New fee to be levied by car hire companies

The current broker I use to hire my cars in Spain sent the following email (I imagine a few others will have received it too):

From 8th December anyone booking a car with the major rental companies ie Goldcar, Solmar, Centauro, Aurigacrown etc. will all be applying a €20 Euro charge (paid locally) for picking cars up from the airport. They have informed us that this is:

"Due to the difficult economic situation, we all are suffering from in general, combined with the fact that the car rental industry is forced by a continuous “price war” to reduce their rental rates again and again, we now, unfortunately, have reached a level, which obliges us to charge certain costs directly to the client, as we cannot longer afford to support these costs by our own by including them in the rental prices" (Aurigacrown)

This does not affect any bookings already made or any bookings reserved before the 8th December, so if you reserve your cars with us through Goldcar or Aurigacrown please book as soon as possible to avoid these airport charges.

I would imagine this affects all rental copanies and agencies the same. I don't know, they have the cheek to overcharge for petrol, now they want to charge you for collecting your vehicle!! What next, a charge if you insist on driving yourself???

Mark

Yet another car hire scam!!.

This is the responce I received from the same company today,

I can assure you we would not send this out without it being the case, all the major local companies ie Aurigacrown, Goldcar, Solmar Record etc. will all be putting this in place from 8th December, I have been told this by the Director of Goldcar. If companies are denying it I am noot sure why but this is the case at the moment, wether some companies break this agreement I am not sure and how long it will last I am not sure but this is what we have been told. Fortunately Econorent will definitely not be doing this.

Many thanks