A word of waring for the tired and weary traveller

I have always been a regular use and strong advocate of Autoriesen (even though the cars can be a little tired) but when I was quoted 25 euros more for a weeks hire than Pluscar I thought it may be time for a change. I did email Autoreisen to see if they would price match but all I received was a one line email advising "the best prices are on the web"

We arrived a TFS and made the trek through the public car park to row 9 where thre was the man in the bus shelter completing the hire agreements and his assistant. We joined a the long line of German customers who seemed to be robustly complaining about the minor irritations of hiring a car in Tenerife such as

Faulty vehicle
Wrong group of car delivered, too small
No child seats as ordered
Invalid ticket to exit the car park

Germans!!!!!!

It was then our turn, all the usual driving licence, passport, fill in agreement and credit card.

A few taps and clicks later out comes the slip and guess what, been converted to GBP, did not ask to be charged in GBP was not asked if wanted to charged in GBP.

Ok my turn for the robust discussion. Did not want currency conversion, please void payment and re-charge in euros. At this point the man in the bus shelter had a technology breakdown, did not know how to void and refund a payment. Assistant then explains that they will now take my payment again and refund the first payment which could take up to 20 days

No way I thought what chance was there of them being able to get this right. OK leave it give me the car keys and I will go.
Sorry we have to wait for the car to be delivered
10 minutes later on our way totally p....d off and feeling scammed.

I have wrote to Pluscar but the chances of a response seem remote.

The moral of this tale is for all future renters with this company is:

If your card company gives a better exchange rate make sure you tell the man in the bus shelter you want to pay in euros or they will automatically convert using their exchage rate and give you paperwork at the saying you were asked and agreed to this.

I have used theses before once waiting half an hour for a car to be delivered on one of the worst storm nights and on the second occassion the car broke down on a slip road on TF1.

Suspect they may be copying the Goldcar model of business

Barryk