Transportation Europcar - Refunds for overcharging

[Ian Sutton]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-40630238 (link to full BBC article)

They always did have a bad reputation, and this admission rather proves the grumbles were well founded. It's quite rare for trading standards to take such a case up (they are not funded well these days according to someone I know who used to work there). £30m being put aside for refunds to people overcharged for repairs, for Europcar hires in the UK.

 

[Lisa in Ottawa]

We learned to never use Europcar after 2 very bad experiences.

 

[Chris]

I've had a couple of bad experiences with Europcar too. Fortunately both times I'd rented with AutoEurope so they stepped in and resolved things in my favor.

 

[flennie]

Lisa and Chris, could you please share your experiences with Europcar? I reserved a car with them in Beaune, France. It looks convenient because they're located within walking distance from our rental apartment.

 

[Chris]

The worst was the year we had a run-in with a stone wall that did about $1500 damage to the side of the car. We had insurance through American Express. American Express was trying to pay, but Europcar refused to give them the information they needed to process the claim (while continuing to hassle us to pay an inflated amount). AutoEurope finally stepped in and convinced Europcar to give American Express the information. This was in slowtrav days, and Pauline also helped by urging AutoEurope to get involved.

The other time was when our train from Paris to Tours was late, on a Friday afternoon when Europcar was closing for the weekend at 5 pm, and even though we called Europcar, they refused to make any arrangements for us to get a car before Monday morning. We called AutoEurope and they found us a car about 10 miles from Tours and had a taxi waiting for our train to take us to the car. It wasn't a Europcar rental, which was even better.

Other times we rented from Europcar, we didn't really have problems, but found them really rude and difficult to deal with. I no longer even consider them, and pay more to rent from someone else if necessary.

 

[flennie]

Chris, your stories don't sound good. Hopefully I will not experience any unexpected events that will require me to deal with Europcar more than the car rental transaction. I will check out what other rental agencies offer in Beaune.

 

[Chris]

Have you considered doing this car rental through AutoEurope? You probably will still be able to select Europcar, but you'd have that layer of protection if you did have problems. I am a huge fan of AutoEurope. Besides these stories, there was the time in a tiny little town in Provence on a Sunday afternoon traveling alone, I locked my keys in the trunk. I called AutoEurope and within the hour two guys showed up and spent more than 2 hours working before they managed to get the trunk open. It didn't cost me a penny.

 

[flennie]

That is service (like AAA!). I went to the AutoEurope site which only shows Europcar as an option in Beaune. Moreover, it could not find an automatic although I reserved one booked directly at the Europcar site. There's Enterprise and Hertz I can check out.

 

[Pauline]

I found it is cheaper booking with AutoEurope than on the Europcar site - but I haven't done a comparison recently. Were your prices similar? I guess you can't really compare if they don't have an automatic. You can phone them and see if they can get you an automatic. We always book automatic.

 

[artnbarb]

I found it is cheaper booking with AutoEurope than on the Europcar site - but I haven't done a comparison recently. Were your prices similar? I guess you can't really compare if they don't have an automatic. You can phone them and see if they can get you an automatic. We always book automatic.

One cautionary note: when booking an automatic, picking up earlier rather than later is always advisable. We've heard from more than one person that by the time they reached the car rental counter all the automatics were gone, even though they had specifically reserved one.

 

[Penn251]

I have booked Europcar in Italy through AutoEurope several times and have never had a problem. I have also booked cars through the Lucca office of Europcar directly while we were staying in Lucca. I found the personnel and service at that office very capable, efficient and helpful. Since we have never had a breakdown or an accident (knock wood), I can't speak to how the company deals with "crises" - but I agree that having AutoEurope as a backstop is a good idea.

 

[flennie]

I recently got into a very small car accident and realize the peace of mind of having the insurance company to intervene. I can see the benefit of having AutoEurope as a go-between in case something happens, especially based on the good reviews here and on Tripadvisor.

So I called them up and was able to book an automatic. I told them of the cancellable reservation I already had with Europcar that was made in May. Even though AE's initial quote was somewhat higher than Europcar's (likely due to 2 month's lag in booking), when I questioned about their low-rate guarantee, they came back with a quote which was lower than what I have from Europcar. They also pointed out the extras due locally for road tax and CO2 emission charge for automatics which I wasn't aware of. I went back to check on Europcar website, which does mention the extra fees (after searching for them), but I didn't catch it until it was pointed out to me by AE. So far, I'm pretty pleased with AE. Thanks for nudging me to contact them directly!