Europcar UK

From start to finish, one of the worst experiences with a company I have ever had. It's hard to know where to begin to be honest, but suffice to say I will never, ever, be using Europcar again. For a start, I was give a completely different car to what I ordered. I prefer a smaller car for easier parking and I was pressured into taking a fairly large SUV. Generally the experience with the car during the rental was ok. However, when I returned it, there was no one around and no spaces in any of the bays. There was one space in another company's area, but of course all the bays were tiny (although the same as Europcars) and I struggled to park it, which was an unbelievably stressful experience. Two weeks later, I was sent an invoice for £331!! According to Europcar I left a scratch on the car (which I didn't see at the time and to be honest, I'm still skeptical it may have occurred by someone else moving it because when I called up the next day after returning the car the Europcar rep said everything was fine and the charge on my credit card was dropped). Furious about the whole situation, I complained and was told an investigation was underway. For several months I heard nothing, and assumed it had been dropped. Only to then receive an email from their solicitors requesting the money, with a £40 late fee and an order to pay within 14 days or risk legal proceedings. Of course I have tried and tried to find a solution via email and on the phone, but in the end it's like talking to a wall so I decided to pay the invoice to avoid this dragging on any further. Now I am in trouble because my cover only reimburses cases if their claim is made 45 days from the day of the rental. This is a separate company, but this situation would have been avoided had they contacted me about the investigation earlier. As said, this has been truly awful and this review barely scratches the surface. I feel completely robbed, and mistreated but I suppose they don't care because they have their money.

Awful. Upon delivery, they didn’t give me a full tank of fuel when it comes to collecting the vehicle the car had 20 miles less than when it was given to me but this is due to the fact that on the Friday, I had planned to go and put £10 in to take it up to what it had when they delivered the vehicle but they had then informed me the vehicle was uninsured. I wasn’t able to get hold of a Jerry Can I tried multiple times. Not much I can do the do expect risk being caught driving with no insurance. I explained this to the man and he said that’s fine. I will explain. I then wake up on the Saturday to find they had took A full tank of fuel out of my account and they wasn’t even concerned that they had cancelled the insurance basically saying to me that I should have drove the vehicle uninsured when at the top of my road there is an ANPR camera that would’ve flagged no insurance and they would’ve been quick enough to send the police to my door disgusting behaviour considering it was a courtesy car whilst my mums mobility car was off-road. They would’ve been happy for it to fall back on my shoulders driving uninsured meaning I could have potentially been put on a driving ban or worse time in jail. I will be lodging a formal complaint. This is just that everyone knows that you like to cancel insurances. By the looks of it it is an shocking company with really bad reviews so I’m not overly surprised to be honest with their behaviour, if I could avoid using them I would, but unfortunately mobility only work with them so in need of a replacement vehicle I am stuck with them

Worse hire car company ever. A car was booked by lease car company for a hire car whilst mine was going to dealers for a repair. Europcar were booked to deliver car to dealers for 8 am on 12th November. From the leeds branch. Firstly you cannot get thro to this office to pay a £1 deposit for a car. Secondly i have rung euro car 3 times each time it has been someone who could do with going on a customer service course. The final person I spoke to at 13:10 today hung up the phone line when I ask for Europcar complaints number. I spoke to one advisor that said to me the reviews are rubbish . I said does this include mine he stated probably. The company has no accountability. I have already submitted a complaint to yourself. I would suggest speaking to leeds branch given there unprofessional comments to customers. “Online reviews are rubbish, does that include my review of service. Europcar leeds response most likely too”

Excellent service at Jersey airport, Liverpool city and Heathrow airport on our trip. Universally efficient and friendly.

I recently booked a car with Eurocar. I went along to collect the car where the experience turned sour. The Darlington, County Durham branch asked me to test my drivers licence by using the Gov Uk licence check website. This website didn't validate my details and the form failed to do the checks after multiple tries. The assistant at the time just stood there and said 'the checks failed'. With a growing queue behind me and a blank stare from the assistant, I walked out. I find Eurocar most unhelpful. I won't be hiring from them again in future.

These people just do not give a monkeys, quite possibly one of the worst experiences of renting a vehicle I have had, they are complacent, rude and extremely unprofessional, they are also deliberately vague on details, so they can over charge you on return, if you are contemplating using this company, please reconsider...there are much better options out there.

Booked a hire car from Newquay airport.Received confirmation email with pick up / drop off details.Checked the evening before and found car had been cancelled for a month without any notification. Booking inferred an 8pm pick up on Sunday evening was arranged for a fee despite office normally shutting at 3pm.Had to ring Europcar HQ the morning of the journey to establish this. It was an important trip to my sisters wedding.This is no way to run business.

Not one to typically write reviews but this is definitely the worst car rental company I have ever dealt with. Rented a car for a day - pick up from Heathrow. Picked up the car quickly but was not given a damage report on collection so decided to take a video. Returned the car and a new "minor scuff" was noted on the post collection report. Proved this was there on the video I took but the company kept on coming with all kinds of excuses not to accept this - either the damage was too small to see or there was no time stamp to it (sent the entire video with geotagging and time stamp!). Absolute rip off. Just now noticing plenty of similar reviews online. Do yourselves a favour and find a professional rental company.

Used the Glasgow Airport Branch, Outstanding customer service by David Burnet. Would certainly use again.

An update. After returning a car to Guildford Audi that was hired for me from Europcar as well as charging me for their delivery and pickup fuel, they now claim that I have cracked a windscreen. This company try anything they can to screw extra money out of their customers. If you have to use Europcar, you should take photographs of every part of a car on pickup and when you return it. This is not a trustworthy company. I advise you not to use them. I am in contact with Audi, asking them not to hire any cars from Europcar as there are many other car rental companies who do not rip off their customers.

Picked up my prepaid rental from Manchester Airport. Unbeknownst to me my prepayment of $395, booked through American Express, was not acknowledged by Europcar. At pickup I was immediately offered 2 different cars than my original reservation, my first question was “will these cost more”, the response was “no”. I signed paperwork whichI should have paid more attention to but was assured it was just a few initials to complete reservation and insurance details. After I dropped the vehicle off my American Express was charged an additional $926. American Express took the case but I have only received my $395 back. I was therefore charged an extra $531 for this rental: RENTER BEWARE OF SNAKE-OIL SALESMEN AT THIS LOCATION….. FLEECED!!!!! Europcar are refusing to refund any of the upgrade charges based on my claim that I was told there would not be an additional charge. Shame on me for taking their word for there not being an up charge and double shame on me for thinking that they would take my word that they said no additional charge.

Appalling Booked a vehicle at their Oxford depot. They cancelled 2 hours before I was due to pick up - no apology just that they didn't have the vehicle they had charged me for! Then an invoice for booking cancellation and an unauthorised deduction from my account of £40. Comms non existent - they don't respond to emails!

Had a confirmed booking for a rental car in Sheffield, UK, and car was not there. Offered an upgrade for more money, unwilling to let me have it for same price as my booking. Was told my car would arrive later same day, but by the time the office closed, (6 hours after reservation time), it was still not confirmed when or if the car would be arriving. Three calls to central office resulted in unhelpful, unsupportive service where as a customer, I was shown no respect, apology for company error or attempt to remedy the mistake. One representative engaged in an argument with me.

It’s a shame because the pick up and four days of hire were great. Customer facing staff at branch were also friendly both at pick up and drop off. It is what has happened after drop off which I can only suggest borders on criminal. So far a payment authorisation each week of £139 has been taken against my debit card after returning the van two weeks ago. I can only suggest that they continue to use the initial card authorisation I gave them when approving the deposit to be held. Their representatives can’t see why they would be taking this amount each week as there is nothing on the rental agreement suggesting they should but it doesn’t stop it from coming out of my account and depleting my available funds somewhat illegally. I have had to open a case and been asked to send them statements so that they can investigate. In addition to this they also tried to charge for fuel when I had filled it up just before dropping off which the chap at the drop off desk reminded me to do. No exaggeration the petrol station is next door as they share the car park. They have since said a refund is coming back to me for this due to “lack of documentation” but it’s pretty shameful that someone thought to try it on to start. Fingers crossed they sort the weekly illegal card authorisations without me needing to cancel my cards with the bank.

Very strange as this hire company sent me a text message 2 weeks after I had returned the car, claiming there was damage to the vehicle. Luckily I had taken a video of the condition of the car inside and out, and there was no damage when I left it at the dealership. A few days after I dropped the hire car at the garage, Europcar finally collected it and yet did not mention any damage, in fact they sent a video they took on collection and the car looks fine *although having compared their footage to mine, they had taken the video after driving it as the fuel gauge was slightly less than as I left it. The notification from Europcar was sent by text message and there is no option to reply. A call to their customer services ended up with someone in Morocco who refused to clarify what the damage apparently is, stating it is not relevant, they also refused to put me through to a supervisor or manager or arrange a callback from them. I felt entirely at the mercy of someone who simply told me they were investigating! Either this is a scam or Europcar are attempting to charge customers for unspecified 'damage' to vehicles, weeks after they are returned!

STAY AWAY!! Contracted for a 6 day rental with 1500 miles. Had to extend by one day due to train delays, cost an extra 40 quid, OK, no problem. Turns out, by extending 1 day to a 7 day rental, my mileage was reduced to 600 miles, and 900 miles of extra mileage fees also had to be paid. Extra 153 quid on top of the rental fees. Why in the world an extra day REDUCES mileage is a complete mystery except that Europcar grabs money that way. Full disclosure: the staff at Royal Park were great, very friendly, but the HQ for this company is a scam.

We rented a car from Europcar in Belgium after renting in multiple other countries, including the Netherlands just a month before. We used a credit card in my wife’s name on all these other occasions, no issue. Belgium wouldn’t accept it. Fine, it’s the T&C and you want to be strict on it here for some reason. No where else has ever had an issue with it, no where. What is abysmal, is the service received from the 2 people on the desk that day. There was no empathy, no understanding and no desire at all to help. They were rude and dismissive. One even asked for my phone to look at the reservation, there was me thinking of they will try and help. No she wanted it to highlight again how I was in the wrong. The service was shocking, I have never been treated like this before. No desire to help. These people should not be in people facing jobs. we’ll be avoiding any Europcar hires in the future for our trips

Absolutely disgusting treatment by this so called company. An arranged hire car through motability was delivered to me at the dealership which quarter the fuel tank had been used when I received it. No paperwork or anything was signed. She handed keys, I took photos of the car as proof there was scrape marks on the vehicle already. The woman who delivered it seemed a little edgy. I used the hire car a handful of times and then filled it back up to where it was when I handed the keys. I dropped it at the dealership and the recptionist told me she would arrange the collection for me and she took the keys off me. A WEEK later I had notification It had been collected by Europcar. They then billed me for £30 fuel used!! I disputed this but then became too tired to continue and paid it, stupidly. Now 2 MONTHS later they have filed a claim against me for damage to the vehicle!! I am being chased for £100 excess for damage I DID NOT do. The damage in question was already on the vehicle when I was handed the keys. I took photos of the car when I dropped it off and uploaded them onto the Europcar link they had sent me. So they DO have the photos before and after showing the exact same damage already there and no further damages. UNLESS, the dealership had caused damage between the week of me dropping it off and Europcar collecting it. Either way, I did NOT cause any damage what so ever, or the delivery woman damaged it on the way to dropping it off as apparently no damage was recorded before I had it. convenient!!! I refuse to pay for someone elses damage. NOT a chance. I will take this all way the way and as far as it goes. They uploaded their own images and I uploded my images to them. So they have the images I sent them regardless. They are liars, unprofessional money grabbers preying on motability customers. DO NOT ACCEPT EUROPCAR HIRE.

We recently had to use this abysmal company, via nobility. Not only did they provide an unsuitable vehicle, (how do you get a disabled person and wheelchair in a Fiat 500?), they were constantly unavailable by phone for over a day. When we eventually got through there was no kind of help or assistance! I can only say I will never use this company again. Shocking!!

TERRIBLE company!! It’s a scam!!! They won’t be there when you arrive to pick up your car and none of their out of hours numbers will work either!! This happened after a flight delay! Go with Enterprise instead as I did!! This company have attempted to steal my money! Don’t do it to yourself!!! I wish I could give 0 stars!!!