“I booked a car rental for London Stansted through Sunny Cars (paid at the time of booking), unaware that this was in fact an Easirent rental. The voucher received from Sunny Cars clearly states that the rental price includes insurance cover. Upon arrival in Stansted I travelled to the car rental village by shuttle bus only to discover that there was no Sunny Cars or EasiRent desk there. I then called the telephone number given to me and was asked to wait outside for collection. I did so in freezing night-time temperatures with my wife and young daughter and approximately 20 minutes later a car arrived and brought us to a relatively remote location (a further 10-15 minutes away) in a small industrial estate. I was then asked to put an additional charge of €151.97 (126 pounds sterling) on my credit card and my understanding was that this was a security deposit which would be fully refunded upon return of the car in perfect condition with a full tank of fuel. The car was returned in perfect condition with a full tank of fuel! Upon receipt of my credit card statement some time later I realised that this sum has not been refunded. My wife called EasiRent head office and was told that since this is a third party rental agreement the additional cost (3 times higher than the original rental cost!!) is an insurance charge!!! This represents an extreme case of misleading if not downright fraudulent activity as the car rental cost €213.97 instead of the €62 advertised (4 times higher than the cost at which we booked the car!!) I have rented many cars over the years and this is the first time such a scenario has arisen. May I also say that the service representative my wife spoke with in EasiRent was most unhelpful and verged on being rude. He continuously asked her what her problem was!?! I contacted Sunny Cars who opened an ‘investigation’ and came back to me over 3 weeks later to say that the credit card I had used to book the car with did not work for the deposit and that I had signed off on the additional charge of €151.97 as an ‘additional insurance’ and would thus NOT be refunded. At no time was this made clear to me. The credit card in question is a corporate American Express card so to claim it ‘did not work’ is ludicrous. Also it was not made clear that this €151.97 was non-refundable. I was led to believe that it was a deposit which would be refunded upon return of the car. Sunny Cars claimed that I had ‘opted’ to go with ‘additional insurance’ and that for this reason it would not be refunded. This is untrue!
I am most dissatisfied with the outcome of this entire experience and feel I have been conned out of €151.97 by EasiRent/Sunny Cars. Scamming customers and/or working in partnership with a dodgy business entity is no way for a reputable company to conduct their business affairs! I would advise potential customers to stay away from these shoddy operators!”
“I was unfortunate to have Kevin from Glasgow branch . He was aggressive and rude and took great pleasure in charging £570 for a tiny chip on windscreen... Which was there when we picked up the car . Myself and my 10 yr old daughter were very upset to have used Easirent . We will not forget this very unpleasant experience and will do as much as possible to let people know about this bunch of crooks in a shonky car yard in Glasgow .”
“Go to these pirates at your peril.
They will take you for all they can.
Charged £1800 for bringing the car back with muddy cat paw prints over the bonnet. Had the car booked for 8 days but brought back after 3 as no longer needed it. Not only did they have the extra five days rental out of me they also kept my deposit for washing the car BE WARNED !!!!!!”
“Upon arrival at Easirent Kings Cross it was revealed there were no cars available - despite pre-payment and on time arrival.
The excuses given were very flimsy and there was almost no apology for the inconvenience caused. The person working in the store was unhelpful and dismissive of my complaints.
It took me nearly two months to get a refund on my payment and required chasing multiple times. Excuses given were that they were working through a backlog of refund - not a good sign! I received no written confirmation of my cancellation and I entirely expected to never get it back.
I'm unclear how an organisation can continue to operate with such systems that can allow for there to be no cars available to customers who have paid to rent one.
Service was terrible, people were unhelpful and rude, refund was extremely slow. PLEASE DO NOT USE THIS COMPANY.”
“Absolutely to avoid.
Rented through Ryanair, never had problems before with other companies.
Used the East Midlands Airport's branch, they are not at the airport, not even close like all the others, the experience is dodgy, they require an outrageous £1500 deposit held on your credit card, and after picking up the car you're left with the awful feeling that they will try to rip you off when you're going to return it. they had the guts to tell me a stone chip on the bonnet would cost about £500 because they send the car off to be fixed EVERY time they have a body damage, no matter how small...I then proceeded to carefully inspect the car and found 9 (NINE) chips on the front and 5 (FIVE) on the back! I required them to write every one of them on the damage report and a couple more just for reassurance.
I then returned fueled and immaculate and got all my deposit back, but I would never want to have the same experience before. I must have rented 150 cars in my life, first time with them and they were the worst.”
“Absolutely to avoid.
Rented through Ryanair, never had problems before with other companies.
Used the East Midlands Airport's branch, they are not at the airport, not even close like all the others, the experience is dodgy, they require an outrageous £1500 deposit held on your credit card, and after picking up the car you're left with the awful feeling that they will try to rip you off when you're going to return it. they had the guts to tell me a stone chip on the bonnet would cost about £500 because they send the car off to be fixed EVERY time they have a body damage, no matter how small...I then proceeded to carefully inspect the car and found 9 (NINE) chips on the front and 5 (FIVE) on the back! I required them to write every one of them on the damage report and a couple more just for reassurance.
I then returned fueled and immaculate and got all my deposit back, but I would never want to have the same experience before. I must have rented 150 cars in my life, first time with them and they were the worst.”
“I hate renting a car these days. Here is yet another rip-off company. Booked a car via RyanAir (have previously had positive experiences booking via Ryan Air). Only when I am printing out the details to take with me, did I notice in the small print that they require a £1.350 deposit to be left on my credit card. This, despite contracting the full extra insurance with them. I absolutely hate these companies that put all these abusive clauses in their rental contracts. £1.350 deposit for a 2 day car hire - ridiculous,”
“AVOID AT ALL COSTS!
Hugely stressful experience. Staff are rude, accusatory and their aim seems to be out to gouge as much money out of customers as possible. On top of that I was given a van with a potentially dangerous hydraulic fault, and then charged £1,325 due to Easirent's unqualified misdiagnosis of the problem!
Picked up a van from the Kings cross branch for a 24hr rental. The first, and last time I will ever use Easirent.
On collection the van was dirty, and had some liquid spilled all over the dashboard. Easirent staff checked the vehicle and marked all the current damage. The fuel level was also checked and a rough indication of the level was marked on basic diagram on the check out documentation.
I used the van for approximately 8hrs, in which time I covered 20 miles of driving. I dropped the van back, and left keys with the out of hours staff. At this time the van was working perfectly, as demonstrated by it's tracking logs and cctv in at the drop off location.
24hrs after I dropped the van off I got a call from Easirent Kings cross to say that the reverse gear in the van was "broken" and that I was liable. I was then promptly charged £1325 on my credit card. All gears in the van were working perfectly when I dropped the van off, so I was obviously very surprised to hear this.
The next day I took a day off work to travel back to the Kings cross Easirent office. Despite being in office hours, the office was completely deserted and nobody answered the door. When I went to check the van at the drop off location up the road I was met by an Easirent staff member who was initially extremely aggressive and accused me of deliberately parking the van in a specific parking location so as to cover up the damage to the reverse gear (utterly untrue).
I was later given a receipt for the 'damage' to the van, which simply stated "burnt clutch". When I asked how they had diagnosed damage to the reverse gear, and then a burnt clutch, the Easirent staff simply stated that they "weren't mechanics" and had simply guessed.
Later the issue was proven by Renault mechanics to be a clutch / brake hydraulic leak. This was due to a manufacturing fault on the van, and was covered under warranty. The fault was in no way caused by me, but was a service issue on the van.
It took almost a month after the final Renault diagnosis of the van fault for me to finally get my money back from Easirent! During this time I was incurring credit card interest charges etc.
To add insult to injury I was also charged £26 for apparently dropping the van back with less fuel than when I picked it up. This is despite me having photos of the fuel level when I picked the van up and when I dropped it off clearly showing the fuel level was identical. The Easirent staff just kept referring to their rudimentary pencil markings on the pick-up and drop-off paperwork to try and justify why they had charged me £26 for fuel that didn't exist. The fact is that these pencil marking have no scales or relation to the van's fuel gauge itself. They are simply an indication of the Easirent staff members interpretation of the van's fuel level. So they used ambiguity and misdirection as a way to attempt to justify gouging some more money out of me.
In the end I got my £1325 back, but am still out of pocket for the £26 "fuel fee", train fares to travel to the Easirent office to discuss the accusations they were making against me, and the interest on £1,325 that they charged to my credit card.
I also had to take almost two days off work to discuss these issues with Easirent, my lawyer and my credit card company. I wouldn't have had to do this if Easirent were able to communicate properly, as on the phone they just kept repeating the same comment over and over....."you are liable for the damage, you are liable for the damage".
Easirent were incredibly quick to pass all blame onto their customer, and charge me the maximum amount possible. In their own admission they were unqualified to diagnose a fault with the van, but went ahead and did it anyway. They were rude and aggressive at times, and their communication of the issue was appalling. The van was also dirty and uncleaned when I collected it.
The fact that Easirent rented me a potentially dangerous van is another matter completely!”
“Worst car rental company we ever had the misfortune to use and we have used numerous over the years. Buyer please beware of these scammers and make sure you read everything you are asked to sign. We were told we were signing a release form and they kept us talking only to find they had taken a whopping £90 from our account on top of the rental we had already paid. They are a nightmare to deal with afterwards too|”
“Got lulled into false sense of security by reading positive reviews which are hmmm questionable going by my experience. Firstly not particularly near the airport so if you value your time spend the extra & go with reputable company which Easirent are not. Left me standed when car broke down in alien city, no breakdown numbers were answered, scary stuff......never again not even if the car came with a chauffeur!”
“Awful, awful, awful!!!
Car pickup location is in Crawley! You need to take a local bus (not a special car rental company bus) to get to a car rental office. Bus service frequency is 45 minutes! Our car was dreadful with numerous dents. You need to count them all in peach darkness of the night.
I don't want to tell the whole story as it would take a long time, simply avoid them! No money can compensate for the awful 'service' they pretend to provide.”
“Collection took almost an hour (it was busy, I can understand that, although the office was seriously understaffed). When I dropped off the car though, the guy who was checking us out, walked around the car and went DIRECTLY to a spot on the front bumper where he wiped off the dust and 'found' damage. He didn't even pretend to look at the rest of the car. I wished I'd filmed it, because it was utterly farcical. He then said he would go in to the office and check previous damage reports; he was gone 45 seconds and came back and insisted that this crack had not been in the plastic bumber when I collected the car and that it would cost £700 for a replacement. I would really like to see photos of this car when it was checked in from the previous rental.”
“Why don't we read reviews BEFORE booking with Easirent!! I too fell for the insurance scam however as others have already said, if I hadn't they would have got the money in another way. If everyone reported Easirent to Trading Standards they would have to do something. I did and so can you”
“Scam ! Horrible experience, Appear cheaper but they try to get money from you other ways, can't be More agree with most other comments, avoid! Avoid ! Avoid!”
“I've just returned a car after 8 days rental from the gatwick branch and cannot fault the experience. I chose a ford focus or similar and received a 2019 Renault Captur in immaculate condition. It had all the gadgets I could hope for - carplay, heated seats, electric dash display. The rental was £7 a day which i thought an absolute bargain and so i expected to get the hard sell on upgraded insurance when picking up the car. The man did suggest i take enhanced insurance for around £350 which i declined. He then suggested a less comprehensive for £250 which I also declined...and that was it.
I've just dropped it off, no fuss, no push back. 10/10!”
“AVOID - DO NOT USE THIS COMPANY!
The worst car hire company I have ever had to deal with! They appear cheap but make up the difference by either upselling you further insurance when you pick up the car (which they do in a very pushy manner), and if you don't take out the additional insurance, by charging you for damage to the car, even if you did not do it. Another way they try and scam money out of you is to sell you the full tank at a 'discounted' rate. The rate they quote is much less than the rate that you can buy fuel in a local station, however, they charge for many more litres than the tank can actually hold, so avoid this also.
I picked up a vehicle from their Dublin office at 5pm at which point it was dark outside. When I collected the car the agent told me that there was no record of any damage on the car and it was my responsibility to tell him what damage was on the car so that it could be marked up on the record sheet. This was almost impossible to do as the car was black and I had to inspect it outside in the dark with no additional lighting. Even in these conditions I could see that the car was heavily damaged pretty much all over and the record sheet was covered in damage locations by the time I had finished looking at the car. The agent agreed with all the damage indicated, even though a few moments before he said there was no record of any damage on the car!
As soon as it was daylight (9am the next morning) I took pictures of the car to have a clear record of the damage.
When I returned the car the agent (female with blond hair - the rudest and most unprofessional agent I have ever had to deal with) looked at the marked up sheet and then went to inspect the car on her own. She then came back to tell me that there was a dent in the only location that had no marked damage on the sheet. I looked back through the photos that I had taken the next morning in daylight and yes there was a dent visible in those photos, but this was not considered suitable evidence for easirent and they charged me for damage to the car and an extortionate admin fee on top.
So I would just AVOID, AVOID, AVOID.”
“Its strange that everyone is complaining about the same things with these guys - Worst car rental. Dont fall for the low cost. Its all a scam.
1) First they say your car is not ready and you need to pay for an upgrade. They make you wait and wait to frustrate you. If you say cancel, then they start pulling up excuses like you can 15 mins late, 30 mins late hence we gave the car away.
2) The ask you to pay £1500 deposit for the car. Its not a pre-auth. They take the money. And their list of charges is scary - Small dent £350, scratch on tire £200 and so on. Only way to avoid it is to pay full insurance which is £40/day.
3) The office and pick-up location are atleast 15 mins away from each other in KingsCross London.
Read other reviews and people say how they charged them extra several times. Beware all.
ITS A SCAM.”
