Having arrived back on the beautiful islands of Mallorca and being super happy and excited, my friend Michael and I decided to spontaneously rent a car online and were attracted by the cheap fares offered through a third-party Internet provider, rentalcars.com. The prices were incredibly cheap, which is always good, but I then realised that we were just part of another rip off and tight into a contract with a dodgy online business ! Here you can read how to avoid it and how the terms of a car rental contract should look like.
What to bring at pick up
- Booking confirmation code
- Valid credit card
- Driving license (digital is not accepted)
THE EXPERIENCE
Michael and I had just arrived at the interrent car agency, which is part of Europcar, about fifteen minutes after pick up time, around 8:45pm. The agent from the car rental welcomed us (super friendly) and started the process. I gave her the confirmation code for her to see the details of the booking. I guess she must have liked us from that very first moment: is it just me or did she fancy one of us ? Was it love at first sight ? Anyway, the point I’m trying to make is that she made us aware of the nonsense terms in the contract between us and the third party rentalcars.com (the broker between us and interrent). There’s more. She questioned about my driving license because I was the named driver in the confirmation email, but I totally forgot to bring a physical license, which wasn’t acceptable to proceed with the process. She suggested calling rentalcars.com to change the name of the driver !
Whilst I was waiting in line to talk to customer service, the agent pointed out some of the terms; but I was confident enough that everything was fine because I had booked it through a German website. The more she explained the terms of the contract–I was already fixed on the name change–I realised that rentalcars.com didn’t seem like a serious business to me ! It started with:
> Car insurance protection
The agent at interrent basically told us that the insurance protection included in the contract between rentalcars.com and me was of no use on Mallorca soil but it cost us about 16€/day = 48€. She suggested that I get rid of the additional insurance protection (Selbstbeteiligungsschutz – Komplettschutz 1) for the car because it just wasn’t necessary because we would have been required to pay for additional insurance to apply to interrent terms for an additional cost of 16€/day = 48€. She offered two insurance packages (details to follow).
She was very nice and to my request to call rentalcars.com, she was cooperative and rang them from the agency phone. Whilst waiting in the line, she also made us aware of:
> Petrol policy: full to empty
At first, I didn‘t get what she meant by the policy full to empty and what impact it had, but she wanted me to change it to full to full. This was in regard to a petrol service fee. We would have to pay the full amount of the car tank at a higher price than the actual petrol prices, i.e., pay more than necessary. The big problem with this policy was that it was optional to refill the tank and get a refund or leave it at any level and get a refund. However, here is the point when the refill service fee kicks in for the operator having to refill the tank. The costs involved in this small point of the contract was 30,58€. The fee was non-refundable.
> No cooperation or client support
I couldn’t really believe this rip off and tried to change it over the phone with customer service. It was the biggest pain in the ass because for some reason they didn’t support me during the rental process. I guess money makes people turn into animals and this was the case. Instead of the lady changing it from full to empty to full to full, she just didn’t accept it. I guess it didn’t help either when the agent from interrent told her to change it because she had also done it two weeks before, but there were no signs of cooperation with the lady from customer service.
The agent lady gave up and passed me the phone. At this point, it was already starting to annoy me and I told her what to do to fulfill the clients‘ needs, but now she was very pissed and told me she could change it only if I accepted to pay 57€ instead of 28€ for the car rental with another provider (Goldcar). I refused this offer and really started to become emotional and a little rude at the same time, but still there was no cooperation and I didn’t see another choice than talking to the manager. She said the manager would call back but he didn’t, so I had to call another time. Another agent from customer service was speaking.
> Talk to the manager
I finally got to talk to the “manager“ after waiting for about 2.5 hours and a couple of nonsense talks with some stupid ladies of the dodgy rentalcars.com. I again explained my case, the third time that day, but the guy on the phone didn’t help and was just telling me the options again or that I could terminate the 28€ cost of the rental car. The lady from interrent then made me aware of 10,16€ for some reason. At first, I didn’t get what she meant but realized that this was the price rentalcars.com gives to interrent out of the 28€. I told him that and requested to be refunded the remaining money. He put me on hold to talk to somebody and confirmed a refund of 18€, so in effect, I was paying a cancelation fee of 10€. This is something we didn’t care about in the end and it was better than renting the car under the terms and conditions of rentalcars.com !
HOW THE TERMS OF A CAR RENTAL SHOULD LOOK LIKE
> Car insurance protection
The agent offered us two options: 1. full complete car insurance covering all parts of the car, theft, no excess of 1,000€, no deposit of 800€ charged to the credit card and all for 99€. 2. covering all parts, no excess and no deposit. This option cost, including the car rental price, around 85€. I guess option 1 is also good if you are traveling around with all your luggage, but we didn’t have many belongings with us and so didn’t think it was necessary. Definitely try to lower your liability as much as possible, especially on foreign soil !
> Petrol policy: full to full
This is another crucial term and if you haven’t realized it yet make sure the term for petrol service states full to full. This avoids confusion, trouble and additional fees/costs.
I TRAVEL FOREVER’s VIEW & RECOMMENDATION
After a terrible experience with rentalcars.com, I felt I had to share with the world as soon as possible to warn fellow travelers of a fraud before making the same mistake and get ripped off 10€ for nothing ! I decided to base the following article on my experience, point out the contract terms with the third party that involved hidden costs and fees, highlight the terms that should be included in a contract to save money and offer some suggestions.
Listen to my words and avoid rentalcars.com ! Book the car (only the car) with one of the reputable car rental operators directly over the Internet. The insurance terms can be booked on site when you pick up the car with detailed advice and information. The whole car rental business seems very annoying sometimes and it seems like a long process. There are also good people in the business, but look out for these crucial terms.
From a traveler‘s perspective, it’s always on my mind to save money whilst traveling around the world to follow the goal of travel forever !
Nevertheless, this was a fun experience because I loved dealing with customer service on the phone. In the end, I wasted 2.5 hours of the holiday, and the additional cancelation fee, but I have to thank some great client support from interrent !
#TW
