take a lot of time to respond to any correspondence to Customer Service. They declare 10 working days but it is a minimum.

Some background on our situation - we're both on a Tier 5 working visa which ends in August 2014. We had been planning to go camping in the Lakes District for one year now and will never have the chance to do so again because we need to leave the UK in August. We rent private share accommodation as many people in London do. We have no bills in our name and no need for a credit file yet we still brought the bank statement as requested by the CONFIRMED booking we had PREPAID for.

Anyway, we turned up, presented the documents and then were left to wait for about ONE HOUR. Apparently, the staff couldn't verify us because we have no credit file. Did I mention we're here for two years, renting privately and had a BANK STATEMENT and a PASSPORT???? Not to mention, we had two massive backpacks of camping gear that we had to lug around with us for 5 hours because of your stupidity. The staff tried calling head office for about 45 minutes. The phone rang out. No one answered. So the duty manager took the decision not to give us the vehicle that we had PREBOOKED and PREPAID and had CONFIRMED by Europcar several weeks ago.

The discussion with the woman serving us was the most horrific customer service experience. She said, "We can't give you your booking. I'm following policy." No apology, no empathy, no suggestion to help us. It wasn't a problem with Hertz - they would have given us a car had they not been booked out. Think about this - we had a PASSPORT, a BANK STATEMENT that matched the DEBIT CARD that we had PAID for the booking with. We have a VISA in the passport that has a reference number linked to where we're employed. This links to our HMRC data on the tax we pay. Idiots - do you think we're really going to steal your car????? You rented us a car six months ago to move house without any issue from the Lewisham branch.

We're now at home after paying several hundred pounds for camping gear, using annual leave that we won't get back and an experience that we will never get to have again. Your policy is ridiculous. If you have a policy in place, then make sure the decision makers are there to make a decision. Teach your staff some empathy and DO NOT CONFIRM a booking and TAKE OUR MONEY if you can't provide the service. If your policy is to ring head office to get validation, then make sure someone is there to answer the phone, otherwise train your duty managers to make better decisions and use some common sense or decide on a better policy.

What is the story: I rented a car from Edinburgh Airport at the beginning of August 2013. The estimated price I signed was high enough, but I said okay. The surprise came when I saw the statement of my credit card. The estimated price was far more high than what I signed for. The credit card company (VISA to name it) was of no help in recovering the stealing money (I name this fact of taking money without your consent stealing, no matter what arguments Europcar tries to claim). I was lied to in the sense I was not told the price would be much higher than agreed. If I knew the price they want to ask, I wouldn't have agreed to rent the car at all. I was lucky they didn't estimate the price at an extra several millions. The car was quite heavily used (a high mileage) and the final price was like 5% of the market price of the car for one day. This price is like 6 times higher than the price of a similar car rented in USA.

My advice: stay away from Europcar. Europcar as a company is nothing but a common thief and a liar, their business is taking your money at all costs.

On returning to New Zealand 2 weeks later, a letter was waiting for us, dated the day of the drop-off, to say that a parcel shelf was missing and they had charged us the excess of GBP244. I contacted Europcar Gatwick, and they said they'd check with the Heathrow depot, who said that, as far as they were aware, there had been a parcel shelf in the car. Rentalcars said the extra I'd paid to claim back the excess did not include anything 'inside' the car - so got bitten twice there!

What really annoyed me was that there was absolutely no communication with me after that, by either Europcar Customer Services in Manchester, UK, or Rentalcars.com, in response to my 7 emails of complaint. They had my money, and were no longer interested. Looking at several review websites since, it seems this is a regular pattern with Europcar, where random additional charges appear on your credit card statement, and you've no comeback. It's legalized robbery, and totally dishonest and unethical - I will never use either company again.

About a week later, I notice a credit card charge for over 100$ from Europcar. I was expecting some additional road fee charge as stated on the AutoEurope voucher but for way less than 100$. Turn out this includes a damage admin fee! After numerous Email exchanges, I find out that the alleged damage are a broken door key lock and a dent in the rear passenger door. Like nearly all cars these days, the rental came with a remote key opener so I never used that lock and as far as the dent is concerned.. see attached picture for the 'proof' provided by Europcar...

The damage fee charge is disputed with the credit card company and I don't hear anything from Europcar until about 2 months later when my credit card company contacts me about a suspected fraudulent charge of over 500$ from Italy by... Europcar! I confirm the charge is not authorized and get issued a new credit card. October 2013, I now receive by mail an estimate ("preventivo") showing over 1000EUR of repair with mainly bodywork labor (over 18hrs) and a request to pay the 400EUR CDW limit... To be continued I suppose (any help on the matter is appreciated) but I wanted at this point to make as many people as possible aware of the kind of experience to expect from Europcar. So avoid if you can and if you still decide to use them, be on the defensive!

We used our own mobile phone to call Cartrawler.com who had confirmed the reservation and from whom we had 2 separate invoices indicating ALL charges had been paid and NOTHING was due at the counter upon pick up. They promised to send an e-mail promising a refund! No e-mail was received. The agent at Europcar and Cartrawler both said this hidden charge happens all the time! We paid the fees finally after 2 hours of no help by phone or from the rental agent. Upon arrival home after our trip, we contacted Cartrawler again who said it is not our responsibility, contact Europcar directly. We contacted Europcar by e-mail (there is NO tel# for a head office) and were ignored. I left my e-mail address and tel#.

I feel that since all fees were paid to Europcar, Europcar is responsible and able to refund the extra charges and has a responsibility to not use companies such as Cartrawler if these companies have a history of giving bad information to the customer. Also the agent in Thessaloniki could have waived the charges but instead refused to even help in contacting someone to request a waiver of the drop off fees. To me, it is obvious that Europcar is only out to make money however it can and doesn't care for return customers. Aside from the hidden charges, we also requested a toddler car seat. The car seat was old, dirty (I found a large piece of stale bread on the chair plus other unidentifiable stains) and the seat belt was missing the harness clip. Meaning the only contact point was where the belt enters the buckle. Today's car seats have a 5-point harness system, this one had 2! Very unsafe.

And now that we're back in the US, we just got a credit card charge for an alleged traffic violation. I drove very carefully and there's no explanation of what alleged violation I committed. The $35 charge isn't the actual fine, just Europcar's piece of the extortion. That's what they charge to forward the police our mailing address. From what I've read online, this sounds like their standard operating procedure, though many people never actually end up receiving tickets.

Now, try to imagine my surprise after returning home (US) when I see an additional charge of about $320. I tried contacting them but with no success. For instance, the e-mailbox for South Africa does not accept e-mails. Needless to say, I never received an invoice for the additional $320; it just showed up on my bank account. My guess is that they charge for anything they could. These people are thieves and here I am referring, in particular, to the South African branch inside Johannesburg Airport and Europcar’s website. I don’t like to generalize, but judging by the volume of complaints, the issue seems a lot more widespread. I will never rent a car from them and advise other people looking for a car rental to avoid them like plague. Never come across a company that will tell you one thing online and charge you almost double in the end, since they have your credit card and they can. Caveat emptor!

After 3 days, someone had to drive me to the "authorized repair center" (30 km away) to pick up the car. After returning the car in Paris and getting home (in NY), I noticed they tried to charge me over 300 euros for changing the tire and giving my car a "Tour de France" on a truck. I disputed the charge with American Express, and the case was settled in my favor.

Now, they started sending me letters, asking for the money; and they put me in "collections" with a debt collection company named Progeris. They are threatening to sue me and keep harassing me with letters. If this continues, I plan to sue them in the NY small claims court for ruining my vacation, letting me without a car for 3 days, and harassing me with "collection letters."

I called back the Europcar desk, and they told me that they will inform us and that the colleagues were busy at that moment. After 2 hours, they told us that they haven't found the phone in the car. This is really a very bad experience, because you know you forgot the mobile phone in the car 30 min ago and somebody switched it off and took it. I want to share this with you.

The office where we had to collect the car was inside the arrival hall at Venice Airport. The parking lot was outside. We were given the keys and sent out to the parking lot. No one showed us where the car was so we had to go back when we realized just how big the parking area was and someone came to point us in the general direction. We found the car but no one ran us through it. There was a manual in the glove compartment so it was find out for yourself! On our second day in Tuscany, there was a torrential downpour (Florence apparently got 2 thirds of its annual rainfall in one hour!).

The country road we were on had been reduced to a mud pit. Our car got stuck. It was almost 6.30pm. We phoned the help line several times, we were cut off on occasions and on one told to find someone who could speak Italian to call them. However we eventually got to speak to a very pleasant lady, who and after checking that we were covered by insurance, dispatched a truck. In the rain they could not find us. I could give them our GPS coordinates but the truck driver apparently did not have a GPS. It was suggested that we walk to the main road so they could find the side road.

It was by then dark, still raining and 10 degree C. I was not going to risk anyone being exposed to hypothermia. We resiled ourselves to spending the night in the car and advised the helpline accordingly- the person on the other end was apologetic. We phoned the owner of the property we were staying in to let him know what we were doing. He came looking for us and enlisted the help of the carabinieri to find us. Which they did at about 1 in the morning.

The next day I again called Europcar helpline. I was asked to call their office in Siena and I was given the details of someone to contact to tow the car. The owner of the property took me to meet him at the car where I left him with the keys. He sorted it out during the course of the day. When the time came to collect the car at about 4pm, he would not release the car without a letter from Europcar (he said they always gave him trouble) or me paying him. The only person who could do the letter at Europcar was a manager, and after spending an hour and half waiting for the elusive letter and calling back only to find that the person I had been speaking to had left the office, I had no option but to pay for the tow (1 215 euros).

I had already lost the whole of Monday, 22 June trying to sort out the car. I was advised by the helpline to go to Europcar in Siena the next day for a refund. I duly went to Siena and was told that they could not do a refund but I could sort it out at head office seeing that was where I would be returning the car, or else after my return home. So I was now out of pocket for 1215 euros nad had lost a day and a half of my holiday time in Tuscany. I arrived at the head office on Saturday, 3 July to return the car and spent about half an hour driving around the block trying to find the entrance. I then established that the entrance was in fact closed. I tried calling, but no one answered the phone.

So off we set having no details on the airport or its setup. We arrived at Europcar at about 1pm. We're very frazzled.

The tow cost refund has however been a nightmare. At first they said:

"Client did not have a normal breakdown for the which he needed our normal road assistance but he drove into a vineyard and the car crashed into half meter of mud. This means that our normal assistance was not helpful to collect the client and the car”.

When I sent them a map showing that it was a road this was the response:

"In any case the client is not authorized to drive outside the road, even if it's a GPS to suggest that or a property owner. The client had to call our assistance – our number is on car keys and inside the car. The receipt sent says that road assistance needed a special tow truck : a caterpillar. This should mean that the car was in the mud. The only refund I can make is a refund of 120 which is that one we would have paid if client had called our assistance".

They ignore the fact that I was in the middle of the road I did not get off the road. The method of retraction is whatever they and their appointed agent decided upon, and I did call their helpline. So I sent them a printout of all the calls made to their helpline from my cellular telephone. And this was their response: "Regarding the above client, we confirm the charges are correct and the file is closed there is no further refund due."

The tow was arranged by their office in Siena. The towing company was someone they use extensively- he had a number of shelves in the office full of lever arch files labeled "Europcar". I quite honestly feel totally scammed. I will never ever use Europcar again. I have hired vehicles through Alamo, Avis & Hertz in the past- you cannot even start to compare the service levels. Stay away from Europcar!

To my horror after checking my bank account, two amounts (as for two rentals) have been withdrawn. I've emailed both addresses again but there’s still no answer. I can ill afford these debits as I'm a pensioner and I need swift recompense. Can you please help? I'm £784.50 down on my current account apart from the stress since the firm is not replying.

This is a bait-and-switch from Europcar in Mexico: The Europcar customer service agent Amar ** was intentionally dodging the response, responding to something else, and never responded to the subject of our complaint. We had to pay almost 50% more than the official reservation quoted.

The hire car was originally booked from Australia online through an internet company Carhire 3000/ Traveljigsaw and fully paid for the terms of rental. On collection of the car at Heathrow on 11th November 2009, we were asked whether we wanted additional insurance to waive the 550 excess. We explicitly stated that we did not want it as this was already covered by our travel insurance, a copy of which was displayed to the staff member at the time.

On 22nd December, we noted that an amount of 139.75 had been charged to our credit card by "EC Group UK". On ringing the customer service, we were told that this was for the additional insurance fee. We explained that this was a mistake as we had specifically refused this service but were told to direct all queries via Traveljigsaw. We subsequently sent emails to both companies explaining the error and requesting that the charges be refunded but received no response. On returning the car to Heathrow on 3rd January, we were told that Alamo had refused to refund the insurance charge as the credit card authorization was a legal contract and the remaining amount of 177.31 was then also charged to our credit card for another installment of the insurance (including VAT of 17.5%) and the fuel charge.

Admittedly we had not noticed that this insurance had been included on the credit card authorization when we signed for the vehicle. Bearing in mind that it was 5:30 am and we had just arrived in London after a long haul flight from Australia and we had already refused the offers of GPS, an upgrade and additional insurance, it did not occur to us that the authorization was for anything other than the estimated fuel charge as indicated by the staff member. We also had the Confirmation Voucher from Traveljigsaw stating "Paid in Full". However, please note that we queried this mistake as soon as we discovered it, which was part way through the rental period, not at the end or after the fact, so surely the charges should have at least been terminated at that point.

We have since received an email from Traveljigsaw stating that this is a "point of sale" issue and the "contract" for the additional insurance is totally independent of their company, so they should not be involved. On returning to Australia, we then received a further invoice from Alamo for an additional fuel charge of 35.48 + VAT with no explanation as to why we are being charged for fuel twice. On receiving a final demand for this payment, we rang the Customer Service department to be told that this invoice had been sent in error and a credit note was then issued with no apology.

We have sent 2 registered letters to Mark **, the Managing Director of Europcar Group UK/ National Alamo giving all details of this case but have had no response from him or anyone else at Alamo. However, they have now sent us a bill for a parking fine which we apparently incurred; we were not aware of this. In our second letter to Mark **, we stated that we were prepared to pay the bill once he had responded to our complaint and refunded the additional insurance charged in error.

It took considerable time to contact Europcar as I kept getting transferred from here to there and then they could not find out which breakdown organization they should send out. Hours later we were towed to the closest airport,Teeside, and arrived just as the branch was being locked up for the night. Europcar despite their promise had not informed the branch we were on our way. The next morning, I rang customer service to outline the problems I had encountered and asked Shertel(?) to record the conversation. When we returned the car to Bromley, there was no record at all of any incidents! On arriving home, we were billed by Europcar for an extra $1,585.25.

I have written and appealed and finally received a response stating " that it is the customer's responsibility to check the type of fuel the vehicle requires prior to refuelling and, as in this case when this has not been made clear on the key or fuel cap, it would be deemed especially necessary to clarify this". I have never received an itemized bill for the extra charge even though I brought this to the attention of Sue R (Customer Services, Europcar). Neither have I received assurance that the staff have been interviewed as it was obvious we had the sympathy of staff at Teeside and Bromley. This is a great distress being picked up by a breakdown truck and having to then drive very late at night on country roads.

Now, fourteen months later, our credit card is billed for a traffic violation. We were never notified or was our permission sought to have our credit card billed, i.e. this transaction was never approved. The billing is for $49.48, which happens to be less than the $50.00 minimum that the credit card company will handle a customer dispute with a foreign entity.

We received no details concerning the violation, and the billing would appear to be a scam because of the company retaining our credit card information for fourteen months, the fourteen-month interval from the time that the "violation" occurred, the absence of details concerning the violation, and whether the violation occurred before we took possession of the car or during the week we used the car (or someone used the car when we didn't due to the faulty locking mechanism). Due to this affair, we have changed our credit card number, but unfortunately, it's too late to recover our loss.

We suggest that any person renting from this company change their credit card number immediately after returning their rental vehicle to Europcar to prevent a similar false billing from happening to them as well. Europcar has not responded to our e-mail which was sent to customerserviceitaly@europcar.com, the e-mail address on the billing.

At first they charged my credit card over three thousand euros which effectively ruined my vacation as I was distraught after I called my credit card company to check what they had done to me. They ended up charging me 1000 euros, sending the repair invoice as if it were proof that I was responsible. I have been driving cars with standard shifts for more than 30 years.

I suspect that since they saw that I was American, they thought I was a good target for obtaining money to repair a vehicle with a faulty clutch. By the way, they also claimed that they did not receive confirmation of my internet reservation and then charged me a much higher price. They were determined to steal the money one way or another!

I lost 1057 euros