Book Cartrawler Reviews 114

4 Months, No Refund
Trawler/Holiday Autos Is Not to Be Trusted

It has been 4 months since I cancelled a car rental through Holiday Autos (run by Trawler), due to a cancelled flight. The rental providers, Dollar/Hertz, both confirmed in writing that the booking was cancelled, the vehicle was never picked up, and no services were provided. I followed the cancellation steps. I provided every piece of documentation they asked for—multiple times.

CarTrawler has not refunded me.

Worse, they publicly replied to my review claiming they already refunded me. This is false.

They emailed me to say the refund had been issued. Again—false. I have the emails. I have the screenshots. I have the case number.

What’s happened over the past four months:

- They ignored evidence from both me and the rental company.

- They claimed my case was "new" even months after it began.

- They demanded I re-send documents that were already sent and acknowledged.

- They closed the case prematurely.

- They lied—in writing and in public—about issuing a refund.

This company uses delay, denial, and dishonesty as strategy. Their system is designed to exhaust customers into giving up.

If you're thinking about using Trawler, Holiday Autos, Argus Car Hire, or any of their white-labelled brands: don’t.

You risk paying for a service you’ll never receive—and then fighting for months to get your money back.

I do not recommend this company – stay away! Once we arrived at the destination, they didn’t provide us with a car. On top of that, they forced us to get full insurance (full casco) and demanded a €200 cash deposit. Total scammers!

I had changed the date of the car I wanted to rent from Car Trawler. The foreign official who called the call center misunderstood the date and scheduled the car 1 month before the actual reservation date. They did not refund my money in any way. They did not change the date either. I do not recommend it to anyone. I do not recommend you to choose this place to rent a car when buying a ticket from Pegasus. My reservation number is TR135660090.

BUYER BEWARE: Booked online through our hotel site. After waiting in a queue of over 100 people at the Hertz/Dollar/Thrifty location in Dublin Airport, we arrived 2 hours after our proposed time of arrival. They do have QR codes available to check in while in line. DO NOT USE THE QR CODE - because then, you are automatically checked in and cannot dispute the car.

Our Credit card company provides insurance coverage when we rent cars using them. Wether this is a HERTZ corporate requirement or a Cartrawler one, we ended up as captive to their requirement to purchase insurance at 48euros/day!!! Or, lose out on the entire reservation with no refund (because I checked in using the QR code).

In either circumstance, I've tried to get back to the main website but am unable to do so, to see if I could book another vehicle and buy the insurance BEFORE the rental begins, to see if it is any cheaper. When I try to access Cartrawler.com or even cartrawler.ie, I get an error code as if it doesn't exist. Thats not a good feeling - nor a decent customer service experience for anyone!

Extremely poor service. I encountered issues with my bookings, and the car rental company agreed to let me cancel without any charges. However, Cartraweler is refusing to refund the cancellation fee and is unwilling to investigate the situation.
Additionally, they seem to have significant difficulty understanding English! I strongly recommend to avoid this company when ever possible!

I had a terrible experience with CarTrawler and their partner, Goldcar. Despite arriving at the rental location on time, with proof of my journey via Uber (which I provided), Goldcar falsely claimed I was a no-show. Even worse, CarTrawler took their side — ignoring the evidence and completely failing to respond to my follow-up message.

I wasted hours chasing this issue, only to be met with silence and blatant dishonesty. Not only was I denied the car I paid for, but I also lost money on transport and wasted my time dealing with this mess. CarTrawler's customer service is appalling — no accountability, no resolution, and no respect for the customer.

I will be escalating this through every available channel — including formal complaints and legal options. If you value your time, money, or sanity, do not use CarTrawler.

Don't use them!
You will most like end up without a car and money.
Collection was for 10am
I arrived at desk at 10:15, was queuing for over 45min. When it was my turn they said the booking is cancelled because I'm late! Without any explanation or notice whatsoever.

Avoid avoid avoid! Booked a transfer from our apartment in Spain, took my money in advance and the transfer never arrived. Tried for one month to get a refund and just constantly fobbed off so I’ve given up.

Rouge trader. Avoid at all cost! They are an agent for Opodo. They refused my refund for the 3 week car rental after their agent agreed a refund for providing with an unsafe car that nearly killed us. They also did not vetted their car rental agents and you will likely receive an unsafe car and risk your life. I have experienced that. Don't believe me? Try searching CarTrawler and read other reviews on Google, Trip Advisor and Trust Pilot.

Avoid, complete scam still trying to get my money back 3 months later after they booked to the wrong location, cancelled with the car hire place and they said no money has been paid to them so cancellation is fine then car trawler refused to refund the money.

I have had the misfortune of trying to rent a car through Easy Jet which turned out to be car trawler. The whole experience was the one of the most horrific I've ever had with a 'service'. Emails / phone calls and Whatsapp have all lead to the same, nothing - they couldn't care less about whether or not you got the service as long as you've paid.

I would avoid this company, do your research.

The car rental made the mistake of not having the car class that was agreed upon, then offering as solution:
A. Car downgrade without (partial) refund;
B. Car upgrade paid.
And Cartrawler thinks we do not deserve any compensation. They must be mentally living on some other planet then. Ridiculous group. They really fail to comprehend that at that time we were on holiday and practically did not have any other choice than to sign their document and take the temporary loss before sorting it out after the holiday. Which apparently with them is impossible. And it takes multiple weeks for them reply. Avoid at all costs.

Everyone who lost the money to CarTrawler, write review to CarTrawler, not here.

I paid online for a week of a car rent through Cartrawler. At arrival I got no car, but also the money was not returned. After 20 days I received a reply that they will not return me my money which they did not earn. They are thieves.
Getting someone's money and not providing a service is a theft, whatever your terms and conditions state. No company is allowed to steal a customer's money. The this website, Facebook and X are full of messages of people who lost their money scammed by you.

Do not use!!! I arrived to pick up my vehicle and was requested to provide a credit card which I didn't have. I have hired numerous vehicles in the UK and have always provided a debit card with sufficient funds to cover the excess as security. I agreed to cancel my booking and GreenMotion explained that they had taken no fee. I contacted Car Trawler to request a refund and they refused, despite the rental company having taken no fee. So they have taken my money for nothing. Scum!

Booked a car through cartrawler. Got to the airport and there was no car available. Phoned them and they said have to go back at the airport the next day to get a car. Went back and there was no car. Had to hire a car from another company. It's been 30 days of to and fro with car trawler and they wouldn't refund the money....thieves and just don't use them. Going to the ombudsman to fight these thieves

If ever I could give a 0, I would for this company.
They have no flexibility for late arrivals or if one is delayed at the border even on arrival.

I had a terrible, terrible experience with this company, as it was the first time I booked a transfer from the airport to a hotel.

We arrived in Poznan on time but were delayed for almost an hour at border security. I called the driver to tell him what was going on and asked if he could wait longer. He demanded we pay another 100 pounds for waiting.

I was forced to cancel the inbound and outbound journeys on the app, With the hope of at least getting a partial refund; after 3 to 5 days of no refund, I decided to contact their helpline, to my utmost disgust, I was told I was not eligible for a refund not even a partial refund, as I had canceled less than 24hrs.
I explained what had happened, but the customer service representative, Mahmoud, said it was the supplier's policy. I have no idea who this 'ghost' supplier is, as I was told the same pack of lies by the driver.

Stay away from CarTrawler, as they are all about your money. They show no mercy if your flight is delayed, cancelled, or delayed at the border. BE WARNED.

ZERO! Made taxi reservation 48 hours ahead. Wanted to change time 1 hour sooner. Phone numbers didn't work. Had to get a third number from priority pass which did give me someone to talk to but then they couldn't change booking for me. Their only suggestion was to cancel and then rebook. Per their cancellation policy that suggestion would cause me to lose my payment because no refund is given within 24 hours of reservation! The online link to modify booking didn't work. The customer service agents has no way of changing the time or getting to the taxi service at all. I lost $65.

Their contract says that if you don't collect the car on-time or let them know beforehand. They cancel the hire and keep the money. My flight was couldn't land because of the weather so my collection was missed. When it did land, they didn't have a car available, but kept the full hire payment anyway. I had to find another car to hire and make a chargeback on my credit card.
Read their No-Show term, and think about all the times flights get delayed, diverted or cancelled. They had my flight number, telephone and email but they didn't try and contact me.

If I could give them one star I would I booked car hire through easyJet and the booking was for a car through budget great thinks I as I usually use Budget I also usually get full excess cover so I saw at the airport when boarding my flight I could also do this unaware the booking was not with budget themselves but caretrawler as I was on a last minute dash to an aged aunt in England at 8:30am on the 1/3/24. When I arrived with budget I had the car but not the insurance the insurance with car trawler is a policy where you are still responsible for the damage to the car and pay the excess you then have to try and claim it back through them via AXA I had to pay again to budget which was cheaper to take out the policy I usually take and had wanted to take in the first instance eventually after attempting to get through several bots I got a virtual bot that engages with me and was told I couldn’t cancel the policy with car trawler or get a refund that was only possible up to the 29/2/24 the day before I had taken out the misleading policy which promised €0 outlay in the event of a claim
Steer well clear of this company and booking cars through Airlines totally unacceptable practices

This is cartrawler

They are trying to keep all the good reviews on car trawler and for some reason the real stories and scams are hidden back in this area under ‘book cartrawler’ its just disgraceful how they get away with whet they do.

They need to be shutdown they are a disgrace.