Warning re Budget car hire rental

[RonnyRite]

Thought I'd get more exposure in chat than in holiday so here goes.
We travel regularly to Denmark to visit DHs family and always pick up a car hire at CPH airport. Have done this for 20 years and have never taken out their excess insurance as we buy our own each year.
When we came home this year we had been charged for their excess insurance...it's something like £25 per day.
I called their customer service here and was told to send through a copy of our insurance so the manager could check. (This is actually irrelevant as you don't have to have excess insurance) I did send it as requested.
I never heard back from them.
I called again and had a really rude woman telling me my husband had signed the contract (you know when you are standing at the airport desk and the clerk says "this is all we have agreed" and you sign)
She basically wasn't interested.
So...I sent a signed for letter to the General Manager, Alan Oliver-Smith at Avis Budget House, Bracknell.
It was signed for and he has ignored me.
We'll never use their service again but do be warned and take time to check the screen very carefully. It will take time and there may be a queue behind you!

Damned! I was just about to book with them. Not now.

My DH a just got caught with this same scam, but it was Scotland and Avis. And they tried claiming he’d damaged something as well, they are really rude and won’t respond to his emails at all.

Bumping this for you OP, this is vital that these sort of poor service and scams get picked up and spread widely

Write to the Sunday Times travel agony aunt? She gets results… and car hire companies are the pits. Can you get the money back from your bank? Put it into dispute?

Sounds like you were mis-sold and there are rules against that. Can you do a charge back on your card for unauthorised transaction? The card company works for YOU and not the company.

I’ve been waiting 2 weeks for my deposit back from an Italian car hire, 6 days, if I don’t get back the deposit I’d have paid 200 euro per day of rental 😵‍💫

Not quite the same thing but we went to collect our hire care in France - had taken out a policy to insure us in hiring a car.
Hire car company basically told us they wouldn't accept it and we needed to take out their insurance. Paid something like another £100 or more - decided it wasn't worth risking it as they were going to make it awkward presumably if any damage at all was found on the car when we took it back.

If I had paid (and signed) I would have done that. Husband paid and signed. I was obviously with him when we picked up car. The clerk was on his own. We have complete corroboration as to what happened.

Husband really doesn't have time to raise the credit card payment issue. Might write to Sunday Times agony aunt. Will buy paper next week to get address, thanks.

Contact your card company. My card was charged twice by a company in France to ship some goods to me. Contacted them 3 times asking for a refund. Barclaycard returned the second payment.

They make lots of money on selling insurance. You don't even need an excess insurance. You can "self insure". Your hire covers a basic insurance.

Write the letter for your husband and get him to send it, perhaps include a live saying he authorizes you to speak on his behalf?

I've been reading lots of stories about dodgy car hire companies after this experience and it seems it happens a lot with local ones in Europe but I am also reading about Budget unfortunately.

Can't understand why they would ruin their reputation.

I've taken out my own excess insurance before hiring a car in France. How do they even know you have it? Were they trying to get you to take out theirs?

I absolutely loathe the whole business of car hire. I feel you're totally at risk for being ripped off if anything happens even if not your fault - someone hitting your car while it's parked and you're away from it, etc.

Thing is you don't even need to have excess insurance. We used to "self insure" years ago before we knew about the annual or one trip hire car insurance. That's fine as long as you know you'll have to pay a certain amount if the car is damaged.

It's all so dodgy. We will need to hire a car again but we will certainly be reading every line of that car hire agreement. Maybe even recording our conversation with the clerk.

Always worth videoing the car on pick up and drop back, if not using their insurance.

On these uk insurance companies, bear in mind, if there is damage, you'll have to pay it, then claim back.

I had a claim rejected and ended up paying 800 euros for a damaged wheel/tyre

I’ve got nothing but praise for Insurance4carhire. Had to claim twice snd even though one was outrageously inappropriate they paid up very quickly.

I've heard about this and watched out for it when we hired a car with Budget in Florida last year. You have to specifically say "we don't want the extra insurance" and ensure the insurance box is not ticked when you sign at pick up.

There were LOTS of complaints in online forums and Google reviews that the agent was ticking the insurance box without calling it out.

This definitely sounds like a widespread issue. I would have thought that one of the consumer programmes on tv might look into it.

What a load of rubbish!! You can do this online on your credit card app in the middle of the night and it takes all of 5 minutes!

I’ve used them for years and never had an issue.

This is who we use. I once lost a key for the car I hired in the UK. They paid up immediately.

Thank you for the warning Op, I'll definitely avoid them in future.

@Doseofreality We too had used them for years (about 20 years we've been visiting DH's family in CPH) with no issues ...UNTIL THIS TIME.

If you check the internet it seems lots of people are having issues with car hire companies dishonestly adding insurance charges.

We had a horrible insurance with Avis in Sardinia, I think Avis and Budget are affiliated . I had booked through British Airways to get extra airmile points, and they basically used this as an excuse to rip us off. I now have said that DH needs to sort out car hire.
We have had good experiences with Autoreisen for the Canaries, and recently sixt in France.

Adding my experience from April 2026. Hired from Budget Tenerife — on day 3 the tyre blew out completely. It was worn through to the cords, extensively cracked and in an illegal condition. My family was in the car the whole time. Budget's response was to offer €25. I formally rejected this and have since sent three follow-up emails over three weeks — all ignored. Now raising a Section 75 chargeback with my bank. The General Manager mentioned above — Alan Oliver-Smith at Avis Budget House, Bracknell — might be worth writing to directly. I'll be doing exactly that if the chargeback doesn't resolve it."