rentalcars.com & Firefly,a Hertz company. rentalcars cancelled my reservation & charged £111,00 Cancellation fee due to Firefly NO rental policy Manchester United Kingdom internet
I was gutted when I went to the car rental desk at arrivals in Genoa Airport (Italy) and the local agent at Firefly, a Hertz company, refused to give us the car because my UK Visa isn't accepted by Firefly for a damage deposit of Euro 1510,00 in Italy.
Although I had already paid the rental in full advance to rentalcars.com using the same card,which listed in the dropdown menu on their reservation page, I was not given the car by Firefly, on whose no rental policies or payment methods I was not advised by rentalcars.com.
Rentalcars.com is UK based company that acts as a "supplier" in their Terms & Conditions online that you need to read and accept online (please, note that there no mandatory checkbox for accepting T&C www.rentalcars.com ) but, then it is stated anywhere else e.g. voucher,confirmation etc that rentalcars.com is a "brooker" and "cannot accept liability" for what happens locally.
So when I got stranded at Genoa Airport for no apparent reason except for Firely's policies and I rang the Customer Service call centre in the UK, a rentalcars.com CS agent asked me to talk to the Firefly agent over my mobile phone to find out what the issue was and to persuade her that my UK Visa was to be accepted.Firefly refused to do that although my card is a proper card that can be charged anytime, not a Visa Electron or a pre-paid or cash card.
What did rentalcars.com CS agent do?Cancelled my reservation without my approval or written notice against the regulations in Consumer Protection (Distance Selling) Regulations 2000 (http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2000/2334/contents/made) and on top of everything he charged a cancellation fee of £111,00.
I wanted to cry - I looked around for a second and I realized that all other car rental desks in the hall had long queues of cheerful UK tourists except Firefly - I walked over to AVIS car rental (also a rentalcars.com partner) and gave me a car no problem charging my UK Visa for £370,00.
How funny, the rentalcars.com CS agent did not want to offer an alternative renatl supplier in Genoa I complained to rentalcars.com, asked for a full refund and claimed a compensation. They said no, next action is going to be a legal action. I'm telling all my friends and people travelling to Italy - beware of Rentalcars when renting a car in Italy.