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Goldcar are notorious for pulling this kind of stunt! Our best experience was Malagacar, Centauro was ok but the car had LOTS of scratches and dents. There were no extra charges in the end, but I don’t think I’d risk it again.
Also take care to check the excess on any insurance policy. It’s got to silly levels for European car hire (£2k plus), so we have an annual excess policy.
Also worth mentioning that it’s advisable to check carefully for the ACTUAL deposit that’ll be reserved on the credit card at pick up and not just the potential excess in the event of damage or theft (which you can de-risk anyway with an excess policy at low cost). Not everyone has 2,000 Euros credit available to leave as a deposit, in particular if you’re relying on having access to that credit in order to pay general holiday expenses while you’re away. The major rental firms generally reserve a much lower amount against the credit card, even if the potential maximum excess in the event of damage or theft is much higher than the amount reserved.
Goldcar’s reputation for awfulness preceeds them. Personally I wouldn’t mention that I’ve got a 3rd party excess policy to any rental firm as this can lead to having a note made against the rental and encourages them to try to charge for ficticious damage (or real damage, but not caused by you) knowing that you’re unlikely to resist too strongly since you can get the whole amount refunded by the excess cover. For this reason I prefer to pay a bit extra and go with a firm with a moderate excess and then just say no thank you when they offer their overpriced excess waiver cover and tell them I’ll take the risk. I’ve had some astonishingly mangled rental cars in Spain; they clearly hoover up excesses from previous renters (or the premiums for their excess waiver cover) and then do nothing to repair the damage. Better this way as they can more easily ‘hide’ any claim for new damage as it’s easy to get lost amongst all the scrapes and scratches.
Last time I hired a car for the day in Madrid I was bullied into paying for excess waiver cover which I agreed to as I didn’t have a live excess policy of my own. I was given a complete wreck and the employee in the car park became visibly irritated when I insisted on marking up every area of damage that wasn’t listed, despite having a zero excess. I had hours to kill before the hotel would allow me to check in so I didn’t mind wasting their time and playing them at their own game.
We never mention the extra insurance and always video the vehicle exterior before we drive it away! But I’m half Spanish and speak the language, which gets you better treatment, IME.
We did get a fine from the Ayuntamiento de Granada for driving in a taxi lane but that wasn’t the car hire firm’s fault. Apparently Granada is notorious for this and even the locals are furious about it! I swear it wasn’t actually even possible to get in the car park we were heading for without crossing the damn lane! I don’t think we’ll be going there again, the place is nightmare to drive around.
Another shout out for MalagaCar – I’ve got a small SUV for 267 euros in May half term next year. Looked at BA but the choice was very poor and prices twice as much.
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