Car Rental Scams, Europcar

Make sure you dispute this with your credit card, hopefully they will help you fight

The charges are likely legitimate, drop off in another country is ungodly expensive, plus you sought to change the rental period.. Disputing it with your credit card probably is to no avail, if Europcar can show the charges are per contract, they can do nothing.

I am sorry you had medical issues, but that is really of no concern to the rental company, why should they take a hit for your issues? I am sure your travel insurance would cover some of the cost, if you had no separate policy, look at the card you used to rent the car, they may have a complementary trip insurance policy as a benefit.

Not trying to argue with you, just saying that I doubt this is a "scam".

Having sifted throught the extraneous, and frankly irrelevant details, it seems your complaint is about the high fee charged for dropping off the car in a different country. This is neither a scam, nor unusual, nor limited to Europcar. Indeed a warning about this is one of the most common when it comes to postings on this site about multicountry driving trips. Had you done sufficient due diligence before renting the car, you would have known about this possibility. As for your claim about what was said by the rental agent at pick up, it's worth nothing unless you have it in writing. This undoubtedly sounds harsh, but it is just the facts. You aren't going to get anywhere with Europcar, and I doubt a credit card challenge would be productive, since the drop off fee is a known thing. However you may be able to claim it on your trip interruption insurance claim.

I am so sorry about the stubborn medical issues you ran into. This must have been a scary, frustrating experience even before you ran into the problem with the car.

Large international drop fees are common; the agency has to send an employee to pick up the car and drive it back to the home country, because a car with German tags cannot be rented out in Croatia. There's a loss-of-use expense during that recovery period, because the car can't be rented to others until it is returned to Germany. The distance from Zagreb to Stuttgart is over 450 miles, and ViaMichelin estimates the driving time (with no traffic delays) at about 8 hours. So that's a full day's work plus the time required for the driver to travel from somewhere in Germany to Zagreb. The direct costs would include the labor costs (with some overtime perhaps involved), probably at least one hotel night, the driver's travel expenses to Zagreb plus driving costs for the return, which ViaMichelin estimates at €105.67 for tolls, fuel, and highway vignette(s) for Slovenia and/or Austria.

The substantial extra expenses caused by dropping the car off in Zagreb notwithstanding, I've never read of a fee this high; the worst ones I've seen mentioned were between $1000 and $2000. It seems that Europcar may be taking advantage of this situation since there's no language in your contract specifying the fee for dropping a German car in Croatia.

I don't know whether you'll have any luck with your credit card company, but it won't hurt to try. I suggest pricing out a fake booking starting in Stuttgart for the same length as your original rental, then checking to see what that booking would cost with an early return in Zagreb. How much does the rental rate increase? If the international drop charge on the new booking is much, much less than the $4091 fee you're being charged, that may buttress your argument. (I realize that the timing of the rentals is different, which can be pointed to as a reason why the costs are not the same.)

I’m very sorry this happened to you, but it’s not Europecars fault that you didn’t check the drop off cost on their website as advised by them. You write that this is hard to do when you are on the road, but lots of hotels, restaurants etc have WiFi available for their guests.
I do agree with previous comments that suggest that $4091 is quite a hefty drop off fee. Are you sure that the $4091 is just the one way drop off fee? Or could it be that there are other costs included in that amount?

I would take this up with your travel insurance, but essentially you broke your original contract with Europcar, albeit due to a medical emergency. This is not a scam. They told you that you could return the car to any location. This is true. But they are charging you for returning the car to the original destination. This is very common when renting in one country and returning in another. The amount does seem excessive, but I’ve seen one way charges of $1,000 when researching rentals.

Elliott Advocacy is a non-profit that helps individuals advocate for themselves. Take a look at their website. I've linked a page that lists an executive contact at europcar who you can contact to request that your case gets re-looked at.

https://www.elliott.org/company-contacts/europcar/

There were extenuating circumstances in your case, so even if the charges are not completely removed, hopefully they can be reduced.

Car rental companies do have to physically transport vehicles back to their home country in order to rent them out again. But they hire out retrieving vehicles to outside companies that fetch the car and bring it back. They usually piggyback them on transport trucks or rollbacks as we know them. They don't have time to send their own employees to drive vehicles.

It's about 325 miles from Zagreb to the nearest big German city--Munich. Transporting a vehicle in the U.S. per mile costs $.50 a mile on average. Obviously you are being taken advantage of by the car rental company.

Eurocar's Terms and Conditions are noted here: https://www.europcar.com/files/live/sites/Europcar/files/Conf_email_attachment/CGL_EN_DE.pdf

The first problem is that you were driving in Slovenia and Croatia, and they prohibit their German rental cars from being driven there. The rental agent should have asked you where you were going to be traveling. See Page 4. They refer you to their Hamburg Customer Relations at +49 (0)40 520 188 000 if you have questions.

This is such a jack leg outfit, that if you drive to other countries that they do allow you to visit, the want to charge you f7.50 Euros for a "Cross Border Fee." That's a new one on me.

Have you been furnished with a specific list of the post rental charges on this transaction Is it consistent with the Appendix at the end of their Terms and Conditions.

If you have a dispute that cannot be settled directly, you may can have the dispute mediated at: European Car Rental Conciliation Service (ECRCS) (http://www.ecrcs.eu), There's also another mediation service listed in the Terms and Conditions.

"The first problem is that you were driving in Slovenia and Croatia, and they prohibit their cars from being driven there."

Wait, what? This just keeps getting better and better.

First time poster with a long story and labeling the problem a scam. Nonsense. You got sick. As a result you had to change your plans and encountered an additional expense. You did buy travel insurance, right? That is where you should look. The auto rental company will have little interest in your travails. I doubt your credit card company will help but who knows.

Terms and conditions of hire of EMobG Services Germany GmbH Version 03/2022

Here's what it says on p.4 (my emphasis):

3) WHERE MAY I DRIVE THE VEHICLE (CONTRACTUAL TERRITORY) The renter and the driver are not allowed to use the vehicle outside the contractual territory. The contractual territory is Europe with the exception of the countries mentioned below for the respective vehicle category.

Prohibited countries for all vehicle categories: Albania, the Baltic Republics, Bulgaria, Greece, Iceland, Romania, Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia, Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Moldova, Russian Federation, Malta, Ukraine, Belarus and Cyprus.

Prohibited countries for the vehicle category Selection, as well as for vehicle categories Full Size (except minibus of this category) and higher: Great Britain, Ireland, Italy, Croatia, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Czech Republic and Hungary.

Anyone interested, click on the link provided above to download the pdf details.

Since the car was taken somewhere it was not supposed to go from Germany, EuropeCar may not care about the circumstances for your inability to return it to Stuttgart as originally planned.

Having said that, it still might be worth the effort to try to get the costs reduced.

The Elliot recommendation above is a good one. The cost is eye popping so makes a good column item, plus the charges cannot be justified. Likely Europcar will be shamed into lowering the fee.

Noting that a major car rental company in Arkansas had terms prohibiting driving their cars in Alabama or Florida, so even state restrictions exist in the US. I even called and asked if they were serious and they said they were.

What is this obsession with alleged scams in Europe? People make it sound like a continent of third world countries all out to extract as much money from you with a litany of scams. The simple response is to do your homework before you travel and stop expecting the rest of the world to work in the same way as it does at home.

Well, and to follow the terms of your contract (leaving aside the sickness and having to leave the car in a different country, it appears the OP was never supposed to have taken the car to Croatia in the first place).

it appears the OP was never supposed to have taken the car to Croatia in the first place.

From above - maybe / maybe not

Prohibited countries for the vehicle category Selection, as well as for vehicle categories Full Size (except minibus of this category) and higher
.
Irrespective of any of that, you cannot just drop a car anywhere in Europe without paying drop-off charges - unless you've somehow, someway negotiated otherwise.