Just Say Goo

When we arrived at the terminal there was only ONE GUY working and his name was GIOVANNI – yeah ok whatever, we were in Italy right? He told me they would hold a $1500 security deposit for the car, that I would get back when we returned it. After we finished the paperwork, he told us to go out to the parking lot to the car and notate on the piece of paper he gave me all the damages to the car. HE DID NOT ACCOMPANY US. He gave us the license plate for the car but not the slot where it would be and said to look for the LOCAUTO logo which has an elephant on it. We went through every single parked car, TWICE, where the LOCAUTO cars were parked. We did not find it. So I left my travel companion outside with the luggage and went back in. When I got there, another customer was complaining to him about the damages to their car and the fact there was only ¾ tank of gas, and Giovanni was waving his hands and talking LOUD in Italian. Hearing and seeing complaining customer should have been my big clue that this was a schiester operation, but I was so tired from traveling for 18 hours straight that I was not thinking clearly.

I told him we could not find the car and once again, he was the ONLY ONE working that day. He told me to go back out to the parking lot and wait for him. When he finally finished with the prior customer, he located the car, in the HERTZ parking area, not the LOCAUTO area with the elephant logo signs, and brought it to us. I asked him to wait because I wanted to notate the damages to the car. He said to CIRCLE where the damage was on the car, and bring it back to him inside so that he could review and sign it. I had no idea this was not ‘proper’ procedure. (I found out later when we returned the car that he was supposed to underline and initial where the damage was for which we were punished and penalized although we did what we were told). We found 4 separate damages to the car. I had my travel companion review everything several times, very closely, to make sure we noted all damage, to which she bellows.. “WTF is this? Rent a Wreck?”

1. the left rear wheel well was damaged
2. the left rear bumper had a huge hole in it and was cracked
3. the front bumper was damaged with a large scratch
4. the right rear wheel well was scratched very badly and some of the paint was gone. (this is the one that I was accused of doing although it was clearly there when we got the car)

We returned to the Pisa airport on Saturday Sept 13^th. When we returned it, it had been raining all day. The car was obviously dirty from the rain. As I returned it, there were 2 people working that day behind the counter. One of them came outside to look at the car. She said that I did the damage to the right rear wheel well and that I was lying about it since the form was not filled out properly. I told her that I did exactly what I was told to do by Giovanni. She said I was lying. This STUPID ITALIAN BIOTCH called ME, a CUSTOMER, a LIAR TO MY FACE!!! I asked her to call him and ask him. Of course he did not remember so he came up to the airport. He went out to look at the car and of course could not remember the damage that was there since he was not there on the day we reviewed the car for damages, but inside dealing with another upset customer. I pulled out the paperwork again showing them where I had circled the damages. She told me that is was not done right, that each damage had to be signed/initialed by the LOCAUTO employee. I tried explaining to them that I did exactly what I was told. They looked at me like I was stupid. They said it was not signed by Giovanni so the damages were not properly noted. I asked them how much they were going to charge my account. They said they did not know until they washed the car – because of the rain – and that I would find out when I got back to the US. I told them I wanted a receipt and the total that was being charged to my card. They refused to provide it.

We did not have much time to argue with them because we were catching a flight to Malta within an hour and a half. In essence they were holding us hostage there at the counter, refusing to give me a printed receipt and I not knowing what was being charged. This made me very uncomfortable. Once again, I pulled out the paperwork explaining to them what I was told to do and that the damage to the right rear wheel well was already there. They waved me off and sort of laughed at me. Rather than continue trying to get a resolution to something we could not resolve, and knowing we had a flight to catch, we left their counter, feeling confused and violated. The charges did not appear on my VISA statement for over a week.

When I initially rented the car, I made a deposit of 20.80 euro. The remainder of the balance was 117.76 Euro – documentation provided. When I was able to log on to my VISA account to see the total, which was finally charged on 9/17, I saw they charged a total of $673.89 for the remainder of the rental and the supposed damages that we did to the car, which we did not do.

In review, we have learned from this horrible experience: 1) not to rent from LOCAUTO ever again and 2) to take a photo of all damages to the car with the rental representative in all the photos and 3) If we ever see the Locauto elephant again, to just say GOOO. Fuckers.