BEWARE OF GOLDCAR

I used them last month and they charged in Sterling at at a rate of 94.5 euro to the pound. I phoned the bank to ask what they would have converted at - 90 to the £. 

Also, in the small print it shows that Goldcar get an extra 2.5% com.

We got out again on January 1. However, Econorent's prices have gone up a lot.

Try checking them again if you aren't committed to your new rental. I am going out on the 2nd Jan and booked back in September. Checked the price this weekend and it has dropped almost €50. I have my new voucher now from Martin.

Mark

 Thanks Markfish, I looked at econorent and for the period 1/1/10 to 11/1/10 they want 177.14 Euros for a Group C car. OK Cars using Auriga Crown are charging 132.92 Euros for a Group D. Hopefully I will not loose 45 Euros on the fuel. The other charges seem similar. Thanks once again.

I was very happy with Econorent last time. I am now just going to hunt down the lowest cost each time. However, I will not use Goldcar or Record! Kevin

Goldcar utter utter lying b*£$%^ds!

Just had an email back from the car hire agent which included Goldcar's contracts for each vehicle, showing the odometer readings (mileage) and the amount of fuel left in the tank for each of my last three car hires with them.

Talk about fairystories!! ... Thankfully, they had more holes than gorganzola ... well i had a quick perusal .. ripped them to shreds ... and send off my next thrilling email instalment in the continuing saga to Auto-Europe (the car hire agents).

Dont hold your breath .....

 TP1, I wrote e mails for 3 months, I did get 14 Euros back. Was it worth the effort? No it wasn't! I even tried ringing them! However Customer Service at Goldcar do not have telephones!! Sorry, I do think you are wasting your time. There are lots of other companies around to use and plenty of brokers. Kevin 

Thanks kev2006n,

You may well be right!   But i am afraid l am like a dog with a bone .... if i see injustice i will not drop it.

Fortunately, at the end of the day i am only arguing about £100 and i appreciate alot of people on these forums have far bigger fish to fry!  So appreciate that i am lucky.

But, it will not stop me giving them hell before i give up 

 TP1, I do know how you feel and £100 is a lot of money to lose on car hire. I do wish you a lot of luck. However, they lie, don't answer questions and when you get them into a corner they just don't answer e mails! Have you thought of involving your credit card company? Sometimes they just might be able to help. Kevin

Have used Goldcar for all my hire needs to date - spent nearly 1500 euros with them in 2009 to present date. Yes, they do not seem to have telephones and they do not reply to e-mails but the cars I was given were all acceptable and no hidden charges on any of my direct bookings.

Decided to change this time because of Goldcar's indifferent attitude to customer care (in their back office and not the rental office) and used Doyouspain instead. Hope it is not a bad decision as there are some adverse comments on Record car rental.

Doyouspain say all fully comp insurance is included.  You will be asked on arrival if you want to 'upgrade' by most co's but that is for windscreen, tyres etc.  HOWEVER, Goldcar won't even offer the fully comp deal via DYS like the rest do.  PLEASE be careful as many people booking through DYS assume they will be fully comp but this simply is not the case if you book through them and end up with Goldcar.  Auriga Crown, Record etc are all fine if booked through DYS it just seems to be Goldcar that try to rip you off.  I have emails from DYS insisting that Goldcar should be giving me fully comp and contradicting emails from Goldcar saying they will NOT give fully comp insurance to DYS customers!!!????  I forwarded the Goldcar response to DYS but they chose to ignore it.  If I can avoid using Goldcar I most certainly will.  They are not complying with the DYS terms as far as I can see.  DYS is as much to blame as they seem to be letting them get off with this.

Have just rebooked car hire from Alicante airport through DYS, originally quoted 138.44 euro's with Record for Citreon C2 from 22nd.Jan to 31st.Jan. Checked price again today, now down to 99.74 euro's with Auriga Crown. Will cancel original booking tomorrow. Worth checking prices.

Ditto - I just did the same.  Down from 144 euros to 111 euros for same thing and am happy to see that new booking is with Auriga who are ace and who I have rented from several times with no worries.

crunched my feb half term dates and at this point DYS with record still cheaper but only slightly. Still avoiding Goldcar which is the main thing

We were thoroughly 'done' when we rented via DYS,  as you pay at the airport in €.  The price quoted in € looked good, but what we actually paid on our credit card in £ ended up being much higher because of the exchange rate. 

For our next trip I called Auriga Crown direct at the airport and they offered us a much better deal that I was getting on any of the online sites.

She also said we wouldn't have to pay for a full tank, as long as we took it back at the same level we collected it at.... We're going to try it out.

Happy Christmas to all!

Maggie

Hi maggie 21,

thought I'd look up Auriga Crown's web site to see if it would have been cheaper to go direct. Their quote was 743 euros. DYS charge me 190 euros. Can't understand why the big differance.

Tech

I have never done this before but could one pay in cash euros rather than wait to get done by the credit card exchange rates.

Just back from Spain. Hired a car through DYS, & through Auriga Crown (Alicante Airport).

I decided not to pay the "Super Insurance" & put down 300€ deposit. 

All went well, deposit was refunded on my return, lost £3 due to currency fluctuations.

However I called a call from my bank on Wednesday, want to clarify some transactions on my account.

There was 2 mystery payments to some gambling websites that were not made by me.

Is this pure coincidence that this happened after my card details were left with Auriga, so that they could return my deposit ???

Is this pure coincidence that  this was the only transaction I have used on my card while in Spain ???

Thankfully my bank were on their toes & managed to cancel the card & the transactions.

So beware!!!!!

Gerry

Hi,

We have used Gold car for the past 3 times when in Majorca, the first time we had a Citroen C3 with just over 1000 kilometers on the clock, unfortunately it would not start so was given a brand new Ford focus at no extra cost, second time we had no problems at all, hired a Ford Focus estate car that was about 3 months old, the last time was June this year we had asked for a Ford focus, on arrival at Palma airport we was told that the only focus was an eight month old vehicle and is waiting to be replaced and would we mind having a brand new Peugeot 308 instead, the car was perfect. We always book direct with them and pay with a Visa debit card and we have never had any problems, they have always been courteous, professional and pleasant. We always have their extra insurance which is €30 for 6 days and an extra €5 for each day after, the most we have paid for fuel was €60 which is fine as all the cars we have hired hold about 55 litres. We have a booking for October with them which is about €30 less than Car Jet.

We have never had any problems that has not been sorted out straight away.

Mallorcaguy

My recent experience with Goldcar were poor enough for me never to use them again. There are hidden charges in the "Fuel Charge" 82 Euros for a Ford Focus and you "Have to return the car "EMPTY" ever tried that with a full family load on board and a flight to catch??

Having struggled their car to San Javia Airport with a burnt out clutch I'd had the car 10 days and had not been the cause of this mechanical problem I was advised that I would have to pay 500 Euros as a deposit until the car was checked tby their mechanic who was on lunch until 5 pm to determine if I had created the problem of the knackered clutch. I'm sure others have had better experiances with this Company byt for me "never again". They rip you off for fuel and have a poor to bad attitude when you question their policies..

I would never ever used Goldcar again.  Two years ago I hired a car through amigo autos and they subcontracted out to Goldcar.  I hired car for just over one month, husband had gone back home to his job and so was in Spain on my own with two young kids.  A kind gentleman drew my attention to the noise coming from my engine one day and said it didn't sound well - just after this the engine light came on and it looked serious.  I was nervous even to go to the shops.  I phone them and told them the problem - the answer to this was "ah yes it is an electircal fault with those Fiat Puntos - it will probably be ok" - I told them I wasn't happy about this after paying a fortune to hire a car for 1 month and to be given a substandard car - the answer - "drive it back to Alicante and we will give you another one" -  I told them I have two young kids - it is 35 degree heat - what if I break down - the answer "just get a taxi to us".  They then told me there was an office in Torrevieja and they might have a car - I got total abuse from the girl in that office.  Eventually they delivered a different car - I told them previously don't give me another Fiat Punto - what did I get another Fiat Punto and they charged  me for the delivery also.   NEVER EVER will I use Goldcar - I am just one of many who got stung with them. 

Hi

I have hired lots of cars from many different companies.

They all seem to do the insurance scam these days.

Most charge you for more fuel than you can get in the car and also rely on you leaving petrol in as you don't dare run to empty.

My worst experience was this year.

It was the middle of Easter Week.

I had booked a car with F & C. A firm I had used  many times before. Their prices are keen but they never give free upgrades so I tend to go to them first and then others if F & C do not have the car I want.

When I arrived at San Javier there was no man with the keys. I rang the office several times and went through a long pantomime looking for reps and ringing up. Eventually I was told there was no car for me and they were not sure when there would be one.

I had to have a car I could not take a taxi and wait until the following week as I had to get to the flat I had hired that evening and the Notary the next day.

F & C's car was 280 euros for 3 weeks. Being Easter week there was only one car available from any of the agents at the airport - 588 euros for one week 888euros for 3 weeks.

I am now 500 euros out of pocket!!

F & C stonewalled.

My lawyer said you could take them to court but it would cost a bit and we might not win.

The advice I have received is to use a UK based agent pay in advance and use a credit card.

Tteedd