autovia.it - Firenze Aeroporto Reviews 

​I am writing to share my disappointing experience with Autovia. When I picked up the car, the attendant offered additional insurance. Since I already had full coverage through Rentcars, I politely declined. The agent then informed me that any new scratches would cost 300 Euros, stating that the car was "new."
​However, the vehicle I received had 95,000 km on the odometer, was not clean, and had at least 15 pre-existing marks. Thankfully, I took detailed photos and videos of the entire car before driving away.
​Upon returning the vehicle, I was surprised when they claimed I damaged the windshield and attempted to charge me 944 Euros. I asked them to show me the initial check-in inspection to prove the damage wasn't there before, but they could not provide any photos. Fortunately, my own footage from the pickup day clearly shows that the scratch on the windshield was already there.
​I have reached out to Autovia's customer service to resolve this issue amicably, but my messages have been completely ignored. As a result, I have forwarded my evidence and filed a formal complaint with the ECC (European Consumer Centre).
​I highly recommend thoroughly documenting your vehicle with photos and videos if you use their services, though I personally suggest choosing a more transparent rental agency.

Do not use them if you're an American. They will not rent a car to you without an international permit and try to keep any deposit you have them to secure the car. Do yourself a favor and go next door to Sixt. They are nicer and will rent you a car

This company will try to rip you off.
I booked through them online to pick up in Florence.
When I arrived, the rental agent said I had to pay an additional fee for insurance because my wife (Tarah Taylor), the driver, had no international driver's license (IDL). He said all the other agencies required one too. I checked with the other agencies there.
None did. He lied.
When I pointed out his lie, the agent started screaming at me and refused to rent me a car, stranding us.
This was completely unprofessional, yet when informed about him, the company refused to even address him at all.
To make up for the lack of an IDL, he claimed I needed additional insurance. This does not even make sense. How does additional insurance offset the ability or inability of a police officer to read my wife's driver's license? It doesn't. It is obviously a scam to increase the rate non-Europeans (Americans) have to pay, ripping us off.
No other agencies have this hurdle.
The employee should be fired.
Any Americans renting from AutoVia should be made aware their bills will be almost double the agreed upon price.
It is far better to go with an honest rental agency.
Since they are this dishonest at renting, they will be just as dishonest when it comes to other issues too.

At the moment, all perfect👍

The car will cost you far more than the quote.
The company uses scams to force people to get unnecessary insurance. In my case, they said I needed an international driver's license and that all the other agencies at the airport required one. I checked. None of the other agencies do. There was no such requirement in their literature.
They then said I needed full insurance because I did not have the International DL. A lie. There is no connection. They then claimed my credit card would not cover car damages. Another lie. It does.
When I calmly contested the lies, the agent started shouting at me to deflect and refused to rent me a car.
He only changed his mind when he realized that this would go to (court) because AutoVia had already accepted payment.
I travel a lot. This is the worst experience ever.
I have contacted the company 3 times over the past month. No reply.

I would like to file a serious complaint regarding a car rental company I booked through Expedia during my recent trip to Italy.

At the time of pickup, I declined the additional insurance offered by the rental company as I have insurance through my travel insurance company. When returning the vehicle, the staff suddenly identified several extremely small scratches and stone marks that were never noticeable during my rental and that I certainly did not knowingly cause. These were tiny signs of normal wear that could happen to any vehicle in daily traffic.

I felt heavily pressured and unfairly accused simply because I had declined their insurance package. The entire experience gave me the strong impression that customers without additional insurance are specifically targeted for questionable damage claims after return. This seems like their business model.

This behavior is unacceptable and seriously damages trust in both the rental company and the Expedia platform. As a loyal customer, I expect Expedia to work only with fair and transparent partners.

I strongly encourage Expedia to investigate this company and reconsider continuing any partnership with them, as this experience felt highly deceptive and unprofessional.

I would appreciate a response regarding how Expedia intends to handle this matter.

Kind regards,
Michael Schmutzer

We received such a good service from the desktop employee Munir at the airport of Florence. As a 75 year old women, travelling individually with my "old" girlfriend, he helped us patiently in every way he could. ​It diserves a special recognition compared to another car rental company at the airport.

We had the worst experience.

We made the reservation on booking.com with a debit card (I didn’t know the difference then) and the guy refused to give our car because I didn’t have a credit card. We had to cancel our reservation (lost 200€) and had to book another card with the credit card of a friend.

When we took the car, we noticed a scratch that wasn’t on the contract. The guys at the counter was apparently really irritated by us and came to check. He said that it was on the contract on line 11, when line 11 was for another bump. When we asked him to make it appear it took his ruler out and said it was okay that we could leave like that. We believed him and now after giving back the car in Rome, we are asked to pay 265€ for this scratch which we are not responsible for.

This brand is a joke and a very huge scam. I have been renting car for almost 10 years and this by far has been the most stressful land the worst experience I had so far.

Everything was fine I had a small car for 3 days. The guys at the reception were very nice and friendly and spoke good English. Monyie checked my car after bringing it back. Price and regulation were fair.

Scammers. The guy was super rude when renting it and basically had an attitude, either you take the insurance or we will find a damage. We had the car for a day, they did not want to look at damages when we came back and claimed the next day there was 3 scratches in different places and that when renting it for a day. Never made a worse experience.

Thank you, to Oleg! Very professional and fast service, all is super! Highly recommended!

Very good experience. Salvatore was very comprensive, good communication and very helpful with our case.

Very bad and unwelcoming man at the desk (the small one without hair). He wanted to charge us much more than the reservation we did and canceled the reservation.
Do not listen People with earplugs on.
Never had and experience like this in many years. So unrespectfull for Customers .
Never try again with this company.

Very friendly and competent staff at the car park, very cleaneng car.

This company is a bad joke with inferior UX/CX: long queues, very slow employees, check-in of at least 20min, sub zero IT support with broken tablets, low qualified employees making jokes on customers in Italian language, no names of employees available, inflated insurances, clerks call you “my friend", no one is responsible for anything…we had a car with a technical issue and they knew it, and endless nightmare…Amex card holders, watch out, you will get an upgrade and then the disaster starts, guess you know why;-) Will take this experience to create a business case for my students “How NOT to run a business, or, how to lose customers asap”. If their owners would act consequently they’d capitalise on AI and introduce online services along the entire process chain…All in all, zero trust, avoid this company, hands off! And, please, AutoVia, don’t respond with your standardised texts, we are sorry, we will work on it...

Absolutely horrible horrible experience. I arrived on time for my 9:30 pickup and waiting in line for an hour as they had one woman working. At 10:30, a small bald man arrives and joins her at the desk and it’s my turn. He is rude, condescending, and has zero customer service skills. He tells me that I need to buy their insurance plan because I don’t have an international drivers lisence. I show him that I already paid for it and booked full insurance when I paid for the car through booking.com. He tells me that that insurance isn’t valid, and. I need to buy theirs or I can’t take a car. I argue with him saying I am not paying double insurance and he tells me to later try to get the one I booked through booking.com refunded. I question him on why I would need to do that and he says that it’s because I am American and don’t have an international driver permit. I then take out my international driver permit and he tells me that no, it is missing a stamp so it isn’t valid. This scammer continues to bully me and charges me $400 euro extra for NOTHING when I had already paid that through booking.com. I later rented another car through a different company in Italy , “ noleggiare” and had the complete opposite experience. No scamming, no added fake fees, no forcing of double insurance and was told my international drivers license is 100% legit. RUN. Do not give this place any of your money, I plan to take legal action.

We had the most appalling experience, marked by unprofessionalism and outright racist behaviour. Despite booking our car months in advance, the company ruined the start of our trip by suddenly insisting we present two credit cards instead of one, even though a single card had more than enough limit to cover the expenses.

Instead of helping us find a solution, the staff at the counter were hostile and dismissive. Shockingly, one individual began ganging up on us and making racist remarks, including calling us “piece of shit” and speaking derogatorily in Italian, assuming we wouldn’t understand.

They refused to assist us in any way, leaving us stranded and forcing us to forfeit our deposit money. This was not only appalling customer service but also deeply offensive behaviour.

Avoid this company at all costs.

Disgraceful Experience – Rude, Dishonest, and Racist

We booked a car months in advance at a great price, but when we arrived, the company looked for excuses not to honor the booking. They suddenly demanded two credit cards as a guarantee — something never mentioned on the booking voucher. When we asked for proof, the staff said the terms were “600 pages long” and refused to show us.

The staff were extremely rude, openly unhelpful, and at one point told us: “We will not give you the car – do what you like.”

To make matters worse, we were insulted with a racial slur — being called “a piece of shit” because of the color of our skin. This is beyond unacceptable and clearly discriminatory.

This company hides behind unclear terms, mistreats customers, and engages in outright racism. No one should have to go through this. Do not book with them

Had the most awful experience with these guys! Booked cars in advance, only to find out on the day that every key person requires two physical credit cards on them. None of that was shared in the booking email. Made multiple calls to their office as advised by the front desk people. Got no where. Ended up paying €1200 at Avis to get a car on the spot as we never managed to get our car we booked months in advance with Autovía. Cost us so much more, ruined our holiday, took no responsibility!
Horrible rude, racist staff. They swore at us in Italian thinking we won’t understand. Avoid them like plague!

When siging the paperwork and collecting the keys there was an agent on the desk and another agent behind, guessing a manager / supervisor, and they did not advise that we need to check the car for damage and to put it on page 2 of the rental document. We were not shown to the car, and just told to sign the paperwork and can have the keys. Luckily I took multiple pictures and videos of the car before we left the rental car park as there was damage to the rear of the car. When we dropped the car back, they tried to say that we made that damage as we did not highlight the damage on page 2 of the paperwork before we left. I showed them the proof of the damage from before we took the car, however they said that it has to go to their 'damage department' and they will email us when we can then appeal this with the proof that we have. Very ridiculous as we showed the agent the proof of the damage when he was looking at the condition of the car.

We have since heard back from the claims/damage department and they have said that preexisting damages are listed in the existing damage box, and that we signed that there was no extra damage, even though both the agent and supervisor never told us that we were signing to say this, and that we need to check the car before siging, they said just sign the paperwork to get the car, they also said no extra damage or anomalies were reported to staff before using the vehicle, we have provided pictures with timestamps to prove that this is not the case. I also took a video at the handover when we returned the car of conversation with the agent stating that we did not cause the damage, to which he agreed after seeing the proof and said we just need to email the pictures to them once we hear back, and they will close the case, which is obviously not the case as they are disputing this.

I would never use this company again, as clearly they are just trying to get money out of us for damage we did not cause. The car had multiple scretches and dents, so they obviously do not use the money they charge other customers for damage to repair the cars.

They are trying to scam money out of us, for not disclosing the correct procedures and relying on us being foreign to not understand what we are signing.