rentalcar-refundDid your rental company charge you after you gave the car back?
A car hire company took money from your card weeks later? Rental days billed after the vehicle was returned, a deposit never released, damage charged with no contradictory inspection, fuel counted twice, insurance imposed at the counter. Centauro, Goldcar, Record go, Sixt, Hertz, Europcar and the rest, in Portugal, Spain, Italy, Greece, everywhere. These situations recur, from one company to the next and from one country to the next. File your case and leave with your letters already written.
Can a rental company charge for rental days after the car has been returned?
No, not for a period during which the vehicle was of no use to them. A professional may only invoice services actually provided. If the car was returned to the agreed place, before the contractual time, and the company was told in writing, the days billed while it sat immobilised correspond to no service at all. On top of that comes a duty most people never hear about: the duty to mitigate one's own loss. A company that knows exactly where the vehicle is and takes six days to collect it bears that delay itself. A clause in the contract does not exempt it from either rule.
Five disputes, every rental company, all of Europe
The story changes, the mechanism does not: a sum taken from a card after the fact, with no itemised account and no supporting document, and a complaint that most people give up on along the way. Each type has its own arguments, and your letters are written with the ones that fit your case.
Charges after the car was returned
Office closed, early flight, no key drop-box. You give the car back, and the "rental" keeps running on your card. A service that was not provided cannot be invoiced, and the company must limit its own loss.
Deposit never released
A deposit is a guarantee, not a payment. Keeping it requires an actual loss, quantified item by item. With no itemised account and no invoice, the retention is a disguised penalty.
Damage charged without proof
A scratch that was already there, an inspection carried out without you or at night, an internal price grid unrelated to the real cost. The burden of proof lies with the professional, not with you.
Fuel charged twice
Tank returned as required and fuel invoiced anyway, or a fuel deposit kept and fuel charged on top. The same item is not paid for twice, and administrative fees must match a real service.
Insurance forced at the counter
Cover presented as compulsory, or as the condition for handing over the keys of a vehicle already paid for. A service you did not request is not owed, and counter pressure has a name in consumer law.
And your company, whichever it is
Centauro, Goldcar, Record go, InterRent, OK Mobility, Firefly, Sixt, Hertz, Avis, Europcar, Enterprise, Klass Wagen, Guerin, Marbesol and the others. If yours is not on the list, just write its name: the letters adapt.
The free official remedy depends on the country you rented in: complaints register in Portugal, complaint form in Spain, ombudsman in Greece, conciliation in Italy, SignalConso in France. The portal picks the right one for you.
Five free levers to get your money back
These levers are independent of each other: you only need one to give way. None of them costs anything, and the portal writes all the letters in your name.
- Written complaint to the rental company, dated facts, exact amount, a 14-day deadline. This is the prerequisite every other procedure demands.
- The official remedy of the country you rented in: the Livro de Reclamações in Portugal, the hoja de reclamaciones and consumer arbitration in Spain, chamber of commerce conciliation in Italy, the Consumer Ombudsman in Greece, SignalConso in France, the FPS Economy in Belgium.
- European Consumer Centre of your country of residence, free of charge, which refers the case to its counterpart in the company's country.
- Card payment dispute for services not provided and unauthorised additional charges, to be started within 60 to 120 days of the charge. Use your bank's secure messaging or complaints form, almost never a plain email. If the bank refuses, insist on a written and reasoned refusal: it is what opens the free financial ombudsman.
- Legal expenses insurance, often included in a car or household policy without you knowing: the insurer appoints a lawyer at its own cost.
Free, no commission, no power of attorney. The portal prepares everything; you send the letters from your own mailbox, because you are the party to the contract.
Three questions, thirty seconds, and the trap closes on nobody
This dispute does not come from a badly read contract. It comes from three checks nobody thinks of making at the moment of paying.
Does my return flight leave before the office opens?
In most southern European airports the desks are not open around the clock. If your flight takes off early, you will be returning the car with the office closed. Opening hours are checked before paying, not at 4 in the morning.
Is there a key drop-box, or an out-of-hours procedure?
Ask in writing, by email or chat, and keep the answer. If it is negative or evasive, change company: almost every competitor at the airport offers one.
Already there? Then document everything
Time-stamped photos of the vehicle (four sides and interior), of the fuel gauge, the odometer, the car park ticket. An email to the branch the same day, with the location. Those photos are worth a fortune three weeks later.
This site was born of one documented dispute
A Belgian customer at Faro airport, Portugal, in July 2026. Car returned to car park P4 at 04:15, eight hours before the contractual deadline, office closed until 08:00, no key drop-box and no out-of-hours procedure ever communicated. The branch was informed by email the same morning, with the exact location and time-stamped photos, and the key was posted by tracked courier at its request. Six days later, 759.33 € was taken from the card for the "rental" and "insurance" of a vehicle locked in a car park whose position the company had known all along. The company kept refusing, through its lawyers, on 1 September. The full 759.33 € was recovered on 15 September 2026: 100 € returned by the company, 659.33 € refunded by the bank, two business days after a written request for a statutory refund of a payment whose amount was not known when the card was handed over (Articles 76 and 77 of Directive 2015/2366: eight weeks to ask, ten business days for the bank to refund or refuse in writing). The bank gave no written explanation: the link between that request and the refund is our inference from the date, the reference and the amount.
Your complete file, in four steps
This is not a contact form. At the end of these four steps you leave with your letters already written in your name, matched to your rental company, to the country you rented in and to your type of dispute, your evidence kept safe, and and your case added to the group file, which will be sent to the consumer authorities once it gathers enough comparable cases.
- 1You and the rental
- 2What happened
- 3Confirmation
- 4Your documents
Free, no commission. There is nothing to pay, neither now nor if you get your money back.
Enter the code you received by email
A six-digit code has just been sent to . It proves the address is yours: without it, no case enters the group action, and that is what protects the portal from waves of fake filings.
Remember to check your spam folder. The code stays valid for 24 hours.
Upload your evidence
Your case is active and your letters are on their way to your mailbox. The most important part is left: the documents. A file without evidence gets negotiated, a documented file gets settled. Every PDF you upload is read automatically to complete your letters. And later, every answer you receive: paste it on your page and we will write the reply.
PDF or photos, 5 MB per file, 20 files maximum. Your photos are resized automatically before upload, you have nothing to do. Your files sit in a private space: never published, never passed to commercial third parties.
Your letters, already filled in with your details, are attached to the email you have just received. They can also be downloaded here at any time.
Download my letters as PDF Open my case page
The next step, without waiting: send the complaint to the rental company. The bank dispute deadline is the one that expires first. And as soon as they answer you, paste their reply on your case page: it is what decides the next step.
What we get asked most often
Can a rental company charge for days after the car was returned?
A company may only charge for services actually provided and provided for in the contract. If the vehicle was returned to the agreed place before the contractual time and the company was informed, days billed while the car sat parked correspond to a service that was never rendered. Signing the initial contract does not authorise charges set unilaterally after the rental has ended.
The contract says I am liable until the branch collects the car. Am I stuck?
A clause does not release the company from its duty to mitigate its own loss, nor from its pre-contractual duty to inform. A company that knows your flight time, offers no out-of-hours procedure and waits six days to collect a car whose position it knows cannot put that delay on you. This is precisely the kind of clause regulators and arbitration bodies treat as disproportionate.
My bank refuses the chargeback because "I signed the contract". What now?
That is the standard counter answer. Insist in writing with the bank's complaints department, citing the card scheme reasons "services not provided" and "unauthorised additional charges". Demand a written, reasoned refusal: it is what opens the door to the banking ombudsman in your country.
How long do I have to act?
Card dispute: act within 60 to 120 days of the charge, the exact limit depends on the scheme and your bank. Complaint to the company, official national remedy, European Consumer Centre: no short deadline, but the faster you move the better it works.
What does the group action actually do?
It gathers similar, documented cases in order to: refer them collectively to the consumer authorities of the country of rental, back individual European Consumer Centre complaints with evidence of a recurring practice, alert the travel press, and where appropriate instruct a lawyer for a joint step. On your own you negotiate; a hundred cases change the practice.