Crap rental experience and charged £200 without notice

The worst car rental experience I have ever had. An absurdly disorganized pick up that took close to an hour. Then the woman at the front desk insisted I pay a refuelling fee of €23, even though I said I would refill the tank before returning! She said, "if you don't like it, rent somewhere else". I will never deal with Goldcar again, I don't know how they are still in business.

I'm a New Zealander, living in UK and I don't usually write reviews but I felt I must, this time. Firstly, I booked and prepaid online using EasyRentCars which was very easy and I will definitely use them again. As for GoldCar, I will avoid them like the plague. Beware of their scare tactics to up-sell you insurance and roadside recovery at extortionate rates. I had prepaid £110 for 10 days hire yet and, after going through the necessary paperwork, the representative proceeded to say I owed €349.00, €99 of which was for fuel deposit and service charge which was okay. The other €250 was for their insurance and roadside recovery that she tried to say I must have and cannot go without. I already had insurance and roadside recovery in place so I knew I didn't need this at all but, she wasn't having it. After about 5 mins of an awkward back-n-forth she started saying "If you break down, no one will help you. If you have a flat, no one will help you, If you crash, no one will help you." To which I replied, "I think I'll manage and I'll be just fine." She then said I'd have to pay them €1100 right now and even if I get just a little scratch, I'll lose it all. This is actually a held payment and fully recoverable through your own insurance if you do have an accident so again I said not to worry about me and I'll be okay. By now, she was not happy. I think they must get commission for peddling the insurance because it really seemed to annoy her that I was ok. She even went on to circle the insurance/roadside recovery help line number and then said "But, you cannot call this number because, no one will help you." Absolutely disgusting use of scare mongering and I bet they trap a lot of people who a) don't have their own insurance in place, b) don't realise you don't need theirs as well or c) Don't have a credit card with €1100 on it to cover the held deposit. Although, my wife and I joked 'no one will help you' throughout the holiday, I

Great! Easy to use and best prices I could find.

I was given the information that they “cannot” accept the third party insurance which it was surprising me because since I rented cars worldwide I never got this policy before. Actually I know they tried to sell me the insurance. When I insisted not to buy further insurance, they told me then they cannot let me rent the car. WTF!!! And it made me pay for 150 EURO more. Insane!

Great price. Good options.

Waited ages to be served. Once serves we have a very rude lady. Wanted to charge me airport location tax dispute taxes being included in the chargw.. says it's not included as cheap rate and says in terms on goldcar website. Lady then said I had to pay fuel surcharge of €135 which is refundable if return full. That was fine. Then she said I had to take out there personal insurance. Explained I had insurance excess which she said wasn't going to cover their rental which was utterly rubbish. After 30mins had passed, she reluctantly took the €1400 blocked swipe of my car and we was on our way. Very very rude and told me not to shout at her which I honestly wasn't doing. She was mis-selling which not give me all options. I assume they are on commission. Kept saying that a 5p dent or a scratch would cost €700. I'm a careful driver having driver loads of hire cars before and never had so much bother getting a car. It was almost 11pm at this point. Once it was sorted, the car we got was nice and did the job. It was cheap for a reason .. there is no customer service. Be warned there might be hidden charges so also check goldcar website. There rating is also low and branded as robbers. It's true. Will never use again.

Dislike: They forced me to hire an insurance even though I already had one