GoldCar Rental
Reviews and Complaints

Car rental Pisa Airport 17.8.17 -27.8.17
Contract number [protected]
Scratches/marks on car before we drove car away - recorded on forms by Gold Car employee. We took photographs of the scratches and extras had to pointed out to the employee who then filled in a second form
Photographs have been sent to Gold Car via email but no reply sent.
We would like full reimbursement for charges taken from our credit card - around £350.

On Sunday the 10th September 2017 in Verona airport Italy I waited over an hour to collect my car & then I was informed of extra insurance that I needed to take out otherwise I would be liable for pretty much any problem that occurred with the car regardless if it was my fault or not, I was told it would cost me €117 but for an extra €20 I could use the fuel in the car & did not need to worry about returning the car with a full tank.
I agreed to go ahead with the insurance & so called special offer on the fuel, I kept asking about the fuel situation & your member of staff Eleonora repeated to me that I could use all the fuel & did not need to fill it up.
I returned the car on Thursday the 14th before the desk opened as I had an early flight which also I was told was ok to do.
After returning home I checked my credit card only to discover that my account had a pending transaction of £71 from goldcar, I have no idea why your company is taking extra money off of me, I would like a refund or a valid explanation to why money is being taken from my account without my consent as this is fraud & a receipt explaining clearly what the money is being taken for. The above conversation was witnessed by a police officer & a witness statement can be provided.
My contract number is [protected], client code [protected], mr David sims.

Hi,

I took car rental from Barcelona airport today from gold car.

But it is informed that I am very much disappointed because I did not got the car which I reserved and the received car has following issues-
1.) Got manual instead of reserved automatic
2.) Car not in cleaned condition
3.) Bad Music system
4.) GPS not getting paste on windscreen

I have this car for another 3 days, can you please change it as soon as possible and replace it with a better automatic transmission car.
Ekansh - +[protected]

Res. number is [protected], car model Ford Focus, plate number FD140YM, car was picked up from Milan Malpensa airport on 26.08

On 28.08 on our way from Venice to Florence on the car display has appeared a message "engine problem: transmission failure, immediate service needed" and the car stopped in the middle of the highway inside of the tunnel. It was very scary and dangerous, we risked our lives! We called "Goldcar" support and followed their instructions to go with a tow truck, wait there for the taxi to take us to the nearest "Goldcar" branch at Bologna airport. All this took about four hours. First, all this situation was very risky for our lives, second - it was waste of money because we have filled full tank of diesel before it happened, it cost us 48.31 euro, third - it was a total waste of time. We came to Italy for honeymoon and this is what we got instead! My wife was in tears, she was very frighten. Also we have late to check in to our hotel in Florence. We are very disappointed that "Goldcar" provided us broken car, exhausted and we are asking for compensation !

Also after sending emails to the Goldcar customer service, no one replied to it.

Goldcar staff at arrivals in Mallorca airport put so much pressure on my father with hard-selling of their excess insurance that he collapsed and passed out at the desk. After having paid £120 for the car in advance through Ryanair, my father purchased CDW insurance in the UK before travelling. In arrivals we waited an hour to be served. Finally being served my Dad was asked to pay 283 euros for the car. When I informed the sales assistant the rental was paid in advance she told my father this was for the insurance. I told her that we had our own excess insurance and did not require it. She immediately got very defensive and told us that our CDW policy would not pay out in the event of a claim. I informed her that we were happy to go ahead without the additional insurance but the sales assistant kept pushing my father. She was very threatening. She gave us more than 10 examples of when Goldcar would retain between 700 and 1400 euros from my fathers credit card. I kept telling her that we didn’t need the excess insurance but she could see that my father was becoming concerned so she kept pushing. My father said he was confused by the benefits of the insurance and asked her to explain what additional extras were included in the insurance. The sales assistant did not explain the costs. She told us is that we would be taking a big risk and got angry because I told her we did not want the insurance. She also repeated several times that Goldcar would retain 1400 euros on my fathers credit card for at least a month, and if there were any damages to pay for that it wouldn’t be returned and that our CDW wouldn’t pay for it. My father said he felt unwell because he was confused and stressed by the situation and had to lie down on the floor. When he tried to get up he passed out. He was unable to stand for half an hour. My father was left lying on the floor while the sales assistant continued serving other customers around where my father lay. The manager came over with another colleague to see if they could help. The manager offered to put an additional driver on the rental as my father was too unwell to drive. I complained to the manager about the sales assistant and both staff had a conversation in Spanish. The sales assistant got angry and gestured towards my father. The manager gave me an email address to contact Goldcar with my complaint and said that cameras had recorded the incident. We didn’t receive an apology from the manager or the sales assistant. When my father was well enough to sign the rental agreement I asked to be served by a different member of staff but I was told I had to be served by the same sales assistant because our details were on her computer. I had to wait in a queue for another 10 minutes to be served. My father was so stressed and worried about being charged 1400 euros that he paid the additional 283 euros for insurance. He didn’t drive for the whole holiday because he was so worried about all of the possible problems that the sales assistant had described. This incident impacted on his and our families enjoyment of the holiday. I wish I had done more research into car rental companies before I booked the car. Having now seen the shocking volume of complaints on the internet about Goldcar, I am disappointed that Rynair partner with this company and encourage customers to hire vehicles from Goldcar.

Contrato [protected]

The incident took place on Friday 1st September 2017

A desirable resolution would be the refund of the excess insurance of 283.95

I was horrified when the rear door of the car flew open as we were travelling at 120km/p on the motorway with our 3 children in the back. It transpired that the central locking system of the vehicle did not work despite the clicking sound and light coming on. Our 20 month old toddler had been touching the door handle which we believed to have been secured when we put on central locking. Needless to say our children were very frightened by this experience.

In addition whilst driving on a day trip the oil warning light came up on our car and when I checked the oil dipstick the oil level was at minimum, clearly no one had done basic checks on the vehicle before passing it to us. I called Goldcar and they told me I would have to pay for roadside assistance even though they had failed to carry out the correct safety checks on the vehicle. Once they put me through to roadside assistance I was told that I could go to a petrol station to purchase oil and I called back 3 times to ask which type of oil I should purchase but was just told to ask the petrol station assistant. The first station didn’t have the correct oil so I had to drive a further 20 km to another station. 2 hours of our day was wasted trying to sort this out when I had my disabled son, 5 year old and 20 month old toddler in the car who were all very unhappy and agitated by this point.

When I called Goldcar to highlight these issues they said the only we could do was bring the car back to them but I was unwilling to travel the 3 hour round trip back to Valencia airport to change the vehicle with children in a car that was unsafe. This meant that we didn’t use the car as a whole family for the remainder of the trip and my baby and sister had to go to the airport using other means of transport.

Then there are the other problems every Goldcar customer reports. They tried to do the hard sell at the airport desk and make you sign something confirming existing damage to the car before they give you the key, even though you haven’t seen the car yet. Once we saw the car it was clear there were dents, scratches and a broken light at the back, all of which were not recorded on their sheet. There were several other people collecting cars who all had the same problem and we each had to wait for one man to take photos of the damage they had not bothered to record. He then took new pictures and we believed the dents and scratches were recorded on their system even though they said damage smaller than 5cm didn’t matter to them.

From arriving at their desk to leaving with the car we spent 2 hours with 3 kids in tow queuing at the desk waiting for somebody to record the existing damage to the car. Not the way you want to start a holiday.

When we returned the car to the airport and I raised the issues again with staff, no one apologised for the inconvenience of the lack of oil and the danger of the failures of the locking system even after they checked it and confirmed it wasn’t working. Instead they charged me for a small dent on the car that was already there when we collected the vehicle but because it was smaller than 5 cm it had never been recorded on their system. This is clearly a regular trick they use to try and con people into charging them for old damage. Goldcar I am waiting for you to respond to my two complaints (Incident numbers 1379033 and 1374650) and to reimburse me for the oil I had to buy and the 250 Euros you took from my credit card for damage that was already on the car when you gave it to us.

When i rented the car from Malaga Airport it was made quiet clear that I was paying for a full tank of fuel. The person on the desk pointed out that I was to bring the car back empty. When i returned the car there was around a quarter of a tank of fuel left in it. I was expecting a refund as i had already paid for the fuel. I was not expecting a further charge placed on my credit card to refill the car.

I have repeatedly emailed them but to date have had no response. I would like the repayment of the fuel charge

Contract: [protected]
Dear customer,
Thank you for hiring with GOLDCAR.
We are writing to inform you of the details of a charge on your contract [protected] from 19/08/2017 to 02/09/2017:
05/09/2017

Type
Concept
Units
Amount
Total Charge
Fuel Tank
1
40, 70 €
40, 70 €
TOTAL: 40, 70 €
The charge has been made to the credit card that you provided at the start of your contract but it may take a few days before it is visible on your bank statement.
We hope to see you again soon.
For future reservations or information, please visit our websites:
http://www.goldcar.com y http://www.goldcarhelp.com
Kind regards,
Goldcar Rental

I recently hired a car from Goldcar, picking the car up at Marseille airport. The date of the collection was Friday 25th August. My contract number with Goldcar is [protected] and my Client code is 8139340.
On picking up the car, I was told that if I paid 130.50 Euros, I needn't fill up the car on return and also as I had already paid for accident damage, I needn't worry about any damage to the car. So I paid the 103.5 Euros. This has been taken from my credit card.
When I returned the car to Marseille, there was no damage to the car and the tank was half full. This I explained to the lady at the desk. She indicated that this was fine as I had paid the additional 103.5 Euros. She didn't check the car with me for any additional damage.
So I was surprised, although all of the stories that I have heard on BBC RADIO 4 indicate that this is typical... that I was charged two separate amounts of the equivalent to £30.40 on September 5th.
So I need to know what this is for, as there is no explanation of what these charges are for. More to the point, there should be no additional charges.
I will await your reply before I take this up with the BBC consumer program.

We rented a car in Alicante through Rentalcars.com. We paid for the car rental and for the full car insurance through rentalcars.com. But when we got to pick the car up at the airport we were not told that we could either pay 1100 € in deposit OR pay full Goldcar insurance... we were just charged for the full insurance... 64€. Nor were we told that we could have different kind of fuel agreements. So we paid for Flex fuel. It was 21 € just so we could deliver the car with the amount of fuel we wanted to... and then we paid 64 € for a full tank..

We only wanted to buy a full tank, and come back with a full tank, so we got ripped of AGAIN. And when we talked to the "sweet" lady at the desk, she did not understand a word english. She just printed out the invoice and charged us 400 €...

To sum up, we have paid at least 450 € for ONE CAR ONE WEEK... we were on a vacation same location two months ago, and we paid under half, with a different company. For TWO WEEKS HIRE. This was only one. It is absolutely insane. We paid more for the car than for rental of the apparment. That cant possibably be real?

What can you do about it. I'm not accepting the answer i got in the phone: we charged everything right... hell no you did not.

Maria Granat

Car hire booked for 26/8/17-9/9/17 via holiday autos rental booking from Goldcar. Ford fiesta or similar (5 doors, 2 suitcases, 5 doors)
Booking ref [protected]
Total cost EUR 245.21 Payment received GBP 215.83 Payable at counter EUR 0.00
Booking did not include fuel – "Full to Full – This is the best fuel option".
Damage refund Insurance also purchased via AXA Travel Insurance – GBP 47.04. Total UK costs GBP 262.84
At Bordeaux Goldcar desk, assistant did not accept insurance arrangements, would not read documents with Goldcar Voucher and pointed to table (see photo) alleging that UK insurance arrangements did not cover French requirements.
It became a choice:
Either stick with insurance arrangements made in UK and accept a EUR 1, 100 block on credit card
Or accept French insurance Couverture Super EUR 199.96 & Mega Relax Cover EUR 23.33
I chose the 2nd option and then said we wanted fuel full to full. I was told there would be a block on the credit card for EUR 116. I pointed out this was excessive and was told it was a refuelling cost plus an admin fee.
Total French costs EUR 267.95
Complaints:
• The assistant was Mallory – she was not helpful and was dismissive of my views. It was abysmal customer service – it was ‘take it or leave it’!
• I have effectively paid twice for car hire - once in UK and once in France – why was this necessary and why was it not made clear in the UK contract?
• The Fuel - Full to Full advice – should make clear that a block will be placed on the credit card. In fact it would be better to state Full to Empty is better because then there would be no credit card block.
• I am very disappointed by the service from Goldcar and I think you should refund either the UK cost GBP 215.83 or the French cost EUR 267.95.

This Is a copy of the email I have sent to [protected]@goldcar.com There are 13 photos of evidence as well on the email. Customer service was the worst I have ever experienced. Alicante airport in april with gold car was great. Such a shame this branch is letting the company down.

To Gold Car Customer Services /Rhodium

Re: Contract reference Number [protected] / vehicle Registration 9481JXP

11/09/2017

I am emailing you in response to your email dated 8/9/2017 advising me that you intend to take 220 euros from my wife’s credit card account for damage I assume you think that I caused during the hire period of 27/8/17 – 5/9/17.

I have to tell you that I am very very disappointed to hear this. I object to your intention to take the 220 euros from me as I have not caused any damage to the car and can provide this with photographic evidence. (ATTACHED) We believe IMG 8445 above is the picture that you have sent us thinking that I caused it which is not true. These photos are on my iPhone and date and time stamped as 27/08/2017 9.37pm.I also have attached a screen print IMG 6929 showing the date and time the photo was taken which was before we drove out of the carpark with the car.

When I collected the vehicle on 27/8/17 your staff member advised me there was no damage to the car as it was brand new. He gave me the contract form and a diagram of the car, When I saw the vehicle even though it was dark there were numerous additional damage (dents and scratches) that was not on the paperwork.

I marked all the areas of damage on the diagram of the car and photographed it all including the driver’s side front bumper/wheel arch which you claim I caused.

I then returned to the Goldcar desk in the terminal and informed your staff member. He simply photocopied my paperwork showing the damage I had found and put the photocopy in a file. He gave me back the original papers. I then informed him I had taken photographs of all the damage and asked where I should send the pictures but he said there was not needed.

When I returned the vehicle on the 5/9/17 your member of staff stamped my form and wrote ok on it to show it was all fine. I have attached all photos to this email. This evidence should prove to you I did not cause any damage to the car.

We hired from yourselves from Alicante airport in April and the staff and service were great. On this occasion your staff at Palma airport were very rude to all customers in the queue including us and bossing people around and very arrogant in their attitude. The staff there are a discredit to your company who I am sure take customer service very seriously.

Please reconsider your email and advise me no money will be taken or I will take legal advice on this matter. If monies have already been taken then i expect an immediate refund.

All the attachments are our evidence of your error somehow not marking the damage that a previous driver of the vehicle had clearly caused.

Vincent Gidman and Anna Gidman

Wednesday 16th August 2017
contract no. [protected]
We arrived at Ibiza Airport and were told as it was after 11.00pm we would have to pay £40 for them waiting for us to collect the car.
I was totally unaware of this charge as would not of booked otherwise, really? me paying you to stay open late? I am the customer, you cannot leave until all the customers cars have been picked up.
Also I was left to find the car all on my own and check for damage (in a pitch black car park) they said if i found damage to go straight back to the desk so they could sign the paper where all the scratches were recorded. When i went back 15 mins later the desk had shut!
I am seeking if nothing else a refund of £40 please.

I hired a car from San Javier Airport. The rental desk employee was an English lady so there was nothing lost in translation. She tried to sell me their Super Flex Insurance which I declined after her giving me the hard sell. I had purchased my own insurance. She told me they would hold £138 on my credit for fuel, once returned full this would be refunded. Having been home and still no money refunded back on my credits card. I rang customer service who was rude told me the £138 was for insurance. The rental desk clearly lied and blatantly frauded me. This is disgraceful and illegal practice.
[protected]@gmail.com

I've rented a Car in Barcelona from 29th of August to 2nd of September and I've deposited full fuel amount (130 EUR) Refundable + (EUR 48) for Insurance.

I was told that if you return full tank than your Fuel deposit is refunded. I've returned the Car with full tank but now also I'm not able to get my refund.

I also asked from the checking guy who checked the car at the time of Drop Off that everything is OK...than he said Yes and put all the information in the device he used to carry for checking the car.

Please look into this issue and return my Full fuel deposit.

I have had a charge or 40euros to my credit card. This was not authorised and it have been months since I rented a car with your company.

I was appalled with the service I received when I arrived ion Italy and was told to take out your insurance even though I had my own Excess insurance. I was told I either take it or don't get a car. Which is illegal by the way. Your staff thought it was funny that I got a little upset and stressed by the situation and had to pay 190GBP for the insurance.

Now I have an unauthorised charge or 40euros. and this is one step too far. I would like this credited back to my account within 3 days or i will take this further

Booked a car via carrentals, picked up the car yesterday 1 sept, at Nice airprt. At pick up they tried to sell me extra insurance, told them I did not want that. A rather big discussion started that I was taking a "stupid" de dission, as it was ony 18 euro... Expressed again I did not want. The adiministrative proces continued and I thought we could finish without the extra insurance. Surprise, my creditcard, which I use daily, was rejected, so they said they could not settle the deposit, either no car or you have to buy the extra insurance he said with a big smile. Than he did not need my not wotking creditcard, needless to say that the same creditcard was used to book the rentan via rentalcars and 10 minutes later I did another purchase with the same card, that suddenly worked again. I am 100% sure the have a trick, and this way mske sure you can not rent a the discounted rate via rentalcars.com without the extra insurance. Especially the way how the play with you, give a very bad feeling, I will NEVER rent again from Goldcar.

We rented from goldcar and returned the car in the same condition. We then received an email stating wr had damaged the car and they took 180 euros from our deposit.
Adter multiple phone calls asking for an original damage report proving that we did it and almost two weeks later they said it was an administrative error and they would refund the money. Now they are saying thwy cant refund the money to our credit card and said they want my bank account details. I sent them required info and they said the transfer didnt work because i gave them the wrong account number.
They also didnt refund our whole deposit. So total owed to us is $500 and they are still stalling.

To whom it may concern

I would like to make a formal complaint with the service in which we received from a member of your team at Palma airport on Sunday 13th August 2017 from a man named Daniel. We arrived In plenty of time for our rental car yet queued for an hour. On arriving g at the desk we was greeted with Daniel who had no customer service skills what so ever. The car was booked in my partners name as the lead driver however we was putting the deposit and the fuel onto my credit as he does not have one. We were unaware of the terms that's this could not be done and refused to give us the car. So because he does not hold a credit card he was being penalised for this which I found to be disgraceful. He then stated we needed a full insurance to which we had already paid €80 for this back in the uk.
He then said in order for us to be able to take the car we would need to change the name driver on the policy to where we had to ring do you Spain to do this as he said he would not do this for us. So after landing in plenty of time we had now been at the desk for an hour and half. After spending 45 minutes on the phone to change the driver this was successful. He then charged us a further €150 for an additional driver yet the customer that was next to us had a free additional driver due to the time she had waited yet we had been over 2 hours by now and received nothing but grief. I requested to speak to somebody higher to where he said NO.
A young girl who worked there started to deal with us as she could see how frustrating this was and she was very helpful but then was spoken to in his language and we was taken back to Daniel. I feel the whole experience from beginning to end was terrible. We then went back into the terminal after receiving our car to inform them that the washers were not working at the front of the car and was pouring out the bottoms to be told it was ok yet it is a legal requirement in the U.K.
We dropped the car back in good time on Sunday 27th August 2017 and are still waiting for the refund on the fuel as we had full to full.
My family went with record go and received their fuel back by the end of that evening and had a free additional driver. I will not be booking with these again .
I Look forward to your prompt reply in what you are going to do to resolve this
Kirsty lurton

They awful in their attempts in pushing customers to buy something from them, especially their insurance program. If you disagree you will hear long speech about possible consequences. And you'll really get them. That's why I am advising you to take pictures of a renting car from each side not be fined for nothing, just like us. Now we learned it and know how to prove we are not guilty. And it's only because we didn't sign up for their insurance program.

Arrived at Girona Airport (GRO) Aug 12th 2017 at 20:30 with my young family. rental reservation number [protected]
Was told I had to pay an extra €520 for an unpaid fine from a previous (2015) rental. They claimed the boot cover was missing upon return, and that 'special cleaning' was required (it was only a beach holiday, so would have been dust/sand at worst).
Saturday night, middle of August, so clearly I had no other options but to pay (on top of the €700-ish for the initial rental) the demand before they'd release the car. No other firms had cars available so I was left hugely out of pocket. This is on top of the usual rubbish about up-front charges for the full-to-full policy (incase you return it empty) and the extra insurance (even though I paid maximum levels of cover when I booked the rental in England.
Annoyingly I have used Goldcar many times since 2015 with no problem at all-it seems the 'penalty' was applicable only to the local Girona Airport desk. I will never use them again and if anyone has any tips for complaints procedures or claims chasing please let me know. I am requesting a full reimbursement of the extra money I have had to pay. The claim (which I had no choice to pay) is completely unprovable and no one from Goldcar has EVER contacted me to tell me what happened since Aug 2015.