Europcar UK

We had a problem with our rented car - and though we paid for all the extra insurances we have not even been able to be connected with someone who would help us. The Helpdesk of this company is merely a joke, but a rather bad one. You all the time end up in a menu - which you also can´t overgo... It´s a nightmare... NEVER ever you should book a car on this company

Unfortunately can't put zero. They are just lying. One person give you an information and the other person another information. I've been trying for the last 3 days my problem with them and still in square one. Asked to speak to a manager and surprise surprise Taylor from the call centre told me that no manager available to talk. DO NOT USE EUROPCAR

Took 7 days to deliver my replacement car, cancelled booking once, nothing but total hassle to get a vehicle, office staff totally disinterested until I made formal complaint, then car miraculously found for me in 36 hrs!! Wouldn't advise anyone to use this company, would give no stars for Swansea office if I could. Delivery chap nice though and helpful, car very clean but smelled badly of vaps and cigarette smoke, which had been covered up, would not recommend

We do the reservation online to return the car after working hours, then when you go to pick up they charge you extra £20. Why this cost was not highlighted in the reservation, as they knew it was after hours service? Doesn't make any sense and will not recommend.

Edinburgh Airport Rebecca was absolutely fantastic. She paid attention to detail, made sure I was good with the car and the processes. She was so lovely to deal with. Car was spotless and performed brilliantly. The gentleman dealing with me, when I returned my car, was equally lovely to deal with. (Unfortunately, I didn’t get his name.) The check was very efficient and I was quickly on my way. 🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩

Avoid this company at all costs! Please avoid using this company particularly the Gatwick Airport Branch. We ordered a car online and when we arrived the car wasn't available which is standard but what I wasn't made aware of was the replacement car was an upgrade that I'd have to pay for. The agent didn't make me aware of the extra cost and got me to sign everything with no explanation and I felt under pressure to do so. Its as if the agents have a target and are paid commission to up sale. Pity I didn't read the reviews before booking this company, hopefully someone reads this and doesn't make the same mistake and goes with some other car hire company!

If I could give negative I would. Shocking company. Totally unreliable. Vechile cancelled and then additional monies taken. Refuses to supply telephone transcript. Having to take our complaint further.

Disorganised, poor communication, terrible logistics. God knows who mans the "helplines" but they seriously need some customer service training. Enterprise are streets ahead of this shower!

I called to arrange collection of my hire car and was told that it would be collected between 2pm and 6pm. I waited in all afternoon but no-one turned up, there was no phonecall or communication to advise that they weren't coming or running late. Just before 6pm I called to check if they were coming. The gentleman I spoke to, refused to help me and said that I would need to call the branch. I then called the branch - they were closed! I then called back and spoke to an extremely rude and abusive lady. She refused to help me, refused to put me through to a manager, kept talking over me and hung up when I asked for her name. Her attitude, lack of customer care and rudeness has left me extremely upset. I cannot understand how someone with her attitude and unkindness can work in customer service.

I hired a large van to move some items all in all around 30miles. I needed it on a Saturday and this was the only company with availability. I booked it on the Thursday beforehand. Booked the van from 10:00am-22:00pm on Saturday and was charged £71.45 which I thought was fairly reasonable. Noticed when booking that a charge would be added after as I would be returning the van out of hours. I called Europcar to ask how much this charge would be and was told £20. I asked for this info to be emailed to me in case they tried to charge more later. They said they couldn't provide this info in writing which made me nervous but I needed to go ahead with the booking. The next day (Friday) I had a phone call from them saying that the van I had booked was not available but they could offer me a smaller one. I declined as had to move a sofa. They said it was OK and they would make sure the van was available for my booking the next day. Saturday we arrived at Europcar at 10am but there was nowhere to park at all - it was a tiny site with cars/vans everywhere. I ended up dropping off my partner and parking at the shop down the street. He was waiting for about 15 minutes till he got served and was told the van wasn't ready. He had already checked in online but they wanted all of his details again. Clearly they needed to waste time as the van wasn't ready. They asked for the payment card so I had to go back and provide this, they made a comment to my partner saying something along the lines of 'we will cancel this whole thing off until she gets here and then start again' - my partner said 'no that is not necessary she is parked 30 seconds away - keep it on the screen she will be here now'. I arrived and they took all of my details and tried to sell me insurance. I said that the basic will be fine as we are travelling very local. They proceeded to try and scaremonger me into taking the insurance but I said no. At this point it was about 11am and they were cleaning the van. I said that I want a discount as the van wasn't ready 1 hour after my booking time. They said as a gesture of goodwill that I could have the van until the following day. I said this is no use to me, I am doing 1 trip - I want you to waive the £20 key drop-off out of hours fee and they said they would 'try'. So far, I haven't been charged this but wouldn't be surprised if it comes out of my account in the next few days. Would not recommend at all. Problem at every stage. Should have read reviews before booking. Even if you're in dire need I would go elsewhere.

Needed to return with the tank full filled up 200 yards away and I still being charged a refill cost this company rip you off

Arrived ~45 minutes before the reservation time. Approached the counter, asked if there were any issues and was assured by James that this isn't a problem - that there won't be any additional charges for the early pick up, and the original reservation will hold (i.e. able to return at the original time without incurring any late fees as well). I had added on the fuel option and was told that there'd be a hold on my card for excess fees, which will be returned. Went through the contract quickly, and James only pointed out the additional fuel option and got me to sign. BIG MISTAKE. I should've noticed that the contract now showed an additional day's rental charged at a ridiculously high rate, along with associated fees. For context, my original booking was a compact sedan over 3 days, and the spot rate charged for what was essentially a 45-minute early pick up was £100 (40% of my initial cost). Might I add that due to the hard selling, we only received the key to the car 20 minutes before the original pick up time. After returning the car, I wasn't provided a statement of return nor a final invoice, despite them responding to confirm that it would be sent over in the next 10-20 minutes. When I saw the absurd charges to my card a few days later, Europcar representatives informed me that the dispute was filed, but again, they never got back with a case number and went radio silent after. Despite 2 follow-up emails, sharing the intention to file for a chargeback based on fraud, Europcar refused to respond. Filed for a dispute with my bank, took months and multiple emails before I finally got my money back. Save your time and wallet, pay the extra and go with more reputable car rental firms in Bristol.

DO NOT USE THIS COMPANY Hired a vehicle over a longer period of time, spent a considerable amount of money. Nothing changed on my licence . Went to renew and computer said no. Zero human interaction, they will also take money off your card without authorisation, please please avoid.

Wow if only I had a look at reviews before hiring a van to move house with europcar, shoddy across the board. We paid for a LUTON van to move house, a week before they phoned to say it wasn’t available and we’d need to downsize but that the capacity was similar. Begrudgingly we said yes. They then phone to say we need to repay for the hire of that van?! Despite already having 170£ for the original hire (assured this will be refunded within 10 days), we then pay out AGAIN for a second van. You guessed it the day before completion they phoned to say we don’t have that van now, unless we want to wait until 5pm?! Erm no. So we downsize yet again to what can only be described as a large car, we refuse to pay again but are then asked to pay a whopping deposit despite them already having 2x van payments from us. The customer service was beyond shocking, people have the communication skills of a wet lettuce, and that’s putting it nicely. You ask at the desk and are met with blank faces and “we don’t know how to do that”. Honestly shocking from start to finish and 300£ lighter.

Terrible, avoid! Returned a car to discover it had a crack in the windscreen. No point of impact so was obviously caused by the cold weather which is common in weakly manufactured screens. Sure enough searching the car make and cracked windscreen shows other drivers had this problem. Despite there being no impact damage, no surrounding scratches etc just a clean crack they are insisting its damage not a defect. They are asking for £900. I did take out insurance elsewhere but they wont cover manufacturing defects. Complete lack of care from them means I wont be using them in the future.

Total rip off merchants. Avoid like the plague

I have generally had a quite good service in the UK when cars were provided on the basis of a government contract and I was not paying for them directly myself. However be aware that any possible favourable experiences in the UK may not be reflected in other parts of Europe. Be particularly wary in Bulgaria where an effort was made to defraud me. Look at the reviews before hiring, and buy hire car insurance separately, before travelling.

This company fraudulent removes money and makes it difficult to claim it back so people give up on claiming. I am currently applying for a court date with small claims and have reported this company to trading standards.  On the 15th Feb you charged me for a car you refused to rent me because your new employee didn't know how to read Spanish driving licences and his superiors refused to help him read it. Renting from another company meant additional charges. I wrote to you on the 15th Feb asking for a contact in you legal team as I was going to put forward a case for you to pay for the additional costs. You refunded the original charge about 40 days later.  On the 20th Feb you charged me £102 as a penalty for not turning up to collect the car! I obviously disputed this and was told you had sent instructions to Gatwick South Europcar to refund this. It has not been refunded at this point and I am incurring interest payments due to the incompetence of your company in leveling this charge and then not refunding it in a timely fashion. I wrote 3 weeks ago saying I expected compensation given the 20+ times I have explained this, your failure to refund, the additional costs incurred to hire a car from another company and my time and effort. two weeks ago I received a message that you were investigating and would get back to me. Today 6th April, I received an email saying the case is closed because you had refunded the original £135.18 charge.  Please1/ cancel the £102 charge for the fine for "not turning up"2/ respond to the request for compensation via a legally trained representative with an email address so I don't have to wait 14 days for every failed response from "customer service". I am posting this email daily to every review site for every branch of europcar until I have received the two above items IN REPLY TO COMPANIES REPLY BELOW I have emailed that address over 20 times. I have started this in this copy of my latest email. This is exactly what has happened everytime. You don't read them message and send a copy and pasted response. I email again and 10 days later you send another copy and pasted response.

If I could give 0 stars I would. I hired a car 4 months ago and was overcharged by over £400. Before booking the car I was assured by two Europcar employees what the price was and was promised that the extra number on the paper was my deposit that I would get back. They then took the extra money out of my account and when I raised this with Customer Care they said they would speak to the Park Royal branch I rented the car from, but they never did - just fobbed me off with an email saying the case was being dismissed. I then had to go back to the branch and speak to them in person. It took 3 months of my life to finally get the money back only to then receive an email from Europcar's lawyers fining me for not paying a bill that I had in fact already paid. They also charged me for a full tank of petrol when I returned the car despite the fact that I returned it full. It seems that Europcar took money from me at every chance they had. If I hadn't spent the time sorting this I would be several hundreds of pounds out of pocket. This has caused me so much stress! What a nightmare company to deal with.

Have been a customer of Europcar in on three occasions within the past year. All were positive. These were at the Chester and Preston branches. I did not need to make any insurance claim as there was no damage to the car. For your own protection at ANY car hire company... ------------------------------------------------------- I recommend that you take out £0 excess insurance and carefully read the terms of the insurance policy. Secondly, create a comprehensive video of the exterior of the car prior to leaving, and create another video upon arrival. Also request a walk-round of the car with a staff member to cross-reference their provided damage report against the car, so you are familiar with it and also to comment on any (unlikely) oversights that can then be manually added by the staff member. I also recommend explicitly asking a staff member to do the inspection of the car that you have returned back to them, while you wait. Then explicitly ask them to sign it off as having no damage, while you wait. You will then get an printed invoice stating that and confirming that the deposit frozen on your credit card (e.g. £700 at Europcar) is being released. This ensures that nothing is left to chance, rather than you heading off and getting a surprise weeks later.