Europcar UK Reviews 

Extremely disappointing experience with Europcar Manchester Airport.

The rental started badly with a chaotic queuing system. I waited around 45 minutes, only to see customers who arrived after me being served first.

The biggest issue, however, was the misleading information I was given about the insurance costs. I specifically requested full cover with zero excess and was told there was only one option. I was advised the total rental would be £321, but not to worry because £100 of that was simply a refundable deposit.

After returning home and checking my invoice, I discovered the insurance alone cost £221.34—more than my original vehicle rental. At no point was this made clear. Had the true cost of the insurance been explained, I would have questioned whether it was worth it.

I appreciate Kevin calling afterwards to ask about my experience, but unfortunately that doesn't change the fact that I feel I was misled about the final cost. Clear and transparent pricing should be the minimum customers can expect.

Between the disorganised service and the misleading explanation of the charges, I won't be using Europcar again and cannot recommend them.
⭐☆☆☆☆

Europcar Pescara Italy - BEWARE!!. The drop off attendant went straight to a very small mark on the car above the front headlight without looking anywhere else. He insisted we made this (less than 10mm) and we were charged 155 euros even though we denied it was us. I absolutely believe he knew it was there. I complained (took a full morning to negotiate to where I needed to complain) with photos back through the insurance company AXA and received a full refund. ALWAYS TAKE A FULL VIDEO OF YOUR HIRE CAR BEFORE DEPARTURE otherwise you could be ripped off.

1 star

I recently rented a car through Europcar at Rome Fiumicino Airport (Case No. 26497604) and the experience has been nothing short of disappointing from start to finish.

Upon arriving at the desk I was told by a member of staff that upgrading to a 7-seater vehicle would cost €331.16 in total for 4 days. Based on this, the upgrade made financial sense for our group and we agreed. What I was not told was that this figure would be added on top of my existing base rental charge, nor was a 5% airport surcharge mentioned at any point before I signed. The final invoice came to €522.29, significantly more than what was communicated verbally at the desk.

When I raised this with Europcar's customer service team, I had to chase six times over nearly seven weeks before receiving a resolution. The responses I received from Roberto in the customer service team were dismissive, repeatedly citing the signed rental agreement rather than acknowledging that what was verbally communicated did not match what was charged.

Despite acknowledging in writing that there may have been a misunderstanding at the rental desk, Europcar has refused to offer any refund, goodwill gesture, or even a voucher. For a company of this size, retaining a loyal customer over £200 should have been straightforward.

I will not be using Europcar again and will be ensuring that friends, family, and colleagues are aware of this experience when making their own car hire decisions.

I booked a 10 day car hire at Faro Airport, for what seemed a resonable price compared to the other operators in the airport. How wrong I was ! the reception confused me with additional surcharges, the insurance I was happy to pay for peace of mind, but the location premium charge is a total con @£115, safe to say I will not be using Europcar again as they are very expensive. I suggest people look to local operators for a better value product.

My credit card was wrongly charged, I have waited a month and still not received a refund.
My credit card was charged after hiring a car from Rome and dropping it off in Naples. We received no information on the charge, no invoice, no breakdown, nothing. When I emailed Europcar confirmed they had wrongly charged and will issue the refund within working days. I received no refund so emailed again chasing, they sent a screenshot of a failed payment but had I not questioned they would not have contacted me to tell me the payment had failed. I issued them additional information and I am still waiting for a refund. Now when I email they chasing the refund I do not received a response back. Awful company.

Would give no stars if could waist of a space company every time u book they call up saying they have no calls what a useless company

DO NOT USE EUROPCAR THIS SUMMER, OR EVER.

Charged me 1000 GBP for damages I did not do. I've never had any issues with Enterprise or Hertz - Please use a much better car rental company, I wish I had done my research and realised Europcar was voted by which, the worst car rental company for seeking damage claims.

I shared with them photos proving I did not do this damage, which they did not take into consideration. I asked from them photos of the car rental before it was taken out by me, and guess what?

THEY COULD NOT PROVIDE!!

I will never use this company ever again.

Do not forget valuables in the car!!

So, I left my phone in the rental car at Gatwick Airport South - I know I did (you know the find my app, right?). Despite calling them 3 times and speaking to humans explaining the situation, telling them my phone was in their car, they have not managed to get back to me within a whole week. Can you imagine how awful that is? Even my emails go unanswered. It cannot take that long to check a car - especially as you need to check it and clean it before you hand over to new customer. So, this review is for the extremely bad customer service. If I do not get a response soon, telling me they found my phone and that I can pick it up, they will get a second bad review for theft.

On returning a car to them from hire, a very small dent was noted on the boot lid, something I was unaware of and definitely not done by me. A few days later I was billed for £604 for a repair which would have cost around £100 I requested numerous times for an itemised bill but never received one, next I receive a demand from a debt recovery firm for the full amount plus £40 charge. I feel that I have been badly mistreated and would definitely not recommend this company.

I got a car parking ticket, Europcar wacked on a £50 “administrative fee” for sending it to me. And their phone service was extremely poor.

We had an awful experience with Europcar, and will book with Avis or Enterprise next time. We had to wait more than an hour at the airport (CDG, Paris) for the car, despite having booked in advance. The agents there are rude and aggressively try to sell you extra add ons which you don't need. The car they gave us was smaller than what we'd paid for, and the most basic model going. It was also dusty and covered in marks. They provided no drop-off instructions despite it being in a busy city-centre car park (Gard Du Nord), which made returning the car a really stressful and confusing experience. Finally, they charged us £80 for a tiny 2cm mark on the car, which was already there when we collected it. I will never use Europcar again - my experiences with other rental companies have been far better.

Bunch of absolute thieves. Trying to bill for fuel when i left the car with more in than when i received it. Tried telling me the car was full on delivery with 320 miles in it. A Ford Puma will hold 436 miles!! Tried waffling on about driving styles. All they have told me is that there delivery drivers thrash cars!!
Still trying to bill me for a slow puncture which is funny as they cant prove i have done it and to top it off someone has forged my signature on the delivery note!! I get the impression that they think if they carry on i will pay them. They are very much mistaken. Remember if someone forges your signature there T & C become null and void!

My original Europcar rental cost £259.75. After four parking notices were sent to Europcar, the company charged me four separate £50 administration fees: £200 in total.

I am not disputing that Europcar’s terms allow it to impose an administration fee for each notice. My criticism is about proportionality, fairness and the complete absence of customer care.

The four notices concerned two days on which I briefly entered the same car park to drop off and collect my wife for surf lessons. The parking operator treated the four short entries as four separate parking incidents, resulting in £240 in parking charges. Europcar then added another £200 for processing the four related notices.

Together with a separate £137 damage-related charge, this modest rental generated more than £500 in additional costs.

I wrote to Europcar carefully and respectfully. I explicitly accepted their contractual position and made clear that I was not demanding cancellation of the fees. I asked only whether they might refund even part of the £200 as a one-off gesture of goodwill, considering the cumulative and disproportionate outcome.

Their response simply repeated that each notice required separate processing and that the fees were permitted by the rental agreement. All four charges would be maintained. There was no acknowledgement of the wider circumstances and no willingness to reduce the total by even £1.

A company can be procedurally correct and still treat a customer unfairly. My experience is that Europcar’s customer service is focused entirely on enforcing every available charge, with no meaningful consideration of proportionality or the overall customer experience.

Future customers should understand that a £259 rental can become dramatically more expensive, and that once additional fees have been applied, an appeal to fairness or common sense may receive no consideration whatsoever.

I will not use Europcar again.

STAY AWAY..DO NOT USE THIS COMPANY
If you have no choice but to use these scammers make sure you take a detailed video/pictures of the car and the fuel tank milage.
They told me to return it full with fuel which is fair enough but when I got in the car it was far from full.
Luckily we took a detailed video of the car when we collected it to show any scratches and defects. 2 weeks after we got home they said we had scratched the bumper and we we're being charged. The video clearly showed the scratch was already there so they made a fraudulent claim against us.
NEVER AGAIN!!

Do not use Europcar !! I recently hired a car from Europcar in Malaga airport which I pre booked online for approx £300 for a ten day period, on arrival at the airport i went to collect the car and I was spoken to in Spanish, I tried my best to understand and I was hastily taken through a contract and prompted to make another payment, I tried to explain I already paid and just wanted to collect the car I was then told in broken English this payment was just a deposit so after along flight I reluctantly agreed to to just get on our way. Turns out I was miss sold a premium insurance to the price on £474 on top of the original £300 price. I have tried to fight this and get my money back with the customer service but they simply refuse saying I signed the contract on a arrival which again is completely in Spanish. Avoid Europcar at all cost !

Europcar cancelled booking after customer services confirmed all OK, on day of collection, without apology or offering alernatives.

If I could give 0 stars I would. Absolute scammers. Messed up my booking so had to pay more on holiday when I arrived, which they admitted eventually and refunded me the difference, but had to pay more on the day I arrived on holiday or be left with no car. Put pressure on the start of what was supposed to be a relaxing holiday and didn’t even offer any compensation on top of giving back the difference despite causing all the stress and refused to pay the bank charge I got for paying so much on a card in a different country. Despite it being their fault, which they admitted! Shocking service.

Plenty of hidden charges like donations etc and no adequate customer service to resolve the problems when back overseas. I will never use or recommend this rental company again.

Very awful service. Rented the van online, paid for it. Received an email confirmation, initially rented Mercedes but in the email I was notified that car will be VW. Confirmed the job for a Saturday as I had the van rented yesterday. Today morning, without any discussion with me, received an email cancellation confirmation!!! Don’t work with this company, unreliable, dishonest and incompetent.

Woefully inadequate. The staff do not have the systems in place to serve customers quickly and efficiently. Only 2 staff at the desk and most of the time they were working together on one booking. Car rental village Manchester airport the person before us had waited over an hour for her car. We were headed for an equally long wait (and we're going to be late for our appointment as a consequence). We got frustrated with the staff and they withdrew our booking, would not rent us a car. We went to enterprise desk next to the Europcar desk and were on the road inside 30 mins. Never again...