I gave this company every chance I could to fix this problem before I wrote this. I hope my experience with them will save others the problems and costs I have incurred because of their company. I will try to make this as accurate as possible, and let others draw their own conclusions as to whether they want to rent from a company that does business like this.

Autoeurope rents both cars and GPS units for Ireland. They are, the best I can tell, 2 divisions of the same company, as when I called one, they could forward me to the other division. Before I left for my trip to Ireland, I reserved a rental car from them, and rented a GPS. The GPS was shipped to my home from their US office before we left, along with a shipping label to return it upon the completion of our trip. If you read my review of our trip, the GPS earned the surname O'Doofus, because of how poorly it functioned. We could be driving on a road that was comparable to an Interstate in the US, when the road would just disappear on the GPS screen, and the unit would start telling us to turn left, right, or completely give incorrect directions. This made it extremely difficult to find our way to many places. If I followed the directions that I was given, it often took us far out of our way, and down some roads that a sheep would have trouble on. This being the case, as the trip wore on, we had to navigate without the GPS, as I could follow a map better than the problems that we faced using it.

As we prepared to leave and turn in our car at the Shannon airport, I began to take the GPS out of the car, so I could take it home and ship it in the box as I had planned. The rental car agent who checked in the car, told me not to remove it, that they would take care of it. Over the course of the conversation with him, I told him 3 times that the box was at my home to ship it back in, and that I was responsible for it. He INSISTED that I leave it in the car, so I did, since I knew that they were all connected, if not the same company.

When I returned home, I called them immediately, and explained what had happened at the car check-in. They told me that I was responsible for the unit until they had it back in the US, and immediately charged my charge card $300.00, saying it would be removed when they got the unit back. I also indicated that the unit did not function properly, and was told that when it arrived, they could do a diagnostic check on it, and if it was not working correctly, then they would waive the rental fee of $90.00. I can't think how many calls I made, speaking with so many different people in their company, to no better result. I finally had to call their Shannon office where I checked in the car myself, spending much time and money, as there is no toll-free number. They said they had not seen it, and worse, I was told that no employee would have told me that. They said that they would look for the car, and see if they could find the unit. After many days, and countless calls to them, since I could not get a call returned, I was told that Shannon had found the unit, but they could not return the $300.00 charge until they had the unit back in the US office.

It seemed interesting that I was told in my first conversation upon returning, that the card would not be charged until a grace period of about 7 days or so had passed, giving you time to get home, pack it up, and return it. Only then would they consider it 'missing', and charge you. So since I was honest enough to call them the minute I returned and explain it, they charged my card the $300.00 RIGHT AWAY, PLUS added on a $10 per day late fee until it was in their hands again. Long, frustrating, and expensive story short, Shannon finally sent the unit, I made call after call to see where it was, they finally said that it had arrived in the US, but that they couldn't find it. The $300.00 charge would remain on my card until they did. More phone calls, they finally found it, but were still charging the $10 per day late fee, and it was 'found' 9 days after we arrived home, so there was an additonal $90 even though as in the original conversation, the late fee would not start for a week or so after my arrival home. I made one last call to them, giving them a chance to do the right thing, and all they would offer is removing $20 from the late fee. The bottom line is, they said they finally removed the $300.00 charge, they charged me the late fee of $70.00, and upon asking about the usage fee waiver, I was told they had completly checked out the unit, and it was working perfectly, given everything else, why am I not suprised? That was interesting, considered they had just found it.

No company is perfect, people make mistakes, and that is to be expected. But a customer should not have to do the job for the business, and I think, should be treated fairly. I have to say that dealing with Autoeurope was one of the worst experiences that I have ever had, and I will do my best to let everyone know how they treat people. There are many different places available to rent a car and GPS from when you are lucky enough to go to Ireland, and if I get to go again, I will navigate by the stars before I would get a GPS from a company that would treat a customer as badly as Autoeruope did me. I will leave you to draw your own conclusions if you want to try to rent from them. If you have any questions on the trip, or about this, please email me, and I will be glad to help.

Thanks,

Dave