Sixt Scams??
 

:mad:
A warning to all who rent from Sixt in Europe:

We rented in Munich in June on a pleasure trip. Upon return, we were first charged for fuel even though we had filled the tank just before returning the car to the MUC airport. When brought to the attention of the staff, (with refueling receipt in hand ) the charge was reluctantly removed, with no explainations and no real apology. ( We had to take a lot of extra time to go to the counter inside the terminal to get this rectified.)
Then our credit card bill arrived this week, with an extra charge of Euro 18 added to the Sixt bill. The answer to my e mail inquiring about this charge yielded a reply that it was for "extra cleaning" required after the car's return.
(I can assure you that the car was as clean as it had been when we picked it up when we returned it. In fact, we rarely drove the car during our stay.)

I guess Sixt will stoop to any measure to get a few extra bucks out of it's customers, especially when they think being on the other side of the pond we have little recourse.

Am curious to know if anyone else has had this problem with them? And any ideas as to how to proceed from here? My company has a corporate agreement with Sixt and gives them a lot of European business. I doubt they will be pleased to here about this...:td:

first, what does your rental agreement say about the possibility of an additional cleaning charge or any charge after drop-off?

second, dispute it with the credit card company. for such a small fee, even if they don't get Sixt to back down, they just might eat it to keep you a happy customer.

nobody else had such an experience which is the reason why it hardly sounds believable

Sorry to contradict you, but as a regular card carrying Sixt customer (should I say "Future-ex-regular...") I have had and still have exactly the same kind of problems: Cars which are not filled although the gauge flirts with F, amounts added without reason, etc... Nothing that a strong rebuttal letter with copy to my company attorney will not correct, but it is aggravating. On top of this, long waits at the CDG counter, totally incompetent station manager, lack of cars, different categories from those reserved, cars invariably dirty and increasingly damaged without it being mentioned, especially for those who do not buy the insurance.

Finally, if you add to this that the "Customer Service" for all of France and Switzerland at Bale-Mulhouse airport is a joke, full of inept insolent and lazy girls who look upon themselves as what "stewardesses" were in the 1950's, you get the picture. Letters with problems from 2 years ago go unanswered, promises of a "Comp" remain... promises, that company is sinking fast.

It is true that the service differs from country to country and from station to station, so you could deduce to avoid Sixt except for Germany. The OP´s description in MUC is -for me as a frequent renter- a highly unlikely situation and an exceptional case: I´ve never had, especially with all major airport stations in Germany, similar experiences.

I've rented from Sixt a couple of times in Europe.. and I've been happy so far..
Thrifty is the one that ticked me off...

Certainly there is a difference between sixt in germany and the other countries (not even going to start whats happening at sixt in rome), but in germany all the things mentioned above are very unlikely.

In contrast to europcar and hertz. I had 4 rentals at hertz this year, every single time I had to complain so that in the end the final amount was reduced. They even told me once that they dont have a c class (which I booked) and actually wanted to call me that they cannot give me a car. appearantly they found a focus cmax for 1e less. they actually expected me to be happy.
I certainly had problems with sixt, but not this kind...

What kind of problems did you have lately - the usual "They dont honour the Plat Status and give bad cars?" :p
or more serious ones ??

:td:Sounds like there are at least a couple of loyal Sixt fans here that would rather not believe this incident has happened to me, but the fact is, it did.
And it did happen in Germany, contrary to expectations otherwise.

An e-mail asking for a description of the cleaning fee and what actually needed to be done to the car has as yet gone unanswered. (We just by luck have a couple of pix taken the day of return, showing the car to be "clean", so we'll see what response they bring...):confused:

I only mentioned that your incident was definitely an exception, so I would think twice, to avoid Sixt in the future due to the (nearly overall) great service, cars (and rates if your credit card covers the CDW).

The only situation I can remember was an offered (!) additional charge of 15 EUR at STR because of my premature arrival in the Sixt station at 11.20 a.m., having a weekend-reservation, which starts regularly at noon.

Had a coffee instead, came back at 11.45 and got a MB CLS for my LDAR reservation. Who cares, thanks.

Never had any problems like this ridiculous one ever.

I agree, this situation IS ridiculous !! Ridiculous to try to charge a customer for gas when the tank has just been filled; ridiculous to charge the customer a bogus "cleaning fee" when the car was returned clean, ( and to do it several weeks after the rental has ended, not at the time of return-)
And then to not reply to an inquiry as to what the cleaning charge was for---
also ridiculous!!
Whether we rent from Sixt again will be determined by how they handle this situation from here on in. It is too bad that this experience has tainted our feeling about doing business with them, because up until this fiasco we were very happy with both the car and the service.

In my experience last December in renting a car in Europe (South of France) I found that it was much cheaper to rent through an specialized agency than direct. And, if you do rent through the agency, they may go to bat for you if there is a problem--not that I had one.

There are several such agencies which rent through out Europe. The one I used was rentalcargroup.com

Hi mclain,

I'm a very regular renter with Sixt in Germany as well - I can fully understand what happenend to you as I experience this with at least 20% of my rentals:

I do get letters for damages I even found in the "Schadenskarte" on the back of the green insurance sheet.
I do get charged for fuel even if I filled the car five minutes and 100m away from drop-down.
I do sometimes get charged for extra cleaning, although their standard amount for that is 40 Euros.
They regularily "forget" our 40% discount when billing.
This even happens at stations where they know me and where I have around 30 rentals p.a..

With this cleaning issue: everytime they do this extra cleaning it is their procedure to make photos in order to have proof if the customers reports to customer service - if they cannot show you the photos customer service in Rostock ( [email protected] ) will remove this amount from your bill.

I recommend that everytime when you did not feel comfortable with your rental at Sixt to report to customer service - their quality management does work as I sometimes get a call back from the station where I experienced the difficulty and get told that they would prefer to be approached right away instead of complaining to customer service :rolleyes:

My 2 cents,

Felix

As I am casually checking my credit card statement today, I find a 80 euros charge separate from my last rental and 4 days later. No warning, no authorization, no reason given, and the only feasible one is to repair a minor damage which I noticed and reported in writing as I was taking the car. I am of course disputing the charge, the beauty being that nobody at Sixt can give me the slightest explanation about the reason for the charge.

And you call this almost flawless service ?

Add to this the permanent short filling of the tank, just enough to reach the F gauge and resulting in a 10 liter (3 Gal.) topping when I rent a car for the weekend and drive only 20 miles... you get the picture. To make it short I call it highway robbery on a regular basis.

Thanks, everyone, for your input and advice.

Still no response from Sixt, which only seems to strengthen my arguement that this is a scam. Will let you know what happens in the long run.

Sorry to hear that others are also having problems with Sixt, but at least it indicates that I'm not being singled out!

Unfortunately, this is because the previous renter was cheap. I experience the very same at pretty much every station I rent, no matter where or which rental company.

I experimented with this myself. I topped off several cars to the very limit in Calabasas. Arriving at LAX (35 miles), the gauge was still at F. Add the 20 miles you drive, and the 3 gal. pretty much figure :)

I actually have very good experiences with Sixt. And the Sixt service people in Rostock are very helpful.

OT: Reg. full tank. I always used to fill the tank right after I picked up the car and kept the receipt.
Last week I did *NOT* do this ... and it gave me some headaches. I was driving Alligator Alley (I-75) from Naples to Ft. Lauderdale (=120 Miles or so) About half the way - and there are no gas stations - the gauche was still F! So, maybe the gauche was not working .... and the tank could be almost empty ... luckily all turned out to be fine.

OK, all you guys complaining...
If you feel that sixt is not giving you the service and prices you expect, then I guess you have to change to europcar... (as hertz and avis are out of question because of high prices)
then you really get to know what unfriendly service and extra charge for gas is causing you trouble, even if you have the signature of a europcar employee on the contract saying that the car is not full.

I am surprised about all these complains going into a similar direction with extra charge for cleaning...
I have probably 50 rentals a year on very different stations, company rate as well as private over the weekend.
I have never heard of an extra charge for cleaning even though sometimes I return the car quite dirty (not on purpose!)

However, I would like to give an example of my last 4 weekends. booked CPMR at the airport (DUS/TXL) for 69,31e:
VW Beetle convertible, X3 2.0d fully equipped, Z4 3.0si, a4 2.0tdi

Maybe somebody can make a list at which stations these extra costs occur... DUS, MUC and TXL cannot be on the list as I am renting there frequently and never have problems.

and if you change to europcar that leaves more z4 to me :D for 69e I wont even mind if they chrage 15e for cleaning :p

I can fully agree with your experiences, sixtisbest.


What do you mean with "standard amount"? 40 EUR?
:confused:

I got charged a couple of times exactly this amount for interiour and/or exterior extra cleaning at different stations and got told by customer service in Rostock that this is indeed the common charge if they have a third party company do the cleaning.

My 2 cents,

Felix

I have only used Sixt a few times, but in each case did an international pre-pay for rentals in South Africa.

The team in JNB is a franchise and the service has been good to date.

Had the cleaning-problem with Europcar once in Italy but not in Germany and not with Sixt. Europcar told me that - in the Milan case - they write it in the contract that a cleaning-fee is charged after every rental. Unless it was only 2 € I didn´t care but nobody of the agents told me something about that.

Sixt once charged me fuel @FRA airport station but after I called them they thanked me for my complaint and told me that it happened more often the last days and that they think that they station tries to cheat them. No problem with getting the money back.

This is getting better and better...

I just found out (rental at CDG this morning) that the 80 euros charge is a "no show" charge for an "early bird" fare which I did not pick up at Paris/Orly on May 31, when what happened (acknowledged by Sixt as received and documented but "we cannot do anything about it") is that I signaled in writing 24 hours in advance that my flight was changed and arrived at the same date and time at Paris -CDG instead of ORY. I did of course pick up the car in time and date at CDG but it was treated as a walk-up new rental."An early bird rental at Orly is at Orly, non cancellable, non moveable and non refundable, period". This is going to court if necessary, guys.

if you would have simply went to cdg telling sixt that airline changed your schedule I am 100% sure they wouldnt have said anything and simply moved. I saw that happening at txl and they didnt complain and he had a prebooked tariff through some agency.

Dont want to defend sixt here that much, but seriously, go to europcar and hertz and see what they are doing.
after 5 rentals with hertz this year 1 of them was right and didnt get corrected.

btw, just send the bill to the airline who changed the plan. unless its ryainair, easyjet etc. they will pay for it.

...and pigs will fly ...

Well, Mr 100% sure, you lose, as I DID and THEY DIDN'T. Who do you think I am, Al Gore ? I may not have invented the internet but I usually go through the basics before I complain, if only because it saves time and aggravation

The "basics in the internet" will also tell you that the tariff you booked with sixt was not changeable.
I know its not your fault that the airline changes the destination/time, however, youre the one who booked an unchangable tariff, so in my opinion sixt is eligible to charge you for that.
However, it seems strange to me that they didnt agree to any compensation as you booked and paid for another car at the same time.

I would write a letter to the customer service (in paper, not email). Usually they pay more attention to that.

The basics of the internet for car rentals equal all airports serving the same city as one and only station, i.e. ORY and CDG should not have raised a problem. Since we are at it, what about segregating between terminals at the same airport, since the stations (desks and parking lots) are different ?

Also, your intimate knowledge of the tariff I used, as well as your handle, suggest that you may have more to do with Sixt than a passing customer. Should that be the case, please advise them that even more than a letter, claims made to the Secretariat d'Etat a la Consommation, a cross equivalent of the US Better Business Bureau and small claims court, have even more weight than a written complaint, emailed or post-mailed.

1. I dont understand why 2 different airports of a city should be handled as one. The cars are at one airport and the rental company plans for that.

2. I may be not only a passing customer with 2 rentals a week, but I wanted to point out here, that so far any dispute with sixt could be resolved in a normal manner and this is clearly not the case with hertz and europcar.

However, I admit that I have heard many times that Sixt at CDG is very bad, particularly because of different parkhouses in the different terminals and the car you want is always in a different terminal.

Example of sixt and hertz: For CPMR at sixt I got a z4, a4, x3, crossfire. Hertz told me for a c class rental (FDAR) that they only have a focus cmax without automatic in stock and that they were thinking about calling me to cancel my reservation because they didnt have any cars. And this to a hertz gold customer! btw, the rate for the focus was 1€ less than what the merc would have been.

Sixt Scams?
 

Well- today a good ending to the Sixt "scam" complaint:::)
An e mail saying they were sorry for the "confusion" and they are refunding the additional charges to our credit card. No explaination as to what the "confusion" was, nor why it took so long, but in the end they did what was right, which is what is important.

Thanks again to all who posted about this, and I hope Sixt will make your complaints right, too. Sadly, it seems keeping Sixt ( and other car rental agencies as well ) honest may be something we all have to work at, but this seems to prove that challenging them rather than letting them get away with these extra charges is the way to proceed.

I live in Zurich right now and use Sixt quite a bit (I am Platinum). The Zurich station (not airport) is fantastic. Service has always been friendly and efficient and their cars are second to none.

I used Sixt in Italy (Fumicino), and that was another story entirely. Did not have the car I ordered, indifferent/surly service and high prices. I understand Sixt in Italy is not connected to Sixt corporate (not sure the exact nature of relationship). I would not recommend them. However, they did respond to my inquiries about a price reduction via email and phone.

All in all, except for Italy, I am a big fan of Sixt!

fduvall

I've had a terrible experience with Hertz CDG. It was a prepaid rental, but they charged me again after returning the car (credit card). On the other hand I always have good experience with Avis, specially in Germany.

Can you tell in any way how AVIS in Germany can be useful? Since years now I havnt found a single rate which is somehow useful with this company: weekends are twice as much without insurance than europcar/Hertz/Sixt. During the week its not that much of a difference but still more. So for which tariff is it useful to go to AVIS?

You are kidding right?!

I have had in the past, as a platinum member, lots of unpleasant encounters with Sixt. - reserved car not avail., - car upgraded and than downgraded, - special cleaning fees, -vouchers not accepted, -incerdible unfriendly staff, -status not honored, - not quick car pick up ever.
The last time as I had an unsolved issue with them, due to overcharge and a charge back from my side, they didn´t want to give me a car. Issue was later solved, after I picked up a car from Avis.
That day I gave up on Sixt for ever.
I never had any issues with Avis. ANd the prices, for sure, were never "...weekends are twice as much without insurance than europcar/Hertz/Sixt..."

Do you work for Sixt?

After reading all the negative posts about Sixt, I will try another brand on my next trip to Europe.
Sorry Sixtisbest. Do you work for Sixt?

Avis Germany
 

I never use www.avis.de, but www.avis.com or www.rent-at-avis.com
AWD K817200 (American). So far, this is what i can get for a week, CDW/TP included (not using airport/railway stations):

Mini Smart Fortwo or similar (M) ( L ) 225.00 USD
Subcompact Opel Corsa or similar (M) ( L ) 225.00 USD
Compact Volkswagen Golf or similar (M) ( L ) 260.00 USD
Compact Mercedes A Class or similar (M) ( L ) 276.00 USD
Compact Mercedes Class or similar (A) ( L ) 457.00 USD
Intermediate Audi A3 Sportsback or similar (M) ( L ) 281.00 USD
Intermediate Wagon VW Passat Wagen or similar (M) ( L ) 308.00 USD
Full Size BMW 3 Series or similar (M) ( L ) 415.00 USD
Premium Mercedes C Class or similar (A) ( L ) 479.00 USD
Premium Mercedes E Class or similar (A) ( L ) 557.00 USD

You just have to add 5% for final price.
Although the base rate gets a little bit lower if i select the USA as country of residence (I live in Brazil), it doesn't include CDW/TP. With the CDW/TP included, it really gets much higher. :confused:

And then go check Sixt online for weekly prices and you almost get the same amounts. In EURO!!!
Example:
BMW 523 (Premium) Euro 488,99
Mercedes A class (Compact) Euro 311,99
and so on.

In my case, Avis has better week rates.
Sixt weekend rates are unbeatable in any case.
Check out the forum www.mietwagen-talk.de ^ (which I highly recommend). You can see there how popular Sixt is in Germany.

Greetings

no, I choose this name around 2 years ago, when sixt rented LDAR for 77e for the weekend in Germany. Sadly this time is over since Jan 2007.

Therefore I changed to Europcar and Hertz in Germany which is approx. 20% cheaper than Sixt. (for weekend prices)
However, the rates I know from avis in Germany are 1,5-2times as much as Europcar. (FDMR at Europcar and Hertz 75-80e, compared to 125 at Avis)
Thats why I am curious to find out for what Avis is useful.
Week rates are not interesting for me, only weekends!