I would like to give a heads up to others regarding the addition of a fuel charge to returned cars at Europcar Heathrow and to get an idea from Flyertalk members of how common the practice is.

On delivering the car I had it checked over by an employee who confirmed to me no damage and in doing so he checked that the fuel gauge was showing full. Lesson learned I did not get any receipt to confirm as such. This was a one way hire with the car collected from elsewhere if relevant.

After one day I received by email an invoice confirming 6L of fuel had been added at twice the general filling station fuel cost. I had filled up a mile away and as far as I was concerned the car was just as full as when the car was received. After all you would not expect to have to dip the tank of a car at collection when showing a full fuel gauge.

I took the matter up by email with Europcar Customer Services UK but they will only review the charge if I provide a receipt of the filling I undertook. I feel this is not the point seeing as the car was checked on return and anyway I did not keep a receipt for the fuel as I paid with cash after a previous visit to a Heathrow filling station led to my credit card being cloned and used in the Philippines.

I am not happy with Europcar and would like to know if anyone else had this experience.