customer

Their Data SIM plans are always reliable and working abroad everywhere I go.

I was about to pickup a rental car that I’ve booked and paid for in August 2023 at the airport in Treviso, Italy at company Autovia.it. I came at 8:00 am, but unfortunately I did not have a credit card (only debit cards) to put up a deposit. I was quite surprised that only credit card was accepted for deposit since I've paid for booking with debit card and never really had any problems with providing deposit by debit card with other rental car companies before. They have it in a small print in their Terms and Conditions, but really not very well visible and often the term “Credit Card” is interchangeable with the debit card as well. The man behind the desk said that I cannot use my debit card for deposit and he cannot rent me the car. I had to go to Hertz and rent another car there (apparently they did not have any problem with taking a deposit from the debit card). He recommended me to write an email to customer service complaints and ask for refund (the booking cost 266,05 EUR in total). Unfortunately, three weeks later I’ve received a short response that I’m not eligible for any refund, which was quite a shock:
"By terms and conditions there is no refund for failed pick up if all the necessary prerequisites and documents are not available for the issue of the Rental Agreement.
Necessary documents are shown in the confirmation voucher received when the booking is confirmed as well as in the terms and conditions link."
I haven’t used the service at all and it was clear before I officially could start using it (the rental pickup was at 8:30am). I don’t understand how is it possible that I’m not eligible for a refund in this case when the rental company simply haven’t done anything other than taking my money for nothing. I completely understand that I may not be eligible for a full refund, but I equally do not understand how they would be eligible to pocket everything without actually providing the service.

I've tried to contact European Consumer Center in Italy and got a response, that this could be an unfair commercial practice:
"In the case of online contract, the seller should provide you with information about the service before you concluding your purchase. This means that the you should have received in advance the information about the need to provide a credit card to pick up the car. In addition, keeping the full amount you paid as penalty could be disproportionate, especially if the contractual terms do not foresee a compensation for the consumer if the contract is canceled by the trader. Applying disproportionate penalty, indeed, could represent an unfair commercial practice banned by law."

After this bad experience I would not recommend to use this company to anyone and use other companies like Hertz and Europcar that do not really have any problems with taking deposit from debit cards.

Works great, exactly as you would have expect!

Very satisfied with delivery. They have also notified me about some incompatible components in my initial order and were very responsive with help advice how to fix it.