Goldcar Car Rental - Pisa Galileo Galilei Airport - PSA - Italy

I used Goldcar at Pisa Airport last year for our Family holiday rental despite being warned off them by a Spanish colleague that I work with. She told me they had a dreadful reputation but they were by far the cheapest given the family car I wanted to rent. I should have known.

It all started when we arrived at their desk in Pisa Airport. I noticed a very disgruntled couple that the Goldcar staff were essentially ignoring and the lady was quite upset. Another man in front me of was getting the very hard sell about additional insurance and it felt like they were trying to intimidate him into buying vehicle excess, so they were giving this other man all the attention rather than the customers with a complaint. I was glad I bought carhirexcess.com insurance before heading to Italy.

When it was my turn to get served I approached the desk and was gruffly told by the gentleman that he was leaving and I had to queue again for another agent. OK, I could take that.

I then noticed that the disgruntled couple were getting more and more irate. The Husband started banging the desk and using all kinds of foul language. The Goldcar staff just were not dealing with the situation appropriately at all. I had 3 young children with me and they were shocked at this scene and the man's bad language. I was waiting for the Goldcar staff to deal with the situation but it just escalated so quickly. The man really started getting violent now so I then had to get involved to stop him frightening my children by telling him to shut the hell up. He then threatened ME with the Italian Police and arrest all because those idiots in Goldcar simply didn't give a damn what was happening and certainly didn't appear to care my children were witness to this Jekyll and Hyde character. My poor wife then arrived and thought I was going to bust this guy in the nose. (Perhaps I should have!)

So we eventually got our car after Goldcar following all the usual intimidation tactics about excess insurance blah blah...no thanks I'm sorted.

We had a faultless enough car - just a Fiat Kangoo, certainly wouldn't light your fire but was ok for us and the 3 kids. I'ts not very powerful and wouldn't even pull the skin off a rice pudding but hey, you get what you pay for.

Italy in August is quite hot, the terrain is baked by that point and 2 weeks in the countryside generally tends to pull in a bit of dirt and grime into the car. For us this certainly became the problem when we returned the vehicle.

When we arrived back at Pisa, some really pissed off Goldcar girl in the car park told me I had to walk into the terminal to do the return documents. So off I went to try and find somebody at the Goldcar desk. After waiting in line (again) for somebody at the desk, the really pissed off Goldcar girl at the desk shouted at me that I was to go deal with the girl in the car park. These people certainly don't have a bedside manner I tell you. Seems like they're really pissed off ALL of the time.

Eventually, the girl in the car park agreed to take the car back in from me. She immediately opened the car and started tutt tutting away about the state of the car. Now I tell you, all that was left in the car was some dust and stones or grass and stuff off our feet. I had gone to a lot of trouble to ensure papers etc were all taken out and dumped at the last petrol station.

This girl was so intent at stiffing me for the "special cleaning" fee that she didn't even bother looking at the OUTSIDE of the vehicle. She told me it would have to go off to a specialist cleaners etc; etc; I apologised and calmly told her that I'd left my vacuum cleaner at home with the dog and I generally don't take it on holidays with me..

So €180 euro later off my credit card I walked away rather unhappily to catch my flight home. It's only when I got home I read the gold car Terms and conditions which clearly state a "maximum of €150" special cleaning fee. But believe me, I could have got my own car valeted for 3 months for that fee.

So it appears this is a well worn tactic. Ripping off tourists for this special cleaning fee. It certainly is in their terms and conditions but even with that, they still decided to charge me more. I complained and eventually got the 30 euro back but still leaving me out of pocket by 150..Why I oughta.....

So watch it folks, this gold car crowd will use ANY AND EVERY tactic to fleece you for additional money...but god is good and she was so intent on the cleaning she didn't notice the dent I put in the thing......

Wir haben Mitte/Ende August zwei Wochen einen Wagen von Goldcar (Pisa) gemietet. Trotz Vorabcheck-In haben wir über eine Stunde (es war nur EINE Person vor uns!) Abwicklung gehabt. Die Autos stehen auch nicht am Flughafen,sondern man muss dann noch Zufuß oder per Shuttle u den Parkplätze fahrne/gehen, auf denen weder bei Ankunft noch bei Abfahrt jemand den Schlüssel abnimmt. Zusätzlich wurden 400,- (!) für Versicherung & Tankbefüllung auf der Kreditkarte belastet. Im Nachhinein haben wir zwar die 100,- zurückbekommen (weil vollgetankt zurück), allerdings hat Goldcar einfach ohne Infos oder sonstiges 40,- zwei Wochen abgebucht. Jetzt laufen wir seit fast einem Monat einer Info hinterher. Goldcar nie wieder!

VIA GOOGLE TRANSLATE:

We have mid / late August hired a car from Goldcar ( Pisa ) two weeks. Despite a preliminary check-in , we have more than an hour ( there was only one person ahead of us ! ) Had settlement . The cars do not stand at the airport , but you will still need to on foot or by shuttle and the parking fahrne / go , on which neither upon arrival nor anyone picking up the keys at departure . In addition , 400 , - charged for insurance & tank filling on the credit card ( ! ) . In retrospect, we do have the 100 , - get back ( because a full tank back ) , however Goldcar simply , without information or other 40 - debited two weeks. Now we have been running for almost a month an information afterwards . Goldcar never again!

Arrived at the airport rental area after finding what I though was a great price from the Goldcar website. Went to the counter and was informed of the 75 Euro fuel charge which would be returned prorated on amount of fuel returned. Then came the hard sell, there's no insurance. You have to buy insurance. If not there is a 1500 euro deposit that we hold for up to a month. and you will be charged any damage. No third party insurance will work. Well that's what the salesman said. There was included in the price a partial insurance already. So that was a lie. Purchased insurance after a hard sell of how dangerous it was to go without insurance.
Returned the vehicle with a half a tank of gas and some dirt on the floor mats from normal use. Sat down at the airport and found an email from Goldcar charging me 188 euro fee for what they called major cleaning. Attached picture showed dirt easily vacumned and a small gum wrapper. According to the rental contract the maximum allowed charge for a valet cleaning of a "manifestly inadequate condition of a vehicle" is 150 euro. The half tank of Gas was credited at 36.00 euro which is more than the going rate of fuel but whatever.
Hard sell insurance. Out of contract fees. Unacceptable.