Goldcar Car Rental - Las Palmas Gran Canaria Airport - LPA - Canary Islands - Spain

After using Goldcar for 2 years finding them the cheapest I have stayed with them renting cars in Gran canaria about 9 times,
Yes I know they charge extra for fuel and the extra for the logistics of putting the fuel in the car but has still been better than others until now.
After collecting the car and paying €900 deposit on my credit card I went to collect my car strait away I could see the car was very damaged a lot more than what was on my contract. I found a lady at the collection point cArpark and said about all the damage that was not on my contract she said she would add the damage I had said to the contract and signed it with out even looking at the car. After a week I returned the car early so I could show the office about the extra damage, lady at the office said that it would be fine that she would add a note with the keys so I would not get charged. One day after I returned home I had an email for damage I had done to the car and had been charged over €436. I logged a complaint and a copy of my contract that I had one of there staff sign with the damage reported before I used the car. They said there had been a mistake in the return proses and said they would refund for 2 areas of damage but not the scratch on rear panel and would still change me €150 for that and closed the claim. So I opened another claim and said what I had before about the damage I had reported they replied sending me a copy of the contract before I had the damage hand written on it saying the contract showing no damage before I had taken it, I had sent a copy of the contract with the damage on the first claim u would think they would have looked at that, so I will continue to try and get my money back but it's really hard work I even called the office and asked to talk to customer services they said there was no number to talk with CS but if I wanted to tell her she would call them on the phone and tell them ( on the phone they don't have ) after 2-3 min she come back to me and said CS would email me in a week, I said they had said that last week she said they are very vey busy in customer services, And it's now I know why .
I am being charged for gold cars incompetence of not logging damage on the contract before I used the car if i had not got a goldcar worker to sign that i had reported this damage I would have no proof, but even with this I'm still fighting for €150 they have still taken from me.

We used to have 2 rules when visiting Gran Canaria.

1) DO NOT trust the Lucky Lucky women at Maspalomas
2) DO NOT drink the water.

However we now have a 3rd rule
3) DO NOT HIRE A CAR FROM GOLDCAR RENTAL (OR RHODIUM)

Me and my significant other have hired cars in the past, and travel at least 3 or 4 times a year to Gran Canaria. The only issue we have ever had was with ORLANDO, who DO NOT have an office at Las Palmas (gran Canria) airport as stated on their site. They ferry you to an industrial site about 15 minutes from the airport. The whole point of collection from the airport is your holiday begins so much earlier when one is able to collect from the airport, and you don’t have to wait for the baggage of other passengers, as is the case if anyone else on your flights has had the misfortune to book with the same company.
anyway, however I must get back to the unfortunate booking we made with GOLDCAR

This is however, the one and only time we have hired from GOLDCAR rental, which appears to be morphing into Rhodium Car rental. Possibly as a result of all the apalling number of complaints that the company now appear to be recieving and not only from trip advisor.

We got a quote via the online site www.www.rentalcars.com, a company based in Manchester, so obviously with their finger on the pulse of international car hire.

We were very impressd at the price.

However the price they quoted and the price we ended up paying bore no relevance to each other.

There was no delay so we didnt have to wait long to have our exprience with this company ruined, as many people have complained about, as a result long delays at their desk at LPA.

When I handed over our card for the completely unexpected ‘petrol deposit’ of 60 euros, added to this was a further 50 euro extra insurance charge. When i queried this the company representative said that we could have this removed, but ANY damage to the car would result in a 1,200 euro charge from the card they now had the full details of. i complained and she wasn’t interested, and continued to quote their terms and conitions. at least dick turpin wore a mask!

FUEL POLICY OF GOLDCAR verbatim. this was only made clear as we received our Prepaid booking confirmation.

'The vehicle will be provided with a full tank of fuel and the customer will pay for that fuel on arrival. in addition customer will be required to pay a service charge of between 16 and 42 euros to cover refuelling logistics.'
the charge for this fuel will depend on Due to refuelling logistics' it may cost more than it would at a local petrol station.
A refund will be given for any fuel left in the tank when the car is dropped off EXCLUDING the service charge.
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IN laymens terms basically you fill the car back up and the company still has the optionto charge between 16 and 42 euros. WHY???? I could understand a logistical fee if the car had to be topped up or refuelled, but a blanket fee, which again is decided on the whim of the office. and a fiat 500 does not take 60 euros to fill up. It is 45 euros maximum. I know this because what we did use was 5/8 of a tank and it took 25 euros to top it to the brim.
Right next door is a company called Autoreisin, who we normally go with, and we have never had any issues regarding what are in my view very dubious extras.

If u take a car with 3/4 of a tank you bring it back as near to that as possible, and there is no extra insurance or anything like what GOLDCAR were asking for. its not (for some reason known only to GOLDCAR ) possible to cancel your booking when you becomeaware of all the extras you must telephone to cancel your booking, but that this is subject to a cancellation fee, one does feel rather robbed.

We weren’t allowed to undertake a check of the vehicle as collection is from the very dark underground car park at the airport. the car (Fiat 500) just looked really shabby with a grubby interior and lots of scuffs and scrapes to the exterior body and paintwork, no doubt they will attempt to scam us or some other poor sap for. no water, low oil, missing rear wiper, dubious tyres.
DO NOT USE GOLDCAR.

We would suggest that if you do hie from this appalling company, tae pics of the cars as soon as you leave the underground section of the car park.