Europcar Quito Airport

They didn’t have my car and no one called me. I had to forfeit $300 to my hotel and cancel my trip. Edit: as you can see from the reply below, they offered me a manual or for me to return the next day. I don’t drive a manual and my hotel/trip is 3 hours and 30 minutes away. The solution would have been to pay for my cab to a hotel and to bring me the car the next day. I have just received another message from them that the automatic cars still aren’t here, and they are not taking responsibility for that.

I had a voucher for an automatic car (CDAR class) confirmed and was told on arrival that no automatic car was available unless I paid 134 USD. After some escalation they finally agreed to a more reasonable fee

If you plan to use insurance from Europcar, you can stop reading now. This place is a scam, avoid it if you plan to use your credit card's rental car insurance. I pay $550 every year for my top tier credit card with AMAZING insurance policy that I use all over the world. My wife and I did the due research upfront and we saw plenty of red flags saying that this place forces people to pay for insurance that they don't need. We contacted Europcar global customer support before booking and confirmed that we can reject the optional insurance and use our credit card's one, and that the deposit is within our credit card limit (the deposit was $10k and the limit on the card was $30k). We were so naïve that the agent will not be able to force us into buying their insurance. We arrived at the location only to hear that 'no bank in Ecuador can block more than $2000' and that we cannot cancel the reservation so we must pay extra for that additional insurance. The agent was very 'nice' and 'understanding' and offered us a 'discount' on the insurance so we would pay 'only' $20 per day instead of $25. That was not the end of the story. We decided to not waste our time at the counter, accepted the insurance, and contacted Europcar customer support later that day. I could not image this scam is so elaborate. The customer support agent told us that there's a note from the agent that sold us the insurance saying that 'he tried to charge $10k deposit on the card and it was rejected by our bank because it was above the card's limit'. That was an unpleasant surprise for us because the agent did not even try to swipe the card before we agreed to buy that insurance. A note for location owner / Europcar management: I will not be suprised that if you will "review the reservation and find that everything was within Eurpocar guidelines". I don't care at all about the extra money I paid. The only thing I want you to do is to PLEASE inform customers beforehand (preferrably before booking) that they CANNOT use rental car insurance that comes with their credit card. It's that simple. Cheers.

SCAMMERS!!! Read all bad reviews before booking with them. Be aware of Europcar rental agency. This was my first and the last car rental from this agency. Before the booking I contacted the customer support and asked if I can use my credit card insurance and got the reply, yes the credit card insurance can be used. When I arrived to the airport to pick up the car, the man on the counter told that $10K should be blocked on my credit card because I declined Europcar insurance. I said it’s ok and he can block $10K. Then he said, unfortunately he cannot block $10K because Ecuadorian banks allow to block only $2K. I asked to explain it again. And he said there is a kind of low that doesn’t allow to charge/block more than $2K. Because of the limited time and this guy didn’t want to give a car without their insurance I purchased insurance and finally got a car. Then I sent an email to the customer service with information about all this situation and asked for the explanation. The reply I got from the customer support really surprised me. There is a part of their email: “When you arrived at the Counter Agency, this information was provided and you kindly commented to us you did not have the enough quota on your credit card to be blocked.Our Counter Agent commented to us that you checked with him and you only had available $1800usd to be blocked. Our staff offered you a Basic Protection with discount, it helped too much to reduce your excess amount to only $1500usd.” That is not true. Then I sent a second email to the customer service telling the agent is a lier and information he provided to support is not true. I had needed amount on my credit card. And there is a next customer support reply: “Regarding your request allow me to comment that we are deeply sorry for the misunderstanding that has arisen, the information provided to you about the reservation rate code and what is included is the information we manage at the Counter Agency and our colleague commented it happened at the Counter Agency. We are deeply sorry if this situation has not happened as our staff commented to us. It is really unusual because our guidelines establish that the counter agent must ask our bank for the hold by phone and you have to sign the responsibility for declining the protection with Europcar. We are very intrigued with this situation because as we are not a bank, we can not provide this kind of information telling our customers the bank will only block a certain kind of amount, be sure we will find out what happened during the Picking up of the vehicle and take the corresponding measures with our colleagues.” So as you can see, they still doesn’t believe what happened to me on the counter and trying to defend their agent. And there are many reviews with the similar situations. They also said, I got the discount for additional driver (that is true) and I should be happy about it. Discount for second driver I got before we started to talk about insurance, so it doesn’t relate to this situation at all. After I started to complain about insurance and trying to reach customer support, agent offered $5 discount for insurance. They’re saying now, I got a “discount” for insurance, that I didn’t suppose to pay at all!!! I send a third email telling them, that I’m not happy and discount is not solving this situation. So they never replied back. This agency is a SCAM, they don’t care about customer experience at all. They don’t want to solve the problem with their agents and I believe they support the way of their scammed work. Regarding their cars, the car I drove was very old with more than 127K km.

Where to start? - Quito Airport the agent tells me "roadside assistance is mandatory". She repeats it 3 times though I tell her it surely isn't and I can contact someone else if the car breaks down. She keeps on with it and then I tell her "no" again so she "will check with the office" and then never brings it up again (didn't call anyone, probably just messaging though I can bet it was their way of selling services using lies and fear). I have rented hundreds of cars all over the world and this would be the first time I hear roadside is mandatory! - You get a shuttle and they take you to the Europcar "lot". The car they gave me... a Gen 2 checvy spark (built from '02 to '05) thus at least 15 year old built car. Strangely only 60k km (probably reset odometer or overall usage is averaged at 80-90 km/week.... riiight.. just the return trip to quito from the airport is about 80 km! - They charge me without my authorization (fraudulent charge) 90 usd for what they claim is "airport tax" but also tell me it's 12 % (I paid 470 USD for the rental). When I tell them that it is staetd as included in the contract and math doesn't work like that they corect it to 56 USD (also mathematicaly incorrect amount). This would have not been refunded if I didn.t check their mistakes so I would have lost the money! (refunded after about 2 weeks). - I complain to them about the poor performance of the car (maintenance is nonexistent and the engine has no power even for 9000ft altitude!). They change the car and give me the same thing but different color. Just as bad, maybe even fewer horses! - I notice that the AC is leaking water on front passenger carpet... - Windshield wipers are old and not working properly at all, they also added water instead of windshield washer.. bugs are not cleaned but smeared on the windshield when whipers activated.. dangerous.. cannot see well - Brakes only work well with engine brake.. not really well on their own - AC not powerfull enough for guayaquil midday temperatures even at max setting (full cold and power set to 4) - The website states "new cars" for both guayaquil and quito airport pick.up sites.. reality is they're renting 12-15 year old cars improperly maintained - Check engine, battery and oil warning lights stay on after first switch (car electronic system doing first check). Their people are saying 3 warning lights is something normal says a lot about their standards of safety and quality! - Combined with the lies about "what you.re mentioning about the car is something we have have not had complaints about in the past" and "roadside assistance is mandatory" until I refuse twice and the pick.ul location counter lady switches to "let me check with the office" then never brings it back again along with you and the person on whatsapp telling me car doesn.t have power because it.s small while I.m the only one in the car, car had 66 bhp (more than enough) when new but feels like 30bhp now because it.a old and most importantly unsafe and improperly serviced/maintained is just the icing on the cake! They also told me that I might have a problem with the power because I don't know how to drive! "Yes Mr i check the google reviews, let me check your score drive!" & "No mr. if your dont drive very well with the car is other situation!" - these are whatsapp messages; they communicate with you via whatsapp so they can tell you when they charged you for stuff you already paid! LOL Most if not all of my complaints are found here (other google reviews or tripadvisor or other review sites). Pretty much all foreign clients have problems with the cars and all of the ones renting the small cars get to experience braking problems, lack of power, receive very old cars and much more! P.S. Saw their reply and it.a full of lies. My credit card has 10k usd limit and it was empty, that was never brought up, the hold went through! I said it.s sad to see such high rates for a country with lower purchasing power compared to others like US or FR and many more! I have the whatsapp messages for anywone who wants them!