Hi all,
Sicily By Car is a car rental agency that is in Italy and some countries in Europe. We used it in Sicily in 2017 and we had no problem. It is the only company that lets you rent cars without paying insurance, so its prices are less than half of the rest of the agencies.
This time, after we booked and paid, a message appeared saying that the card for the security deposit “should have the numbers embossed”. It seemed strange to us because we did not have any cards with embossed numbers and that there are fewer and fewer cards of this type.
We arrived the day we had to pick up the car and the receptionist stayed for about 10 minutes looking at Diego’s credit card as if she didn’t know what to do.
She told us that she could not accept it because on the back it said “Electronic use card”. We explained to her that it was a normal credit card and to try it. The woman refused to try it and spent another 10 minutes looking at her computer screen and turning the card over.
She told us again that she cannot accept it and asked if we had another. Despite our insistence, she refused to try it to see if it worked or not.
We showed her the 5 cards we had, and it turned out that she couldn’t accept them because they were debit cards. It should be noted that in Europe most people have debit cards (which work as credit cards) because no one uses credit cards as such, and it is very rare that the bank gives you a credit card.
So, after having wasted almost an hour watching the woman looked at the card and stare at her computer, she told us that the only way to accept the reservation is for us to “pay 200 euros more for total insurance”. With that, the total price was the same as the rest of the agencies.
As that seemed like a scam to me and I saw that they were doing the same to the rest of the customers, I told her that we were not going to pay more and that she had to return the money of the reservation.
Then things got worse because the lady told us that she didn’t know anything and to call the customer service number. I told her that we did not have a telephone in Italy and then she gave us an email address.
But do they refund the money? She didn’t know anything.
We went to see where we could rent a car. There we were already hysterical because we saw that we couldn’t find a car and we wouldn’t have the money of the reservation.
Fortunately, we rented the car with Only Sardinia, and everything was perfect.
We then had the problem of the 176 euros that we had paid for the reservation. That same night we sent an email to customer support, and they replied that they did not refund the money because “Diego’s credit card was not in his name”, which was an absurd response since his card was obviously in his name.
The next day we had to go to the north of the island, and we stopped in Oristano, which was on our way, to file a complaint with the police for fraud.
Then, when I returned to Valencia, I began the process to get our money back. Every day I sent 30 emails, wrote on all social networks and asked friends to leave negative reviews.
I had my doubts as to whether I was going to get my money back because the company had no established social network and they seemed to care little for reviews.
In the second week of doing the same daily, we received an email from Sicily By Car saying that “to finish the matter for good and not because I was right, they were going to proceed with the refund of the reservation money.”
From there Diego began to tell me that I had to create a consumer protection company.
In short, as I always tell you, we must not let companies play with us. You must fight, even if it is little money. I was horrified reading the Sicily By Car reviews and there were people who had had up to 1000 euros stolen.
It is also important to act immediately before leaving the country because there are no organizations that protect tourists or that can do justice after you have left. The only country I have visited that has it is Mexico.
With Sicily By Car what also bothered me, in addition to the scam, is the uselessness of the staff who attended me at the reception and who responded to my emails. If supposedly the rules are “so clear”, the woman at the reception should not spend 40 minutes looking at the computer screen and the customer support should not reply to the emails saying something different each time. 0 consistency in customer communications.
Lastly, if something seems too good to be true, it probably is. What Sicily By Car does is deceive customers into thinking that they charge less than half of rest of the agencies and when customers come to pick up their car, they either pay full insurance or they are left without a car and without the reservation money. Either way, the company wins.