The companies have pledged to better align current car rental practices to the requirements of consumer legislation, set out by EU rules on consumer rights , unfair commercial practices and unfair terms ).
Some of the main improvements pledged include:
- Improved transparency when booking online:
– Clearer information about all mandatory charges and optional extras;
– Clearer information about key rental terms and requirements, including deposits charged on the consumer’s card; - Better information at the booking stage about optional waiver and insurance products , including their prices, exclusions and applicable excesses.
- Improved and more transparent fuel policies
- Clearer and fairer vehicle inspection processes
- Improved practices for taking additional charges from customers: consumers are given a reasonable opportunity to challenge any damage before any payment is taken.
Case of ECC Poland : A British consumer rented a car at the Warsaw airport. He used it to travel through Poland and returned it after seven days. After he got back to Leeds, he checked his credit card statement and noticed that the service provider took 275 euros without contacting him. Consumer made a complaint, but in response he heard that it was a cost of towing a car from a parking lot that was not the property of the car rental company. Consumer headed to the ECC-Net. It turned out that he indeed parked in the wrong spot, but a service provider groundlessly added a number of other charges. Thanks to help from ECC Poland the consumer regained 110 euros.
The proposals are gradually being implemented by the companies and most of them should be completed by the end of 2015. According to the consumer authorities some outstanding issues will need to be further monitored in particular regarding:
- Consumers’ liability for car damages made by other people;
- Practices of brokers and intermediaries;
- The language in which terms and conditions should be presented for car bookings in another Member State.
- what coverage insurance offered in car rental packages and look for alternative insurance offers on the market.
Background: The decision to act was taken following a steady increase of consumer complaints on car rental services booked in another country – from about 1,050 cases in 2012 to more than 1,750 in 2014 – as reported by European Consumer Centres (ECC-Net) . A dialogue was set up between national Consumer Protection Cooperation (CPC) authorities , and the top five car rental companies operating in the EU:Avis-Budget, Enterprise, Europcar, Hertz and Sixt. The EU trade association Leaseurope, which helped set up the action from the industry side, also agreed to further develop their practical guidelines for the whole car rental business sector.
Improving consumer information and confidence in the car rental sector could contribute to an annual growth rate of 3 to 4% of the tourism sector over the next two years in Europe (see external s tudy ). In 2013, there were over 21 million individual rental contracts in the EU. The five companies, part of the dialogue, would represent more than 65% of these rentals according to the trade association, Leaseurope.
For more information:
EU Consumer policy – enforcement
The European Consumer Centres’ Annual Report
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