I apologise for contacting you like this, but I have a big concern with Gold Car Rental in Faro Airport and it seems like many others are affected (you can check the Google Maps reviews, which we failed to do so before renting the car).
I do not know if you have been informed about this kind of issues before, but for the sake of record, I will be sharing the whole details with you, with all my openness, hoping something will be done about this situation such that the tourists coming to your country will not be scammed!
Me and my wife, German residents, rented a car on 28th December, Tuesday, from Gold Car Faro Airport office. First, we were given a Fiat 500. After the formalities at the front desk were finished, we were taken by a lady to the car in order to inspect and agree on the current condition of the car (in terms of damages). During the inspection, we have realized many damages were not reported in the "Danos e faltas" document and the lady only added new damages when we showed her one by one. Once we thought we added all the damages, the lady and we agreed, and she left. Afterwards, I was opening the trunk in order to place our luggage and I realized that the antenna of the car was broken. The car has the plate number: 85XS45. As soon as we saw this, we found the same lady, asking if this broken antenna was ok. She called another guy and the guy told us that the antenna is not ok, and they were going to give us another car. Our car pick up time was at 1pm, this is happening after 14:18 (you can check the official times with Gold Car, this is what was written on the papers we got). So, we waited around 10 minutes until we were given another car with the plate number AF47XF, Contract number 21286404. After the car keys were given to me (and various apologies were done by Gold Car personnel), I waited around another 10 minutes and no one attended us to the car and the front desk official told us that the car is at a particular parking number (33 or something). With my wife, we went to 33, since there was no one attending us, we made a complete video around the car (in order to avoid an unwanted false claim), comparing the "Danos e faltas" document (of AF47XF) with the actual car. In our video, there were just as so many damages as the previous car which were not recorded. So, I have shown one by one each of them in a video recording which my wife took and we left the place to our hotel.
Today, Wednesday, 29th December 2021, we wanted to return the car since tomorrow morning, we will be driving with the bus to Lisbon. When we reached to Gold Car return area, a lady attended immediately. We informed her that we were returning the car and she immediately approached the left tire rim, stating that there was damage. Since we had the video, we showed her that this damage cannot be because of us, because we already recorded it before we started driving the car. She told us there is nothing she can do and we have to clarify with the person at the front desk (who refused to give us her name).
After a 20 minutes discussion at the front desk (you can check the security cameras to confirm), she accepted that the damage was indeed there and there will not be any money charged from our credit card. We left the place and now we just received a 100 Euro bill because of the damage at the rim.
Please do not get us wrong, this email is not just about money but the feeling of being cheated in a European union country. We came here for a holiday and this already left us with a very bad feeling. We made a voice recording of the event that happened in the front desk so that we have proof because the lady at the front desk REFUSED to give us any written confirmation that there would not be any problems afterwards. But here we are, back in the hotel, and we received a bill of 100 Euro.
Normally, before renting the car, they obviously sent a Check out document, which we did not even receive for the car we rented.
We only received the attached Check in document with the attached bill and picture.
We are very concerned that this has happened not to us only, but has been happening for a long time. We have read quite a number of google maps reviews where the people were complaining about EXACTLY the same thing. On the day we wanted to rent the car, there was another couple who literally fought with the front desk because of the same or similar thing (please ask for the security camera footage, you will see what happened between 12:30pm - 1:30 pm on Tuesday, 28th December, 2021). They indeed told us not to rent any car from here but since I did a prepayment, we did not have a chance. That was the reason why we have taken a video of the car's damages.
What I also do not understand, the lady who attended us for the Fiat 500 told us in a very relaxed manner that sometimes, some damages may not be have been reported. How can this be possible? As a customer, when we go the car, I would expect all the damages to be already recorded, because, imagine you are taking a car at 11pm, it is very hard to see where a possible scratch is, especially on black cars. You can easily validate this observation (in case you do not believe me) by sending 3-4 undercover officer to the place to get some cars, and see how they will be treating you. For any possible unrecorded damage, if as a customer, if you do not mention it, it will slip through. Is this the European Values we are standing for?
For the tourism board, you should not be promoting tourism, if you have scammers like this in your country. I do sincerely apologise for these possibly harsh words, but put yourself into our shoes...
