“The company lives off fraud. For a child booster seat they charge the same as for a car! In addition, they strongly urge you to take out insurance, even if you already have it. Be careful when signing the papers before getting the car. And take good photos of the car from all sides before you get in it. Better yet, avoid them.”
“Booked online through Ryanair, paid £150 for a car for 2 week including insurance. Got to the counter and straight away started adding charges, Airport tax £41, insurance £235, 2nd driver £35 plus the £1000 refundable cover. Told them to shove it, avoid at all costs, thieves.”
“I booked a car for 5 days with Firefly Alicante via Ryanair website. I added full Insurance protection with Rentalcars.com. On collecting the car I was asked at the Firefly desk if I wanted to take out extra insurance, I explained I had already taken this out as show on my Rental Voucher, the member of staff replied ‘you’ve taken it with another insurance company that’s fine’. I was then asked to sign my rental agreement in 10 different places. To be fair I didn’t read this in detail as there was no doubt that I didn’t want the extra insurance and the staff member had seen my rental voucher.
A day after returning the car I noticed Firefly charged me £31.57 for additional insurance that I did not need and they had acknowledged I was already covered for. I have tried to get a refund of this money without success.
Prior to checking my credit card account I had given Firefly an excellent review. I have now checked online reviews and Firefly seem to be doing similar to many other customers. They are either making lots of mistakes or are ripping off customers, I know what I think and will never go near this company again. I just wish I had read the reviews beforehand.”
“If i could give zero stars i would as 1 star is too much for these thieving scum bags. AVOID THESE CROOKS AT ALL COSTS. This is honestly the worst organisation that i have ever dealt with in my entire life. They will rip you off and bleed you dry and try to get as much money out of you as possible. They first gave me a car with scratches all over it. On return, they tried to argue with me telling me that i had caused them. Luckily and thank god i had taken sevaral pictures and videos and so they had to back down and forget that idea. They finished checking over the car and i was told every thing was fine. Then the following day when i got home back to the UK they had taken £250 off my credit card. I immediately contacted them and was told it was to clean the car. I honestly nearly fainted. How can you justify taking £250 for a car clean? I disputed this but because of the language barrier (which they clearly use to their advantage) i wasn't getting anywhere. I contacted my bank and now 1 month later i am still having an ongoing dispute with them over the payment and i still.have not got my money back. I hired the car at Malaga airport for 3 weeks. I have 3 children..obviously the car would have needed a wash and a hoover inside but what....at the cost of £250??? That is just insane!
Surely every car needs to be cleaned after its been hired and used?
Another thing they did was charge me €175 euros for a full tank of petrol when i collected the car. A full tank costs about €35 euros! I was told if i brought the car back with fuel, i would be reimbursed for the petrol I brought back. I returned the car with half a tank of petrol. However, they only reimbursed me €14????? Please do the maths because i just cannot work that one out. Im still waiting for Jeremy Beadle to jump out infront of me.
I could go on forever about how bad these crooks are. Just please please please do not book with them and go with a different company. If you want further clarification on what i am saying just read the reviews. If only i did that before booking with these scumbags!”
“What a bunch of cowboys. We returned a rental car and we'd filled it to the brim with petrol some 30km from the airport. At the airport they said this was 'too far away' and charged us £45 for the missing fuel. £45! We only used £35 worth of petrol on the whole holiday. What a joke. I'll never use them again, and if you do, make sure you don't get scammed on the fuel.”
“This company are thieves, They added recovery to my account which was close to the amount we paid for car hire, when I questioned it he actually told me thats what it was for ( the hire cost) and to ignore the recovery word, Why would I get recovery on their car when its less than a year old!!!! I believed him as that was the only amount showing so thought I was signing for the original fee paid!!! What an idiot I was. Do not fall for that, I should have checked the reviews on google as it is a common thing with them and thats why I am wanting everyone
to know they will scam you. I cant fight it cos I signed it, thats how they get you...he blatently lied, it was late and I was tired so I believed him, who wouldnt?”
“Alicante Airport
FIREFLY who is owned by HERTZ Car Rental have taken £332.78 From my credit card after I arrived back home in the UK - 2 Days after I returned the car back to Alicante Airport.
The Payment seems to be for additional car insurance with the car hire company FIRFLY. A cost that Ryanair have since told me was optional but we were not given the option at the time of collection. It was not explained to me that this was an option or that we would be charged additional money. We had already paid RYANAIR the rental car cost and insurance cover on the 21st August 2020 when pre-booking the car. Why would I agree to another additional insurance cost with firefly if I had already bought insurance cover? We questioned the person on the desk at the time of pick up of the car, we asked them to make it clear to us that there was definitely no other charges as we had already paid the hire car cost and insurance - he said no there was no other charges. We were concerned about some of the figures in the right hand corner that was titled estimated charges - as this didn't make sense to us - the man assured us that there was nothing else to pay and he made it out that this was a holding fee on my card NOT AN ADDITIONAL INSURANCE OPTION. He didn't ask us if we wanted additional insurance, he disguised it as a holding fee that would be put back onto the card. We were not made aware about any options for additional insurance or that we would be charged it or could opt out of this on the document. IT WAS A PRE-PRINTED FORM! We had already paid for hire car insurance with Ryanair (Which can be seen on my statement and firefly was aware of this) It should also be highlighted that this charge of £332.78 was also not made until after we returned the car and left the country - This equating to 20 days after we picked the car up from Firefly. How can insurance be charged after the event? This is obvious Fraud and deception ! We have since found whilst looking on trustpilot.com that this is a regular occurring scam and that Firefly have conned hundreds of their customers by charging credit cards after the event for insurance they didn't agree to
This is clearly FRAUD and ROBBERY
I was given a pre-printed document to sign that had no options for extra insurance cover. I was deliberately manipulated by the FIREFLY representative to sign that document. I was told that the figure of 358.66 euros was a holding fee on my card in the event that I didn't bring the car back - NOT an extra OPTIONAL insurance that would then be sneakily taken from my card days after the event! I questioned this figure multiple times and the firefly representative assured me there was nothing else to pay as I had already paid for the rental and had my insurance with Ryanair.
Can you tell me why insurance would be taken days after the agreement has ended?! It's completely obvious to me and many innocent customers that this is pre-meditated fraud on behalf of Firefly Car rental. You deceive customers into thinking the figure on the sheet is a holding fee and will be released when really, it's a lump sum of money that has been taken days after they leave the country and arrive home.
I did not agree to extra insurance with Firefly, I already had insurance with Ryanair, I questioned the document that I was given to sign and then I was lied to
Do you understand that this is Fraud? dishonesty and robbery?”
“Avoid them. Even if you clearly tell them you don't want any additional insurance - in my case I was already fully covered, they will sneek in and quickly shove a 6-page contract in front of you. When you get home, and your deposit is not refunded, that's when you get the surprise that actually what you initially (when you were exasperated after waiting for over an hour) was the most expensive car rental in history. I took the cheapest car and had full coverage. This was the most expensive car rental I've had and I am extremely well-travelled. Bunch of crooks. BEWARE!”
“OMG I wish I'd read these reviews before choosing these crooks!
Nearly everyone here has been charged additional insurance. In my case I was already fully covered through the broker Autoeurope with whom I'd booked the day before. Autoeurope advised me that the only thing I'd be charged for on my credit card would be £150 deposit (to be refunded upon return of the car). Like others, I was exasperated with the appalling customer service agent who kept me waiting over an hour - he couldn't remember his PC password. He handed me the keys and asked me to initial the 4-page contract and sign at the end but never mentioned he'd sneakily added additional insurance for £101. I just signed without reading it through and got the surprise at home when I saw my bank statement.
As you can see, there are several pages of people who've had this done to them. Avoid, avoid, avoid Firefly!!”
“Started to up-sell as soon as I arrived at the desk. they lied about the cover I needed and in my opinion committed fraud in the process. Lied about how much they were debiting on my credit card and returned a lower amount than promised. Realise now that this is common practice. Is'nt it strange how UK based rental companies are made to tow the line but EU based ones can abuse and scam customers en masse.
AVOID AT ALL COSTS !”
“Check the rental agreement before you sign. Make sure the box headed Insurance & Coverage Declaration has all lines marked as DECLINE. Else you will be charged €20 per day! for CDW insurance. This was not discussed with me, & I always buy CDW insurance in the UK at £25 for 2 weeks not per day! Unfortunately I had signed the agreement without noticing this - trust me, it's not clear & was certainly not discussed. DO NOT USE FIREFLY - if you're still unsure read ReviewCentre and TrustPilot.”
“When I went to collect a hire car in Girona (Spain) I said that I didn't need their extra all-encompassing insurance as I had purchased cover from AXA they said that in that case my mileage would be limited to (a useless) 60km per day whereas with their cover it would be unlimited. If I went above 60 km there would be a charge of 65 cents per km (I think that's what it was) so it could get very expensive very quickly. They also had a 17 euro charge per day for going into France (never charged for doing so from any other company). So I ended up paying them handsomely while at the same time having paid AXA for no risk now on their part. Won't be using Firefly again!”
