BUYER BEWARE if you are thinking about renting a car from Europcar. After reserving and paying for a car rental through a third party before leaving the United States, on arrival in Southampton I presented the 3rd party rental voucher to the Europcar agent who accepted it without comment. He told me, however, that the car I reserved was not available and I was offered an upgrade for £9 a day extra for the 14-day rental period. I accepted this and the agent made out a rental agreement reflecting the upcharge. At no time did the agent in Southampton tell me that the payment we made through the 3rd party would be disregarded and that Europcar would be re-billing the entire rental amount again. However, 4 days after returning the car, Europcar charged my credit card the full rental price plus the upgrade charge. In other words, I ended up paying for the car twice.After calling the company’s customer service three times and explaining the situation by email, my complaint fell on deaf ears. I was finally told that the voucher I presented in Southampton and that the agent accepted and kept without comment had not been applied. To add insult to injury, upon returning the car at the exact time and date stated on the rental agreement (as confirmed by the agent who received the car), I was charged for an extra day after being told the car should have been returned an hour earlier.Apart from being conned out of more than $500, the worst part of this experience has been trying to communicate with a company that is completely deaf to their customers concerns. The customer service rep., who is located somewhere overseas, will let you talk about your problem endlessly and then do nothing about it. Ask to speak to a supervisor: ‘sorry there are none’. I have to assume that using bait and switch tactics to justify ignoring payments from third parties is a common Europcar practice in order to avoid paying fees to those parties.Since we still needed an additional rental in the UK, we discovered Drivalia, which came highly recommended. It is understandable because their rates are half of what Europcar charges and their customer service reps are extremely friendly and accommodating. Hopefully, my own experience with Europcar’s unethical business practices will serve as a caution to anyone in future looking to do business with an ethical car rental company.Review update: In response to Europcar's standard corporate response. We had already contacted Europcar 4 times by phone and email, detailing the complaint. They have either not bothered responding at all or on one occasion were completely dismissive. The attempt by Europcar to act like they care now is nothing more than a laughable PR stunt.
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