Europcar rental

Foreign renters beware!

Avoid Europcar France at all costs! My husband and I had a horrible experience with the Europcar rental in Toulouse. They gave us a car that was completely scratched up, and told us to verify all scratches on the car from a check-off list that was very hard to read. When we brought the car back, they told us that we would be charged 700 euros for a scratch along the side of the car. There was no way to defend ourselves. We made many phone calls, wrote a formal letter of complaint to the headquarters in Paris, and we were totally ignored. Sure enough, one week later, 700 euros were deducted from our credit card, and that was that. Reading online about this company, it seems they do this to a lot of foreigners, especially English speakers. Apparently, French regulation on car rentals allows companies to do this and the renter is defenseless. I asked a French person what I should have done, and his response was, “Well, you shouldn%26#39;t have rented a car.” This was absolute theft and the credit card company couldn%26#39;t do anything about it. Beware, avoid Europcar, and rent with extreme care in France! Don%26#39;t let this happen to you.

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Europcar is a highly respected rental company, operating in many countries. Frankly, it is ridiculous to suggest that they invent damage claims.

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Before getting into a discussion, please let the readers judge for themselves.

It is enough to just do a Google search on %26quot;europcar complaints%26quot; to see the validity of your statement about its being %26quot;a highly respected company%26quot;.

My story is a real first-hand personal experience. Please note that I wrote about Europcar France, not about Europcar Worldwide, and that this %26quot;highly respected%26quot; (any sources?) company did not respond to my contact requests though I tried to contact their three offices following their guidelines - the HQ, the manager on duty and the top location manager.

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Europcar did not become the largest auto rental company in Europe by methodically cheating its customers. I have rented from Europcar on 20+ occasions and while I can sympathize with your problem, it is entirely the renter%26#39;s responsibility to report any vehicle damage to his car before leaving the pickup office.

Each time I have picked up a car I was given paperwork with a facsimile sketch of a car including the front, back, and each side. Even if you do not read French, all that is necessary is to annotate or highlight the damage you see on this paperwork. Failure to perform this step or rush through the process can result in unfair charges as you are assumed responsible. Every auto rental company I have ever used on any continent follows this same basic procedure.

If you have just received a credit card charge, you may not have given Europcar sufficient time to process and respond to your letter. If your credit card company provides you with collision coverage, this damage may be covered by them if you used their card for the entire rental expense (not including gas expenses of course).

If there is anything to be learned by all of us from your experiences, it is to be very careful when renting and allways do a through pre departure inspection of your car.

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Firstly, I never claimed to know why they became big. If you use statistics, check the number of complaints about this company online. It is a double-edged sword. Secondly, I received that charge two months ago and I consider that enough time to respond, still nobody did. I actually am really eager to do something about it, so does anybody know a French equivalent of the Better Business Bureau? I believe we did everything correctly, that is with one exception: we chose a wrong company. I just wanted to share this with other users that unless you want to be in trouble, better avoid the French Europcar in general, and the Toulouse Blagnac Airport in particular as they do not treat their customers fairly. If you are able to charge somebody that much money you should also be able to provide an explanation. And yes, I second your statement about being extremely careful renting a car. There is enough information on the internet and everyone should do their research.

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Just as an addendum, if there is any damage to a car you are hiring, photograph it on pickup. Then there can be no argument. A pen mark on the diagram is hardly evidence of the size and type of damage (though I must admit it was to our advantage for a hire recently as we added a bit to the damage already there)

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Although the car that you picked up in Toulouse was %26quot;completely scratched up and they told you to verify all scratches on the car from a check off list that was very hard to read%26quot; your failure to verify the condition of the car when you picked up was, unfortunately, entirely your responsibility.

Although, every year when we are in France, we do a lease/purchase rather than a car rental (since we are in France for 17+ days) we always photograph the entire car prior to leaving the parking lot (our Nikon digital records both time and date) just to have a record of the car%26#39;s condition - and we do the same thing when we return the car at the end of our trip.

I agree with both sydneynick and Sarastro that Europcar is a highly regarded rental company throughout Europe , and I hope that you are able to resolve your differrences with them in the near future.

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If you`re doing a lease purchase it doesn`t matter what you do to the car so there`s no point in photographing it except for the photo album. It`s a perfect new car and has come back with dents and scratches thanks to tiny lanes round Florence, being backed into by bus that couldn`t see us lined up behind it to enter the peage and various things that happen to cars in cities.

Love lease puchase! New french car,no worry about extra insurance coverage or payment for extra driver.

They look, we point out scratches, they smile. That`s it!

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We just happened to pick up our Europcar rental in September at the train station in Toulouse. We were not stiffed with a scratched up car, but the woman clerk tried every which way she could to whiggle out of providing us with the automatic which we paid for until we told her that we would call AutoEurope in the US and complain about Europcar. The car with the automatic transmission miraculously appeared BUT she did not have even one map left for the immediate vicinity.. What a witch!

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As for the car in question we had quite a similar experience. We had ordered a smaller model and had pre-paid a month in advance. A couple of days before the rental date, we got a phone-call from the car rental telling us that the size requested was not available and we had to take a higher end model. We ended up paying more. And then even more...

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We have been upgraded to a bigger car a few times. It was never at an additional charge to us. Sometimes we were given a bigger one when we didn%26#39;t really want it, narrow streets being what they are in Italy, but you sometimes have to take what you are given from what is available. I have to say that we are often given cars through Hertz that haven%26#39;t been properly cleaned, if at all. The last one had drool marks on the windscreen from where someone had stuck their GPS.