Dear Rocio,
How can we put a stop to dubious car rental companies?
Specified name and address
Rocio writes: These days, a vacation can often feel like an obstacle course, with potential obstacles around every corner.
You’ve battled through the airport parking lot, security checks, departure gate and potentially delayed flight. You land in the scorching heat of continental Europe, make it through customs and head to the baggage carousel hoping your luggage is in the same place as you. After that, there’s just one more hurdle to overcome before your well-deserved vacation can begin: the car rental counter.
And this is where things can really get stuck. A recent Which? survey found that travellers face a number of problems when hiring a car on holiday, with nine in ten (89%) fearing that car hire companies will take advantage of them.
As if holidaymakers weren’t nervous enough, they were particularly concerned about the sales pressure, with one in six customers saying they felt “strongly” pressured at the counter to take out additional insurance, even though they already had adequate cover.
To see how passengers are treated at airport car rental desks, Which? sent undercover investigators to Spain. We visited popular destinations such as Alicante and Malaga, posing as regular customers and filming the interactions with hidden cameras.
The footage was disturbing. We caught agents using a range of pressure tactics, including making false and potentially misleading statements about existing insurance benefits and claiming that customers could be liable for hundreds of euros worth of damage. One undercover agent was told he would have to pay €760 for a scratch – potentially more than the cost of a family’s return flights – unless he took out additional insurance cover.
When you rent a car in Europe, basic insurance – known in the industry as a ‘Collision Damage Waiver’ – is always included in the rental price, but if something happens to the car, the excess you have to pay can be horrendously high. So it makes sense to take out an Excess Refundment Policy (ERI) so you can claim back the excess you have paid. Alternatively, you can buy a Super Collision Damage Waiver (SCDW) directly from the car rental company, but this can cost hundreds of pounds more and often offers inferior cover.
Not wanting to miss an opportunity, some car rental company employees sell SCDW to their customers to generate additional profits for the company. An industry insider told us that car rental company employees are often incentivized to sell SCDW for a commission.
In Malaga, a mystery shopper was told that his ERI policy was not valid and that the things he had bought online were “free” – a statement that is likely to worry any traveller who wants to leave the airport, hit the road and get to their accommodation as quickly as possible. The problem was: the ERI policy was perfectly valid.
To be clear, upselling is not against the law. But under regulations protecting consumers from unfair trading, it is illegal to use misleading or aggressive practices that are likely to result in a customer making a purchase they would not have otherwise made. We believe that the experiences of many of our mystery shoppers fit this description. There are similar consumer protection regulations in place in Spain, meaning holidaymakers should be free to hire a car without facing further pressure.
If you’re planning a summer vacation this year and are renting a car, don’t get ripped off. Make sure you book with a reputable supplier or broker, and buy your own ERI before you travel to avoid pressure from pushy agents.
Rocio Concha is Director of Policy and Advocacy at Which? To publish your question on this page, email [email protected]
