scam

During the course of my life I have visited fifty countries on seven continents. As a part of my travels, I have rented cars in about twenty-five countries. I have rented cars so many times that I’ve lost count, but I’ve rented at least fifty cars in foreign countries. Until my latest trip, I never had an incident with a rental car.
My wife and I travelled to Italy in December of 2012 for a three week vacation. I have visited Italy about twenty five times in my life, and I spent three summers there. I am fairly fluent in Italian as well. We rented vehicles from Auto Europa twice during this trip. Both rentals produced rather bizarre results that I believe you will find interesting.
We picked up our first car in Venice, at the airport. Things got off to a rocky start when the desk agent told us that there were no mid-size cars available, despite the fact that we had a reservation for one. We were forced to accept a Fiat 500 since no other agencies had any cars on short notice. We were told by the agent that the car had a large scratch on the front bumper, and we then commenced an extremely long hike to the rental car lot. By the time we arrived at the lot, we were pretty exhausted. I noticed two additional small scratches on the left and right rear wheel wells, but there was no one in attendance at the lot, so we continued on our trip, as the car had 62,000 km on it, and these two scratches did not seem unusual for a car with this much mileage. Besides, it was a long way back to the terminal to report such minor damage.
When we turned the car in eight days later at Rome Ciampino, the agent seemed to know exactly where to look for damage on the vehicle. I was thus informed that I would have to fill out an incident report regarding these two scratches that had not been listed on the original rental agreement. I filled out a form, indicating that the auto had these two scratches when I picked the car up in Venice. I was not allowed to keep a copy of my incident report. I note that despite the fact that I speak Italian, the agent seemed to be unable to understand my comments that the scratches were on the car when I rented it in Venice.
Five days later we rented a mid-size car from Auto Europa at Milano Malpensa Airport. This time we were prepared. The damage report on the vehicle showed two small scratches. In reality, the car had major damage, including a broken tail light. We trekked back to the rental car counter and reported this damage. An agent came out to the vehicle and recorded our exceptions, saying that everything was okay.
The following morning we returned to the airport for our flight home. I had become wary of this company, thus I had filled the tank with gas in Gallarate, about ten kilometers from the airport. This is as close as one can get gas to Milano Malpensa Airport so far as I know. Unfortunately, I was unable to get a receipt for my gas because in Italy you have to use a credit card with a European code on it in order to get a receipt at an automatic gas pump. Thus, I had to use cash, for which no receipt was possible. When I arrived at the airport, the agent (The same one who had handled our damage correction on the previous day) insisted that the gas tank was only 7/8 full, despite the fact that I had just filled the tank. I was forced to pay an additional 40 euros for one-eighth of a tank of gas. We have since found out from other bloggers that it is not uncommon for Auto Europa to rent cars that seem to never indicate in excess of 7/8 of a tank of gas on the gas meter, and when the tank is not full on return there is a very large surcharge added to the rental bill.
Three weeks after we arrived home I received a letter from Auto Europa claiming that I had damaged the first vehicle, assessing me a total of 299 USD. My wife and I contested this assessment via our credit card provider, but as we expected, this was denied. What we did not expect was that Auto Europa fined us an additional $78, apparently for contesting the $299, which we paid in full.
We have since discovered from other bloggers that this sort of treatment is common when renting from Auto Europa. We advise all those reading this blog to avoid renting from this company in Italy.