Goldcar

I rented a car through Goldcar at Malaga airport from January 19th to 26th. On arriving at the airport I had to sign papers agreeing the car was fine, before I’d even seen it. They told me that there was no damage at all and they weren’t very happy that I had my own annual excess insurance telling me it could cost me up to 2000 euros if there was any damage not covered by them and that they would have to hold the details of my credit card. I stood my ground though as they wanted nearly half what my rental excess insurer Questor charged for the whole year!! They also charged me for the full tank of petrol and said I would get it back when I returned the car full (which I did) – I’ve not had that before with a full to full policy. When we got to the car it was a bit gloomy in the multi-storey car park but we could see there were several black scuff marks on the white paintwork. There was also a strip of strange ‘dimpled’ looking paintwork along one of the door sills. We took photos of it all but foolishly I thought maybe scuff marks didn’t count as damage so didn’t go back in to insist they changed the form. I always get anxious about driving in a strange place and about finding the accommodation so just wanted to get away – I wish I hadn’t. When we got to the apartment we could see that in actual fact the sill had a slightly dented scrape along it (God knows how it was done!). When we returned the car a man came and checked it over. Even though I saw him spend quite some time looking at the sill he told me everything was fine. I asked him if he was going to sign something to that effect but he said they don’t do that. The next day I got an email from them with a photo of the worst scuff mark and the sill, saying the car was damaged and that I was being billed 200 euro for each item. I wrote back that it was already damaged, sent my own photos and asked why the man told me everything was fine when I returned the car. They would not accept my photos because when they were uploaded from the cameras to my laptop it automatically gave them the date at the point of uploading, despite repeated emails from me explaining that they only had to look at the file properties to see the date and time they were originally taken – within a few minutes of me getting the keys, they still refused to accept them. Nothing I said would change their stance then suddenly I got another email with a revised invoice and found they'd they'd actually taken 600 euros from my account, the extra 200 being for 'immobilisation'. After seeing all the documentation, Questor paid me back within a month without quibble but I am still really angry because I DIDN'T DO IT! My credit card company, Halifax, also paid back the last 200 because they said I shouldn't have been billed it and they were giving the company 45 days to respond. If I still have the money at the end of that time I intend to return it to Questor (at least I'M honest!) The worst thing about this is that it's made me really anxious about renting. We've just had a week in Malta and rented a car from Green Motion (had a panic when I discovered that Questor won't cover them at two places in the UK but they were ok with Malta) When we got to the airport it was actually a company called Meli who handled it and that was the name on the forms and the car. They seemed great, didn't hassle us about excess insurance or anything else but told me they'd put a charge of 1000 euros against my credit card (which was in the 'authorised but not gone out' section when I looked but then seemed to disappear before the rental ended so I don't know what could happen at a later date) We ended up with a bit of an oldie with bits of damage all over it (which I didn’t mind at all cos Malta’s roads are awful!!), all marked on the form, but still found some more which the guy marked on our form but didn't sign and didn't appear to write down anywhere else. I'm now panicking that money could go out of my account at any time. I've even considered cancelling my credit card but don't know if that would make a difference. They're must be SOME honest companies out there surely but how do we find them? Sorry to ramble on but this has really got to me even tho I'm not out of pocket - it's the principle and the disgust at being ripped off and I don’t know if this has to be noted when I apply for insurance for my own car. How many more people might have been charged for that same damage? I was thinking of putting something on facebook with the car registration details etc to try and warn others but don't know if that's possible.