Have you been "ripped off"? ... read the attached article

How many of “Eye on Spain’s” readers have found themselves “ripped off” by the current crop of Car Hire companies operating out of various Spanish Airports. Tempted by the Headline prices ** EDITED - Against forum rules **only to find when you arrive at the destination airport you are taken to an “off-site” Car Hire office and suddenly find the deal that you THOUGHT you had achieved in the UK is suddenly increased by anything up to 500%.

I was caught TWICE last year by “Do You Spain” though in fairness they did refund me the extra charges levied by the car hire company on the first occasion the second was an altogether HUGE “RIP OFF”! I paid the headline rate of +-£50 for the week’s hire in Mallorca … arrived on time and waited to be collected and driven to an off-site office for some 45 mins and then queued for another half hour only to find that I was being asked to pay a further €190 including a charge for collection after 9pm (had I been collected on time it would have been around 8.30pm). I then went to pay with my wife’s card (YES SHE WAS WITH ME) and they decided to make a further €50 charge. The Car Hire company was called “OK” and this was most certainly NOT OK! Fortunately someone else in the same queue heard what was happening and so we both walked away and shared a taxi to Cala d’Or!

However it would appear that help may well be on the way … certainly in Mallorca … judging by the attached article featured in last weeks Mallorca Bulletin. ** EDITED - Against forum rules ** My advice to anyone is to take advantage of the offers made by the Airlines who are carrying you to your destination who use the more reputable companies like Hertz and Europecar. The article certainly makes interesting reading!!!!!!!!!!!

** EDITED - Against forum rules **Just look at the crap thats flying your way do something about it or lose it. Ive tried to deal with you a number of times and your site directed me to bloody gold car , get a grip you can only piss the public off so much  , you have so much potential use it and stop messing around with piss pot shoddy car hire companies untill you do we will go else where

** EDITED - Against forum rules ** it will only be when the Authorities in Spain clamp down on them will it stop ... not sure if you were able to read the full article because of the way the "Message Board" formats it but if it is of interest them Private message me with your email address and i will send it to you. Kind regards Andrew

Hi Andrew Wilford. Wondering if you know of any impartial advice if possible.. We had several issues with PW on la terrazas site, instructed a Spanish lawyer who actually lost our case after almost 5yrs. Apparently, we've signed for PW to charge us even if we lost our case inc our own lawyer fees who we instructed to stop once we knew of the risks. ( not in our favour we later found out) PW are trying to invoice us for around 25k (legal costs)  + our original lawyer who has now invoiced us for 18k. It all appears a total ripp off! PW are now saying... This will effect our credit here in the uk and personal assets etc.. Is this true? And can this happen from spain to here.  How much pressure can PW actually put on us legally? 

Any advice that you may have would be very great full..

Or do you have a email I could forward you a few more details over! 

Hope things are working out with trampoline hill case? Any luck...

Thankyou & appreciate any responce 

samuelf123

Hi Samuel ... I am not sure if your message relates to my "post" about Car Hire and "Do you Spain" or my ongoing "battle" with Trampolin. From re-reading your post I suspect it is the latter rather than the former. However i will try and cover BOTH:-

(1) Car Hire "Rip Off" ... this is something which has reached epedemic proportions in Spain with one or two companies continuing to peddle missleading rates to the general public. Best advice I can give is if it LOOKS TOO CHEAP it probably is and you will be conned when you arrive at your destination. Suggest you book via one of the major companies direct or even "Walt Disney Airways" (Ryanair!!!) they actuall do have genuine and and fair rates on offer!

(2) Trampolin ... The battle goes on and on and on and on .... I cannot give you legal advice AND CERTAINLY NOT IN THIS OPEN FORUM other than to say be very careful. Sadly many of the Lawyers in Spain can be "persuaded" by Defendants in such cases with financial inducements so be VERY CAREFUL. I have appointed a reliable Lawyer in Alicante to fight the Defendants Appeal but can suggest alternatives for you if yours is a LEY57/68 case. Costs!?!?!?!?! ... 25K sounds qquite cheap to me ... so far I have shelled out more than 30K all for what in any sane persons eyes is a blatant case of fraud!

If this answers your questions then great but if not please feel free to send me a "PM" and I will give you my direct contact details.

Kind regards

Andrew

Just reading back over some of the posts on this subject and actually they are starting to become difficult to follow due to the "Sites Owners" constantly editing out the important and relevant information. It is accepted that they have to keep their advertisers "Sweet" which is why they fail to remove ALL company references but we have to live with that if we want to keep using this site. The bottom line is that there are two or three car rental advertisers on the Internet who advertise rates which are ridiculously low ... WELL THEY ARE TILL YOU GET TO YOUR DESTINATION AIRPORT WHEN YOU +-€9 A DAY BECOME €109!. These companies tend to utilise the smaller and less well known "Car Hire Brands"" like the one you (Casper Ruby) have mentioned. Sadly I think this is as much about the lack of restrictions on Internet Marketing as anything else. Until then those "trapped" in such a way will have to take it on the chin until such time as the rules catch up with them ... on the other hand maybe "Eye on Spain" could be more proactive in talking to their advertisers about their sharp practices! Until then Look at R...A..S / inflight magazine (I never thought I would end up promoting them) / web site, and also the two Car Hire companies H...Z and E......R. The rules I guess will not allow me to enter their names! Hope this helps all the readers.

Hi Andrew,

Just to say I think you are quite right to raise concerns.  We visit the Canaries a lot and generally only hire from hirers with a base at the airport.  But on one occasion, a trip to Gran Canaria, I "hired blind" from a company put forward by the UK travel agent, Travel Republic, who provided our airline tickets and it was a big mistake.

First off the incovenience and delay in travelling to an off site collection point to pick up the car was extremely annoying.  There was no mention of this in the quote.

Then the car they provided was a joke.  It was hand painted bright tangerine colour with masses of dents to the bodywork.  I went back into the office and demanded a better car to be told that a would have to wait for one to be returned and valeted.  When I asked for them to come to the car with me and note the damage the response was that they knew all about it and it was not a problem.  By pure chance I knew one of the people queuing who was an ex-colleague and I asked him to to do so - he took some pictures which of course was a good idea, so there was no come-back later.  But no doubt at all these guys were crooks and you are in a very vulnerable position.

We have in the past 12 months been back and forward to spain about 10 times flying into Malaga.  We hav hired from the best ie Hz who were very good but quite pricey to the cowboys that have already been mentioned on here, prices have ranged for 5 days hire from £80 to £200 never the same price twice and you think you have found a company tgat is reasonable then the next month they double in price.  We have found fuel cost to be €20 to €30 over the price of actual fuel in a normal garage,  insurance is a joke we have done the own insurance route only to be told that they wont accept it and put a massive block on the card and if the car is damaged you pay then argue with your insurance company .

So now were going down the route of buying a car insuring it and filling it up with affordable fuel and parking it near the airpoet for around €450 per year and they wash and start your car and either deliver to you or pick you up to ho the half mike to their compond  I am sure in the end we will save money.

I know most people cant do this as they are holidaying as opposed to having a property to go to but the time has come to stop shelling out all the time

We've had our own motor in mainland Spain for a few years now.  We did so when they suddenly all hiked up their charges - I think it was the summer of 2010.  Before that we found Centauro excellent - never had any of the problems that you read about and they had a useful incentive scheme for regular hirers.

But I reckon they all shot themselves in their car hiring feet by trying to collectively hike up the rates - I wouldn't go back to hiring now, even though the rates have come down again.

I was renting a car for a few Years in mainland Spain and  when I made up the cost of renting about €1500 a Year, I decided to buy one and it really is great to have your own car, no worries and not being ripped off, another twist in renting now here in Alicante is you get the car full of fuel and they then tell you that you return it empty.... how in the hell can you do that.... unless you chance running out of Diesel on the way to the airport........

I cannot understand why people complain about the full-empty conditions that most of the hire car companies in Spain use. I have been hiring cars for the last 8 years 3 or 4 times a year - never from what are perceived to be the top companies - maybe I am lucky but so far I have never been ripped off. I have just hired a car at Murcia airport for 11 days for £70. A UK car hire company would charge £148 for the same hire, so unless you are taking the car back with the tank nearly full it's a good deal. I usually take the car back with around 1 gallon of fuel, (around 6 pounds worth). If I felt as strongly as some people about the full-empty ruling I would simply wait just outside the airport and leave the car running till there were virtually fumes left in the tank, then return it.

I can't really use the words Ripped Off, as I have never had an horrendous experience.

However I would like to issue a note of CAUTION.

When booking via a well known price trawler, Do You Spain, we were recommended to use the hire company Gold Car. We were further advised to use the cheaper insurance offered by Do You Spain. This we did.

We assumed that our hire package was complete. However when we arrived at Málaga, we discovered that this was not the case. The Gold Car Hire Desk, at the Airport did not recognise the insurance that we carried and had paid for. Therefore we were obliged to deposit €600 with them, against accident or Scratch. We were advised that in that event, we had to claim from the Insurance company sold by Do You Spain. Which coincidently was called 'GOLD Insurance' 

Now wasn't that a deliberate misnomer.? We are resident in Holland and driving a Spanish car, insured in U.K. We imagined that any insurance claim would take forever and a day. Luckily nothing untoward happened and when we arrived back in Holland, we wrote to Do You Spain and explained the apparent deception. Naturally they said that it was perfectly normal and legal, which we don't doubt but they refused to comment on the €600 deposit necessary at the hire desk. 

We have hired again in October, via Gold Car, via Do You Spain, as it appears to be the best value. We will pay Gold Car at the desk for Insurance, which is a few Euros more expensive than that offered by the Duplicate Insurance Company called Gold Insurance operating out of U.K. upon recommendation of Do You Spain.

As I said..... It is just a note of CAUTION - " CAVEAT EMPTOR "

Cheers Leo

Look, the INITIAL post which started this whole thing off was made by me and perhaps I should qualify what I was saying and why; the last post by leoleon made several references to DO YOU SPAIN ... references which the site owners may / or may not choose to edit out. The reality is that the two bad experiences I had were BOTH with bookings made with DYS ... one in Alicante and one in Mallorca. In fairness to DYS they personally corrected the former out of their own "pockets" but the second one I just put down to my own stupidity for booking with them again. I made a reservation using the DYS "Headline rate" of +-£9 /day and paid +-£56. Now here I have to be careful not to mention company names ... upon arrival at Palma after a wait of +-45 mins I was collected by "Allright" (work out from that the REAL company name) Car Hire and driven off sight to a Parking Lot where the company attempted to exort a further €190 from me ... €30 of which was because it was after 9pm (it would not have been had I been collected on time!) together with numerous other charges ... I refused to pay as did another couple and together we shared a Cab to Cala d'Or. The "Moral of the story" is do not be taken in by Headline rates ... it is what hits you at the other end which really hurts. On my next trip to Murcia I was flying with Ryanair ... booked the car through them and saved a fortune. I have learned my lesson and now know EXACTLY what to do in future and NOT BE TAKEN IN BY HEADLINE CAR HIRE RATES. The reason I made this post initially was because of the interesting article in the Mallorcan Press about PRECISELY this issue. I have tried to attached it this post originally but unfortunately it did not format correctly. If anyone really wants to see it in full then either (a) PM me with your email address and i will send it to you or (b) contact the Mallorca Bulletin who I am sure will send a copy on.

Hi leoleon.

I bought the same insurance as you did, I knew full well they wouldn't / perhaps / maybe not accept it but for £28.00 I took a gamble, and of course they didn't, now Leo if you look at the insurance document you should have printed of you will see the name of the underwriting company, I phoned these people and explained that this policy was no good and I had been sold something "Unfit for purpose", at first the guy tried to give me the run around but as I had asked his name I reminded him that if "He" didn't sort this out I would inform the insurance ombudsman, and a few other departments.....Two weeks later I got a full refund from DYS via this person.

They are selling something that they know is no good and wont be accepted by the rental companies hoping the many who do buy it just let it go and don't follow it up.

Try it.

Thanx Baz,

Clearly we did not threaten them enough with the big stick.

A cautionary tale for all. Beware of unscupulous tactics.

My apologies Andrew for usurping your post. Alas it happens all too often in all categories.

I fully appreciate that there are many more serious breaches of moral codes.Yours being just one of them.

Cheers

Leo