Goldcar

As many others have already written. This rental company is a scam. I can only recommend not to rent any vehicle here. I have already rented dozens of cars and never had any bad experience like this. I booked through a third party website. The total amount was indicated as ca. 55 €. When I showed up at the counter I had to pay 270 € instead of 55 €. The only comment from the person at the counter was that I have to read the contract better before I book (which I usually do quite carefully, it was not indicated that I have to pay so much more).

What a scam. First Anna Cataeno (our disgrace of a customer service peon) says we need full insurance because our credit card didn't have embossed numbers then she refuses to accept our driver's license because it doesn't have the date we took the test. What possible difference could that make since it's a valid driver's license? And the icing on the cake is she's snarky, rude and incredibly unpleasant. Trust the other countless reviews and avoid this joke of a company.

Very good cars

Awful awful company, avoid at all costs. Never been treated so badly in my life. We booked a car as part of a package with jet 2 holidays and paid for the insurance upgrade to cover any excess. On arrival at the desk we were told that we would need to upgrade our car as the one we had selected would not get up the madeira hills and if the clutch broke or other it would be our fault. We said no. We were then told we would need to pay airport tax and pay additional insurance as we had only paid part of the insurance cost. We had a certificate to prove this was not the case and she wouldn’t even read it or listen to us. We got shouted at for 20 minutes, the woman just pointed at her brochure and said you prove to me you paid for this insurance. This went on, another employee joined and in the end she refused to speak to us or give us the car! I can’t tell you how horrible this entire experience was and we were not the only ones with the problem!!

Giving 1 star because it's impossible to give 0. This is a HUGE scam. They are shamelessly OVERCHARGING. They are forcing customers to buy their (very expensive) insurance excess waver. And if you booked through an online broker which includes the airport tax in the quote, they will bill it again. And don't expect them to backtrack once their scam has been exposed: they will stick to their guns and will leave you stranded, having to book from another car rental company on the spot... RUN AWAY!