Europcar Portugal Reviews 

Was charged for premium protection package despite not agreeing to it. Which doubled the price of my car rental. I discussed this in detail with the representative at the desk prior to renting the car and I was very clear that I did not want it. I re-iterated multiple times that I did not want it. I signed a contract (in Portuguese, a language I do not speak - so was dependant on the representative's explanation) under the understanding that I would pay 100 for the rental and a refundable deposit of 119. I was not refunded anything. Completely misleading and unacceptable.

I’m afraid I can’t recommend Europcar after the terrible service we received. At Lisbon Airport they added premium protection to our booking without asking us or attempting to even sell it to us. We called within 24 hours to which they said we should contest at the end and when we did this they said we should have contested within 24 hours. Terrible service and suggest you avoid at all cost.

Avoid avoid avoid. We're being charged for a crack in the windscreen but it's in a completely different location to where the chip was that they pointed out to us when we returned the car. We were happy to pay for the chip, but on the damage report they've emailed to us there are photos of a crack that's in a completely different location on the windscreen. I'm not convinced it's even the same car! Scam!! We were so careful with the car, even cleaned it before returning it. So gutted, rubbish end to the holiday.

Please stay away: they charge 250 euros after the car has been returned. The reason? 2 months later and after mailing, calling and going there they come up with a scratch. The same scratch was there and registered by their employee when the car was delivered to us. How many people have paid 250 euros for this scratch???? 🤔 STAY AWAY, they are frauds.

Took ages to actually get the car as lots of staff but only 1 or 2 serving customers.
Very hot weather and moaning children meant I was distracted when they added charges I didn’t ask for.
When I noticed after being charged stated that I had signed the paperwork so not their problem.
Disgusting behaviour. Do not use!!

Would never ever use this company again. We got soo ripped off. Staff at the POrto airport told me that the electric car I hired is no good and I'll have a problems driving it and offered another car. He told us that the only available car was Volvo and the car cost was £150. So we thought ok, lets take it. What he didnt tell us is thhat they will add another 46% to the total. Ended up paying £2800 for 10days for Volvo. Checked the internet later and realised that Mercedes vito was half the price so how come Volvo was so expensive??

Good car but be careful what you sign. At the desk I was handed a form written in Portuguese and misled as to the contents. I signed it and it turns out I signed up for breakdown assistance that was more than the cost of the rental. This was never mentioned to me and the company refuse to engage with me when I have disputed the charge. Will not use again.

Fraudulently added premium insurance after I declined at the counter. Customer services have declined to help and I have been charged £365 for something I clearly said no to. Hard to decide whether this is plain thievery or a scam. However, I would never reccommend Europcar again. Conveniently no name of the employee anywhere to be seen, however, he was keen to tell me he'd recently returned from working in Toronto. If you encounter this scammer working behind the counter, decline to be served by him.

BAD BAD BAD ,,,,SUPER EXTRA CHARGE FOR INSURANCE COST US MORE THEN THE CAR RENTAL ,,,EEN WE ORDER ONLINE AND IT SAY EXTRA $70 THEY ASKED US TO CANCEL IT AND PAY $350 IF NOT CANT RENT THE CAR ...WHAT A JOKE ....STAY AWAY STAY AWAY !!!!

I'll be wary about renting a car from Europcar again. I booked a particular car that was only available upon request. I received an email a few hours later to say they will have the car available.

We were given a different car upon arrival at the garage in Campanha,Porto. None of the staff mentioned this until the guy in the garage was handing over the key.

Car was dropped back in mint condition with a close to full charge. Everything was settled and invoice received. Two weeks later my card was charged with no contact from Europcar as to why. I've reached out to support.

Warning: Hidden Charges and Bad Customer Service
I rented a car from this company because of their low prices. But I had a lot of problems after that.

Problems I Faced:
Extra Charges: A week after I returned the car, no damages and full tank, they charged me extra without explaining why.
No Response: I tried to contact customer support many times but got no useful answers.
Wrong Email: They claimed to reply to an email that wasn’t mine, even though they have my correct mail where they sent all the order confirmations etc.
Pushy Sales Tactics: The employee tried hard to sell me extra insurance and better car than got extremely rude when I said no.

Timeline:
June 21: Rental confirmed.
July 2: Opened Case 1 about the extra charges.
July 9: Opened Case 2 because there was no response.
July 12: Got a reply saying they used the wrong made up email that I never provided.
July 15: Opened Case 3, still no reply.

When you arrive you give your name to the receptionist and then wait for the next agent despite pre-booking. The wait to see an agent was an hour. That’s just too long. When we eventually got the car it was smaller than advertised and paid for. When dropping the car off I looked into the hire car centre to see whether people were waiting and it was the same situation as when we arrived. There are not enough staff and the wait time of 1 hour is far too long.

They gave us a car with more than 90000 kms who made a very strange noise and was full of dents and scratches. They also charged us an airport fee god knows why. But worse than that was to witness one of the employees being very innapropriate to a young female colleague in the pick up office at Lisbon airport. Gross!

Prepaid a car from Denmark to pick it up in Lissabon. It took more than two hours to get it, and the guy in the reception insisted, that we had book a car without automatic and for a day more. After he called his supervisor, he found out we were right. On our way to Porto the car gave an alert about oil changing. We called the office and were told, that we could change to another car in Porto. That took an extra hour. No refund or excuse, just a 'how should they know, that their car needed oil'.

I would like to make others aware of a scam that we fell victim to at Europcar Faro. We booked car hire through a third party, once we arrived at Faro we were asked if we wanted to upgrade. I very clearly said no as we were happy with our hire car and as a family we were on a budget the assistant then said they could offer the upgrade free of charge. Naively I agreed and also took additional insurance, signed the contract and my credit card was charged. Being tired after a long flight with three children and with a 90 minute drive to follow at 9pm at night we went in our way. To cut a long story short we were charged the full car rental (when we had already paid for it) and for the upgrade on top. As I signed the invoice( which was all in Portuguese) I hasten to add and the free upgrade was only a verbal agreement they will not refund me. Be aware and please double check what you are signing for. The staff were aware of what they were doing, I do not recommend Europcar and will not be using them again. Double check what they are charging you for !

We went to pick-up our car that was booked by a third-party. As we were calculating the sums payable for the excessive waiver, we noticed an error. We queried this with the helpful assistant who was looking after us. However, the other assistant then interrupted and proceeded to racially abuse and insult us, by shouting hysterically, and trying to prevent us from completing the booking. We were shocked and appalled by the incident. We have written a complaint to Europcar and are awaiting their feedback.

Waiting time too long waiting an hour for a car rediculus and no air con in the building- at 22.30

Waiting time at the Europcar desk up to two hours. Terribly understaffed.

DO NOT RENT A CAR FROM EUROPCAR!!! We rented a car over a month ago and we are still waiting for our deposit back from Europcar in faro. We got an email straight away after dropping off the car to say everything was fine and that our deposit would be back in 10 days. We are still waiting over a month laterto receive our deposit back. The customer service were no help and said they would ring us back after and hour on the phone to them and never did. I then contacted europcar by messenger and got an email back saying it could be our bank and that they had attached a receipt showing the return of our deposit which was actually just an original receipt of the rental of the car. There was no information on the reciept to show they paid the deposit or when. They then never asked was there anything else they could help us with and signed off the email basically saying THEY were done now so it’s up to us and our bank to sort. We replied asking for a receipt with the date the deposit was released and amount as the one they had attached was the reciept we originally had when collecting the car and had no information regarding the deposit. We also wanted a date of deposit release so we would know when the 10 days should be and the money should be in our account. We have heard nothing back. The worst customer service ever. A pity as the car was lovely.

I absolutely do not recommend this company to anyone!

Extreme lack of respect for the customer, transparency, and honesty.

I booked a car online for 4 days with medium insurance. When I arrived at the vehicle pick-up location, we were informed that the deposit could not be paid with a debit card, only with a credit card.

It's 2024, and the excuse was that the ATM only accepts credit cards and that it's not possible to block amounts on debit cards, completely ridiculous. Debit cards can block amounts on the bank account, so much so that the total amount of the reservation was blocked and was only withdrawn from me at the end of the 4 rental days.

We tried to cancel but the employee said that a cancellation fee would be on the cards but he didn't said how much, he said that didn't know, could be from 50€ to the full booked price... How could and employee not know this?

After 1 hour of this discussion, we gave up and ended up paying for premium insurance and a full fuel tank to avoid paying a deposit.

To top it all off, after a small trip we noticed that the vehicle we had been given was a hybrid rechargeable (it recharged with braking and deceleration).

Complete lack of shame and honesty, both from the company and the employee!