Economy Rent a Car

I have Geico full coverage with 30k liability and 50k Collision and comprehensive and was told that insurance was no good and wanted to charge me 20 bucks a day for their insurance. I have been renting cars all my life from different companies and this is the first time something like this happens. Very shady and clearly aimed at ripping people off. This is not clear at all when you book through a third party website. They hide it deep in the terms and conditions that way nobody sees it and they're forced to pay when they get to the counter. Never again am I renting from them.

This company is a total ripoff. Not only is it not in the car rental area in the airport as it may suggest online (it is offsite), when I arrived they tried charging me an "insurance handling fee" to decline their insurance and use my own. He said this is listed in the fine print, which is absurd, he tried to show me and all it says is "restrictions may apply." It never quantifies the fee. Also, they advertise unlimited mileage, but when you arrive they say for Florida renters it is only 150 miles per day, which is also "in the fine print."

After he tries giving me a hard time and saying I should've read the fine print, hilariously I found a clause in the fine print saying "local renters" who get charged with the extra fee and requirements is within a 75 mile radius, which I am not in. He then tried telling me it's a 75 mile radius of the whole state of Florida which I refuse and he finally relents and waived the extra "insurance handling fee" but keeps the 150 mile per day restriction.

When I get to the car, it is totally dinged up so I took a detailed video to make sure I don't get charged as he made me put down a $1000 deposit which when I asked if is fully refundable, he said "If nothing happens to the car." The car also reeks of cigarette smoke, so I made sure for them to note that in the contract, however, he made me get in the line all over again to wait to see another agent to do this.

I have rented at other budget rent a car places and have never had anything like this. This place is totally fraudulent! Expedia should not list them on their website.

They have an F rating on Revdex.com!

1. You have to take 2, yes TWO, shuttles to get there. One shuttle from the terminal to the rental car park, THEN another to an offsite, shady location in an industrial park. It took us almost 2 hrs to get there.

2. UPSELL, UPSELL, UPSELL. My $82 rental thru Expedia was going to cost me $256 when I got the service counter at Economy.

I left them, got my $ back from Expedia, went back to the airport, and got a car through Thrifty for $114.

Do yourself a favor and spend $10 extra on going with Thrifty, Alamo, Enterprise, etc. They're all at the airport, and WON'T upsell you.

The worst experience and scam company. False advertising on Hotwire, overcharging once you get to the counter, and no refunds. You have to bring your full insurance policy and even with that, they charge you per day for using your own insurance! Otherwise, you have to pay for their crappy insurance. They refuse to provide a receipt when you return the vehicle, and say that the original white copy provided when I checked the car out is my receipt. This company should be shut down. Never book with them!

I have agreed for a rental with Economy through the Expedia website which I have always used for my bookings in the past; this 8 days car rental was supposed to be only for the total amount of $ 119 and I have been charged $277 in Orlando Florida this past May 28, 2019 - June 3, 2019. This is not what I agreed to pay for this rental. I have not agreed with any of the extra charges included in my bill and I want a refund immediately. Otherwise, I will take this to my attorney and also reported to the business bureau and spread out through all the internet my personal experience with your company. THIS WAS A RIPOFF! and you can't keep doing this to customers in need of a vehicle anymore. This is unacceptable from all the point views. YOU HAVE CHARGED IN MY CREDIT CARD. DO YOURSELF A FAVOR AND DO NOT RENT OUT VEHICLES FROM THIS COMPANY!!!

RENTAL SCAM. INSURANCE SCAM. â??MILAGE SCAM. â??Stay away. 0 miles includedâ??, extra charge/day for using a â??debit card (illegal), none existentâ?? customer service, will not let you take a car if you don't provide your own full declaration page of your own liability insurance. A 50-minuteâ?? line at Orlando to pick up a car and all because 90% of people are searchingâ?? for emails, calling their insurance agents, FAXING their insurance documents not to pay some ridiculousâ?? liability coverage that they upsell. $9/day for EZpass cost of tolls.
Then come all the charges to the credit card that you will not recognize and unless you check will not be returned. 30 minute hold time on the phone. When answered, the guy told me that he is not by the computer right now and having lunch asked to call back.
Don't even try calling them. Keep your original invoices and dispute the charges with your bank right away.â??

Economy is a terrible company. In Costa Rica airport I was bombarded with additional charges that added up to three time the rental amount! They never quoted on the initial rental any of these additional insurance amounts. On returning the car It had 1/2 a tank to which I was charged an additional $ 78. All in all from an original cost on renting of $75 for a week I ended up paying $625!! If this country whants to attract tourism this ripe of business should be sanctioned. Terrible experience but a lovely country!

This is a scam company in car rental business. They advertise a SUV for you to book, you get a small car when you are there to pick up. This happened to all the customers who I met there when I picked up my car. When I returned my car, they checked and said you were good to go. Then they tried to charge ridiculous amount on your card.

Horrible business sense from this company. Rented an SUV a full 2 weeks ahead of time and on night of pickup was told all that they had was a Nissan Sentra car. Wasn't given any phone call or email to give me a heads up about this. It was midnight and I had 2 kids waiting so rather than go with another option which I could have done at airport location I just too my medicine and accepted the insulting $5 a day discount. This site is horrible to reach as you need to take a shuttle to the rental center at airport and then wait in line and hope the shuttle that comes to take you to the site has enough room to bring you on that, else you have to wait until it comes back around. Called the manager the next day and she just told me I should email their home office. She said these things happen with cars "having accidents" or not being returned. Again wow! A phone call would be nice so I could avoid going out to get a car I didn't want.

This place is a huge scam. They already robbed me of around $250. Here's a summary: I rented a car for around 4 days at $100 online. I go to the rental place to pick up the car. I'm asked If I'm going to take their insurance. I said no I have full coverage that also protects for rental cars. I already selected no when I did the rental agreement online. He said if I don't take the insurance I have to pay some fee everyday I rent the car. It was a made-up fee just to make more money. This fee amounted to $70. He said I either pay it or get the car from somewhere else. This was no where in the original agreement. I reluctantly agreed. Went on the trip. Returned the car.. they did not want to give me a receipt. It was very strange but the guy basically said ok we got the car see ya. It was so strange. I took pictures of the car from all angles to show I returned it the way I got it. I didn't know what else to do. A week went by, I checked my credit card online to make sure they didn't charge me any extra. I was shocked to see (4) charges of $45 each. They claimed I returned the car 4 days late. Not true. I returned the car right on time. I went back and forth a my credit card company. This scam company made up a bogus invoice showing I returned the car 4 days later. The only proof I had to show I returned the vehicle were circumstantial evidence of the pictures of the car, my Google maps history showing my travel from and to the rental company on the date the car was due. The credit card company sided with the scam company rather than me who had used then as my primary card for at least 14 years. Also I've never disputed a transaction all those years until this one.

No service just takes your money! I immediately need to cancel.They were quick to say absolutely, no refund or any other accomodation. Stay far away.

I had the worst experience with Economy Rent a Car in Bucharest Airport location
- They wanted to charge a "mandatory insurance" of $42 / day plus a hold of couple of hundreds!?
- The alternative was to put a hold on a credit card for the entire value of the car, 15,000 Euro!!
- After spending an hour with my credit card company to extend my card limit, when we tried the transaction it was rejected by the Romanian bank processing the transaction
- The Economy representative knew such large transaction are not going through but they let me spend over an hour after a 12 hour flight dealing with the bank
- I consider their attempt to take advantage of my situation an insult and I walked away and lost the prepaid $75

This is involving an experience where I rented a car from Economy who subcontracted out to Scotties in Auckland New Zealand. I rented through Expedia who was amazing at helping me to rectify the situation. Unfortunately, when started experiencing major problems with Scotties I was told by Economy Rent a Car it was not their problem (Expedia agents were told them same). Since they were the name on the contract my issues should be a concern, but welcome to the world of subcontracting vehicles.

Please note Scotties did refund everything in full but to get to that point there was a lot of harassing and time spent by myself and Expedia. Economy Rent a Car has not responded.

Here's part of my email to them.

I have rented a car with Economy for trips in the past. I used Expedia as my travel agent and booked a car through Economy. I did not read the fine print about it being sub-contracted out to Scotties Car Rental, but even if I had I would've gone through with the rental because it's Economy Rent a Car, a well known rental car agency that I have experience with.

Expedia attempted to rectify this issues we had while in New Zealand by calling Economy. Two Expedia representatives were told that it basically was not Economy's problem because it was Scottie who was handling the car rental. Unfortunately this is where Economy is wrong. It IS your problem because your name is on the paper work. You should be aware of what a horrible company you are subcontracting your work out to because at this point I've told so many people about Economy Rent a Car and my horrible experience working with THEIR subcontractor that you should care and should take this seriously.

Here's my experience with Scotties Car Rental in Auckland (airport location).

1) The Auckland airport location is 15 minutes from the airport in an industrial area with no one around after 5pm. After handing us car keys to the vehicle we went out to the lot to discover a beat up car with dents, ripped up seats (we were expected to sit on the foam), over 200,000 km, yellow lights and scratches both in and out of the vehicle.
2) I ran back inside to exclaim my shock of the vehicle and was told "no worries" and this is how they keep their rates low. If you see the price below for $286 you should know I eventually rented a car from Avis for $265.88 for 11 days. The $286 is for 13 days. So, hardly a bargain for a car. Also, it's their policy to not fill the gas tank so you are suppose to bring it back at the level you left with. For us, it was about 30% left in the tank.
3) It was now 5:30pm at night and we needed to drive 3 hours north in a country we've never been to and up the next day at 5am. So we decided it was cosmetic and they were in a rush and we felt trapped so we rented the car. At this point the two employees locked up and left the car rental agency leaving us there.
4) Got in to the car and went to plug in our GPS and the car charger port did not work. Called them up. They asked we drive in to downtown Auckland for the fuse to be changed. Took 30 minutes to drive to them and no one was there. Called again. They were on their way.
5) Fuse was changed out and we went to leave when the gentleman told us to stop. We were missing rear lights. They weren't working.
6) So he swapped out the car for another junk car. (There were Toyota Prius in the lot and some nicer cars, but he got us the worst looking one).
7) This new car had intact seats, BUT the arm rest was torn up with foam coming out. Major dents and scratches. Yellow covers on the front lights and old windshield wipers. Only 177,000 km so it was young comparatively. This car had English for words so we felt like winners. Now it was 7pm at night, in downtown Auckland with two American tourists who aren't use to driving on the left leaving 2 hours late.
8) Over the course of the 2 days we had the car we questioned it's safety. It had a hard time getting up hills (despite us giving it all the gas we could it was so slow people honked at us). The windshield wipers were streaky. We had another 10 days with the with the car and didn't feel safe so we called Scotties to explain we wanted to return it and pick up a "normal" rental car.
9) Upon calling I spoke to the same man who changed my fuse. He was beyond belligerent, telling me I was exaggerating and needed to calm down. I told him we were asking to return it and just wanted to pay the days we used it for. He told me he was going to charge me for 2 extra days because I was returning early and that was their fee for early returns.
10) It was in this moment I contacted Expedia. Expedia informed me they would call Economy to have them help in this matter since it was not the original policy signed. Economy told the car rental agent it was not their problem.

Enough said.
Again, Scotties made it right in the VERY end, but not without hours dedicated to dealing with this issue.

This company is absolute garbage! First off, you rent a car with specific requirements. It's only after the booking that you find out that the details of your vehicle have changed. Suddenly that four door car has lost two doors. AND, only then do they tell you that you are required to provide proof of your personal insurance or they will not rent you a vehicle. AND only then do they also tell you that once you arrive at their rental counter you will have to call a phone number to have someone come and help you with your rental. I've never ever heard of a company working like that. Their time is more important than yours apparently. If you want to go with a company with a name like Economy, you will get exactly that. The very cheapest company you could possibly fine. If you feel like spending an hour reading fine print, I would definitely recommend this company!!!

NEVER RENT FROM THIS PLACE! We got to the airport and they did not have a storefront at the rental line, so we called Priceline and they didn't have any other information for the company and gave us a phone number to Economy. We called and it took them 15 min to come get us. Once we got to the rental company, they told us that since we were late, the only thing he had to rent us was an SUV and he had already given away our car, He told us the only vehicle he had on his lot was an SUV. and it would be a $10 upcharge per day and our price would no longer be $168 but $265 for the entire week. I looked in the garage and he had 8 - mid - full size cars and about 10 SUV's in the back. This was not acceptable! I told him I would not be paying anything extra and he argued with me that he would not honor our request. I told him we would need to cancel the request, because I was not paying that price. I pulled off to the side and did a quick search for another car at the price we agreed to and it pulled an SUV at his place for $160! Which was $8 less than the price for the full size car! I showed it to him and he asked me if I could reserve it? I said sure, and started the process to reserve, he was going to make me fill out the form again to reserve the SUV at the cheaper price! He would not honor the price that we agreed to in the first place. He got on the phone and called his supervisor, it had been 45 minutes from arrival! and told his boss to call him back within 2 minutes to see if we could rent the car. The boss called back and said we could rent the car we originally requested. IT WAS 10:30 PM at this point! So then after agreeing to that, he requested our insurance paperwork and said the our travel insurance cards were not good enough that he needed to see the POLICY! He demanded to know how much our coverage was and if we were covered for $100,000. We DID NOT BRING this on the trip, nor did we know we needed it! So he made me call my insurance company and it was 10:45 PM and no one ever answered the phone! Finally he said he was wasting our time and decided to give us coverage on the car and told he would put $1000 hold on our credit card so we could rent the car! We have NEVER had this kind of experience for a rental car nor been disrespected as a customer! After he started the paperwork, he then tried to impress my husband with his wit and charm! We will NEVER USE ECONOMY AGAIN!

As other reviews say, they will charge you more than double what you pay online once you check in. They will require you to have at least $300,000 in liability insurance (according to the fine print on Expedia) or you'll have to pay more than what you paid for the car just for your coverage.
They also require you to print out your insurance declaration before you get there -- a very strange requirement according to my insurance company. They take it so when you get there they can highlight all the ways your prime insurance doesn't meet simply to scam you into buying theirs. My husband and I were willing to pay the extra $$ just to get on the road up until they said they can't charge a new credit card for the amount. They said if they were to take a new card, they would have to fully charge all fees (including a double charge of what we had already paid) without a refund for what I already paid online. That was the end for us and we walked out.

5/28 UPDATE:
I requested a refund to make up for my awful experience and the lack of a car rental dampening my vacation. Economy emailed me explaining that the reason they were not going to refund me because they require $100,000 in Liability Insurance. Which was funny, because what the lady highlighted on my insurance declaration (where I supposedly didn't meet) clearly showed that I have $100,000 in liability. When I responded and offered to show them proof of my insurance and that I in fact, did meet their requirements... no response.

I made a contract via Expedia for $379.67 with a debt card. After the money was taken, they sent a contract, which said it was paid in full for all taxes and fees. When I got to pick the car up they started charging additional fees. When I complained, they would not let me cancel the contract and required me to use the debt card I used initially and charge me $9.95 a day for using the debt card. My bill was for $1,19.92 after all fees and took $1,541.92. I have spent hours to Expedia and Economy Rent a Car and have still not been resolved.

We arrived in Ft Lauderdale at 9PM on 2/28/18 and had already prepaid for a car from this company. We took the bus to the rental terminal and the shuttle to the offsite location. Upon entering we were greeted with a sign advising that we could not pick up our car unless we provided a copy of our insurance coverage or would have to take Economy's insurance. 2 other customers were already in line complaining about this policy which was not accurately noted online. We were able to have our insurance carrier email a copy to them and were able to pick up the auto after much discussion, and wee did not use the car during our trip as we had access to another vehicle. After returning the car to this company, we were notified a day later that we incurred a toll fee of $0.54 and they were therefore charging us a $20.00 admin fee. I would not EVER use this company again!!

If you like giving people money and getting nothing in return book with economy. They took my money and did not give me a car. They said they would cancel my reservation and give me a refund and then did not. I booked through Orbitz, where it is not mentioned that you can only drive the car in Florida. When I saw their policy after the booking I canceled with them and they said I was going to get a refund. more than a month later both Orbitz and my Credit Card company are unable to get a refund for the car that I did not rent. Economy is the one refusing the refund after assuring me I would get my money back. Economy's excuse is that they have a no refund policy even though they didn't rent the car to me. They are thieves. Stay far away!

I agree with not using Economy rent a car at FLL airport. They ask for DECLARATION PAGE of your car insurance when you get to the counter, before they will rent you the car. They dont mention it on the top 10 travel websites where they sell. Who carries a declaration page when they are travelling? If you do not have your YOU HAVE TO purchase their insurance. I called my insurance and they emailed me the declaration page. Even when I showed the declaration page THEY STILL MADE ME BUY INSURANCE, because my liability insurance was only upto $100,000 and guy behind the counter said they need a minimum of $300,000. So, to sum up if you do not have a declaration page that shows you have $300,000 liability insurance, be prepared to pay $15 per day. Their rates online are cheap but then this bait and switch..