Beware - Do not rent from Dollar FRA
 

I had a reservation from Carrentals.com with Dollar at FRA last week. For the third time Dollar would not honor the rate on the reservation and they would not accept the Platinum Mastercard Liability Waiver. They charged a significantly higher rate, added $ 50.00 insurance to it. They also put a hold on my credit card for 600 Euro which they said would be credited upon return of the car. They only refunded 575 Euro. Now I have to take this up with Mastercard. I was stuck, no other vendor had cars, except Hertz and they wanted even more.
Last time Dollar didn't honor the rate, which was about $ 190.00 for a week plus they wanted to add $ 450.00 for winter tires.
I am so done with them.

I would like toe expand on my earlier post. Don't rent any Dollar car in Germany, not only FRA, as long as this Terstappen Car Rental company is their agent. I have a terrible time disputing these fee and charges with my U.S. based Credit Card Company and Terstappen as the agent will absolutely not respond to any of my now over 12 messages. Please check "http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowTopic-g187275-i116-k4261015-Terstappen_Car_Rental-Germany.html" for a large collection of recent horror stories about this company. I and may others have written to Dollar, let's see if something happens.
OK, I just learnt how to insert a link, so here it is : http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowTopic...l-Germany.html

Did you show them the reservation? and did you look at the local rules? I know in some countries like Israel you cannot have a CC cover you and you are forced to buy coverage. Go back and look at the carrentals.com policies for Dollar and go to dollar.com and check out the car policies. If carrentals.com does not have the same policies you should really talk to them, but if both websites have the same policies listed then its really something that you should have read (such a policy is even in place)

I know for everyone its time consuming to read 2-3 pages worth of rules, but you can really save a lot of $$$ if you know the policy. A former experience I had with a Rental Company was that the agent told me that I was required to buy insurance and I actually fell for it to only find out that it is not even stated in the local policies/rules. Although you may spend money and/or time, always print out the rules so you have a way to disprove these agents should they try to sell you stuff you don't want.

It sounds like you should call a corporate Dollar office as it seems to be a consistent problem.

I had the same experience some years ago, as did everyone in line with me. No other car rental company in FRA requires that you buy their LDW, which is why people are surprised. Yes, it's in their T&Cs, but so what? It's a calculated ripoff because nobody else does that and that way they catch everyone off guard.

They apparently don't need any repeat business because as long as their practices aren't well known, they'll keep drawing in suckers.

If anyone from Dollar/Thrifty is reading this, please know that I have assiduously avoided renting from you even in the US, even if it costs me more, because of my experience with your FRA licensee.

I can pretty much guarantee you that no one is.

However, contact info for the regional directors of global franchising is published right here: http://www.dollar.com/FranchiseOppor...ContactUs.aspx

I'd suggest dropping a line to Richard Ault. I can vouch that he is definitely in a position to get this issue looked at.

Same here, just had a very annoying experience at Dollar / Terstappen in FRA.
I had made a 16 day reservation for a full size, shown as Mercedes (Dollar website) or MB or BMW (Terstappen website). Of course, I know those are only examples of available cars .... Still, at FRA Terstappen told me they don't have MB or BMW at all at the FRA station but they would be glad to offer me a Chevrolet or KIA instead. On top of that they said I needed to pay EUR 21 a day for insurance unless I could present a letter by MC addressed to me personally with reference of my cc number that MC would provide coverage. That was that and now I am in a nice Avis BMW. Their loss.