Reviewing Europcar, North Bristol, Horfield branch. An utter disgrace! We booked a hire car well over a week ago that had been confirmed by the site. We booked a large vehicle to collect from North Bristol and to leave at Heathrow. We needed a large vehicle with a large boot space as my family and I are relocating to a new country and had a lot of luggage. We turned up today to collect the hire car (and needed to be at Heathrow by late afternoon). We hadn’t received any calls or emails or contact stating there were any problems. Upon turning up, we knew we were going to have an issue. We could clearly see that there were no vehicles matching what we had booked, there was nothing even comparable. Upon meeting Ellie, the girl behind the desk, we were greeted with a very rude and unhelpful response that “this was the car they’d manage to find for us” and that “it was an upgrade”. Her attitude suggested that they had done us a favour by actually finding us a car. The car was a completely electric, 7 seater which had a boot half the size of the expected vehicle (with the seats down) and I could see we weren’t going to fit our family and luggage in. I suggested maybe they could offer us 2 cars, but this was met with a blunt reply from Ellie, saying that there were no more cars at the branch, or any other branches in Bristol or the surrounding areas. I asked to speak to the manager, to which Ellie replied, “she isn’t here, you’ll need to wait for her, she’ll be an hour and a half!”. I asked what the options were and I was greeted with a disgraceful response from Ellie, “Well if you don’t accept this car, we’ll just cancel the booking.” At this point I left and let my husband deal with the situation as the absolutely disgusting service and lack of sympathy and care towards the situation had got to me. We had no choice but to accept the vehicle, which had cost us £500 for 24 hours. We then had to rely on a family member to drive myself and my children to the airport. Whilst the hire car could only accommodate the luggage. However, if we had received an email or call before arriving to collect the car, we could’ve cancelled the booking an made other arrangements. Not to mention, a little bit of sympathy from the receptionist and some other solutions, which may have made a better situation. Ellie and the manager could not have cared less. What a disgusting attitude towards the only customers they probably had all day, considering they didn’t have any other cars to hire out. My suggestion would be that you look for another job where by you don’t have to deal will people face to face. Or failing that, you need to attend some training in customer service and problem solving. Ellie is simply rude, clearly inexperienced and has issues with problem solving. I will never use Europcar again, and I will ensure that others don’t either. They are more than happy to let you down, not communicate issues and then just cancel your booking when they can’t honour it. In addition, no one walked around the car prior to my husband driving away and Ellie didn’t even have the decency to advise my husband how to use the electric vehicle, to which he then had to download the 400 page manual, just what you need when you’re on your way to Heathrow.