Rentalcars.comReviews 1,137

Hired a car through Rentalcars. They took my money, gave misleading information - I did not use the car or leave the car hire place with it and now they refuse to give my money back. I have been robbed and paid for a service I didn't receive. Spent over an hour on the phone to their customer service where the 'Manager' told me that because they were not registered there was nothing I could do. This is the same manager 'Ben Goddard' who laughed at my situation, told me to understand his frustration when I was left with no car or money, he insinuated I must be poor if I needed the refund and was completely unhelpful and disrespectful. Appalling service, stay well away and if you do happen to use them. Make sure that you read the FAQs not the terms and conditions as they have hidden information in there and misleading information during the booking process.

Very Angry, out of pocket customer!

I purchased the services of rentalcars.com and the precharged my credit card. When i went to pick up the car at the kiosk, the attendant informed me that there would be a mandatory insurance fee of $100 (62% mark up on the original price). The attendant was apologetic and says that this frequently happens with rentalcars.com. Given the new price, i declined the service and immediately contacted rentalcars.com to cancel the service. The company sent me an email one day later saying they allowed me to cancel the service but would issue no refund. I have called several times to the company, but I could not speak with anybody with decision making power. All correspondence was very bureaucratic. There whole business model is to offer something cheap by hiding (high) fees. I would not recommend this service to anybody. It was not that much cheaper to begin with. The offer a product that has a true price very different that advertised. In the end, I was out $150 with no car rental.

We pre-paid an SUV mid size via rentalcars.com.
They assigned us EUROPCAR costa rica (san jose airport)
We got there and car was not available when it was guaranteed to be there.
Others, the same day in the same office, had to face the same issue.
We were given no choice after 1 hr waiting: smaller car or nothing! With 2 kids, had to accept. Made travelling for 2 weeks quite uncomfortable.
Now fighting with rentalcars.com for a refund when it should be automatic! I paid for a car I never got, got a smaller one and no money back yet after more thab 3 weeks! What a joke... just unacceptable. Pityful customer service from both companies.
Use other third parties and other car rental suppliers!

Paid for a premium package upgrade on last trip to Florida. Budget advised me I did not have the upgrade and would need to pay locally for additional drivers and return the car back full or be charged.

Rentalcars.com declined to address my problem, advising they could only do so once I returned home... Alarm Bells started to ring. I return home and all I got was mirrors and a smoke screen.

Budget were clear, they received payment from rentalscars.com for standard package only. Would rentalcars.com provide me a copy of their instruction and payment to Budget... No.

This company will certainly not be getting my custom again and I cannot recommend them, except maybe to my worst enemy, if I had one... Since I posted this review I have returned to using my old favourite, USRentacar. I discovered for my time slots and hire needs this year, they are more competetive than Rentalcars.com. The saving I will achieve will more than cover the money Rentalcars.com got out of me for extras that were paid for but not non-provided. At least check out USrentacar

I booked a small pickup car with RENTALCARS.COM for the Carnival period, in Brazil. I did it 3 weeks before the desired dates and soon I received an email confirming the pickup, and the total rental amount was charged on my credit card. Just 3 days before the beginning of the rental I tried to print the booking voucher in the website but, surprisingly, the booking as
Turned into "awaiting confirmation" status! They deceived me! I paid for a pickup car which they had confirmed but the car was not available, they just gave me another car. This is a huge mistake in the reservations administration process and a radical violation of the consumer rights as the service was already paid and was not avaiable! To cancel the rental would be a disaster for me as there was no more pickup cars avaiable at the time I found out the pothole. Although they gave me another car (not a pickup one), it does not eliminate
The severity of the situation, and did not satisfied me indeed. Therefore, I DO NOT RECOMMEND RENTALCARS.COM UNDER NO CONDITION, they do not know how to work, they do not honor the rental commitments and do not provide a standard of quality as it should be offered due to the prepayment they impose on their customers.

BE WARNED. RENTALCARS.COM is a total rip off. Dont use this company or similar web only companies rather go straight to rental car companies itself because I believe these sort of web only companies have several websites. Live in Sydney Australia and booked a car through rentalcars.com but cancelled nearly a month before the booking day but was charged $50.50 dollar fee is way too much for booking a car through a website. At time of booking all this information was not given. It is dodgy and misleading. The actual car rental companies never charged anything for cancellation. Even now the car company did not charge any cent for the cancellation only RENTALCARS.COM charged me $50.

They are supporting "Dollar Rent a Car"s insurance scam: Just like hundreds and hundreds of other customers, we were ripped off by Dollar, and rentalcars.com are not helping us to get our money back. Dollar charged us almost $ 500 (on top of a 1000 Dollar rental) for insurance we never wanted or agreed to.

This is how it works:
They take your signature (that you have to sign on a computer screen when picking up the car) and copy it onto a paper contract. On the paper contract, they add all kinds of insurances that you verbally declined (or that they don't even mention during the entire process of the pick-up!).
When you return the car, they charge it to your credit card. If you then contact them and tell them you never signed the actual contract, they will tell you they have your signature on the contract (by means of signature forgery!), and they won't refund it. If you file a dispute with your credit card company, they will show them the paper contract and tell them you signed for it.

Several class action lawsuits on this issue are pending, get info here:
http://www.investigativeguy.com/dollar-rent-a-car-overcharges/
http://www.autoblog.com/2014/08/19/dollar-rent-car-insurance-scam-video/

rentalcars.com better stop doing business with "Dollar Thrifty", before they go under together. Do not rent your car here, they are part of the fraud!

Beware Hidden Charges!

Actual rental cost 30% more than the quote despite the Total Payment statement.
Pickup desk was apologetic and said "Don't know why they do that". Although I nominated "airport pick up" this charge was missed, as was drop off, daily fees and local taxes - advised this was my fault for not reading the terms and conditions properly.

Rentalcars offer to beat any lower quote but how can you compare quotes when these charges are hidden? Other companies include them.

Also automatically charged for damage waiver insurance on top of the quote (unrequested) which was a hassle to cancel.

Actually replied to my emails but brushed off my concerns about their quotation and billing process - "read the terms and conditions carefully".

Choose another supplier!
In Australia I have used DriveNow previously without getting hit with hidden charges.

My experience was no different than everyone else on this site. My Mom passed away and I took her back to England for burial. I booked a rental car and was quoted $122.00 for the week with no additional fees. I returned the vehicle with no issues and upon my return home, reviewed my bank statement only to find I had been charged $149.00 and the $184.00. Almost triple what I was quoted. I'll be calling an attorney, attorney generals office and the better business bureau. I'll also reach out to some agencies for assistance as I work as a fraud investigator and this certainly qualifies as fraud!

TOTAL SCAM!

We booked through rentalcars.com and paid in advance by debit card to rent a car from dollaruae.com. Apparently in Dubai a credit card is a compulsory form of ID even if you have paid and have a passport. Since we didn't have a credit card tohand, we were refused rental and the adviser said the booking has been cancelled and we would get a refund and as proof gave a copy of an email she sent to the head office cancelling the booking. After returning home we checked the booking email and realised that the online company was registered in the UK and that sounded odd so tried contacting them to inform them as well, however none of the numbers on their site worked and we had to send an email instead. And now the 2 companies are insisting that we should have contacted them separately on the day of collection and that rentalcars.com was not aware that our booking had been cancelled - this seems very odd and self serving considering they communicated the information regarding the booking to dollar in the first place and call themselves their partners.

They are refusing to refund even part of the AED 2000 (over $500) that they took as advance payment.

The entire rental agreement has been drafted to scam customers since the contract is so long and technical you would need a lawyer to explain it to you

I used rental cars.com for the first time because I was in the midst of a complicated relocation from the UK to Canada and didn't have time to research car companies individually. Big mistake! Rentalcars.com charged me nearly three times as much as Avis actually charges for the car in Canada. Rental cars.com is taking advantage of people like me who are moving between countries frequently and don't have time to research the real rates of cars in a given country. Needless to say, I will never use them again, and I hope this warning helps others in similar situations.

Rentalcars.com is a total fraud (and spammers too)

This company (which is part of Priceline) has lots of terms and conditions which work against you and we have ended up with paying 256 for *nothing* in the end. Here is the story:

On a family trip in Italy, we have made reservation for a car rental from this website in May 2013. We have especially requested a navigation device during reservation to find our way easily around the country.

On 19th of May we went to SicilyByCar desk at Rome Termini Station to pick up our car. We paid the deposit, signed the papers and got the keys. When we arrived at the parking lot to pick up the car, we were told that they have no navigation device available! We had to go back to train station (which is 300m away) and ask the lady at SicilyByCar desk. When we asked why she had not told us that navigation device was not available before and made us go through all the signing papers and paying deposit procedure, she did not have any answer at all! We were really disappointed and frustrated.

The only way to go was cancelling the reservation and renting another car from another dealer. So I called RentalCars.com customer services and was told that I need to pay half of reservation fee as a penalty and that was because the pickup time had passed. But we had not get in the car at all! Just because the pick-up time has passed we were made to pay 256 for nothing, simply nothing! All we get was disappointment and frustration in the middle of our trip. Not to mention the half of day we lost during reservations.

When I have placed a complaint, I got a response a month later, which says this is according to their terms and conditions and they will do nothing about it. The rep's last sentence in the email was:

"We are not in position to refund you the rental price and we now close the matter"

That's all I was able to get back. (oh, and daily spam emails)

So, STAY AWAY FROM RENTALCARS.COM, if you want to stay stress free.

In Breif: prepaid for a rental car which they never gave me! They wouldn't even refund me afterwards!

When I went to pick up the rental car I had prepaid for, they asked me to produce a credit card as per the guidelines of the voucher provided to me by rentalcars.com.

I had provided first an embossed Credit Card (same card I used to book the car with initially) with sufficient funds, but there was an error when the hold was requested and the transaction was declined. While rental cars maintains its my fault - I supplied them with a Credit Card certificate from my Bank and a certified statement that shows that on the date of the transaction, I had a valid and active credit card with sufficient funds.

I then proceeded to provide a second credit card, but the company refused to accept it as it was not embossed While my card is in fact a credit card - Rental Cars insisted that it was an E- card and not a credit card. I showed them both my E Card and the other card - they still refused to reimburse me.

I then provided a third credit card which belongs to my companion. The company also refused this card since the card holder name is different than the reservation name.

To date - they kept all my money and keep making excuse after excuse.