CarRental8 Reviews 16,201

This is a cautionary tale about my experience with CarRental8.com and Green Motion in Edinburgh. If you value your time and holiday plans, I strongly advise you to look elsewhere.

My booking was made for a full-cover, unlimited mileage plan. However, upon arrival at the Green Motion counter, I was informed that the booking from CarRental8.com was a basic plan with limited miles and no insurance. To get the plan I had already paid for, I was told I needed to pay an additional £230. Despite showing my confirmation email, which clearly stated "full cover insurance" and "unlimited miles," the Green Motion staff repeatedly refused to honor it, stating their order from CarRental8.com was different.

The nightmare it’s not over here, CarRental8.com appears to be completely unreachable. My girlfriend and I tried multiple times to contact them, but there is no direct phone number, and none of my emails have been answered to this day. We felt completely helpless and stranded.

The situation was made worse by the sheer number of other customers at the counter experiencing the exact same issue, many of whom had also booked through CarRental8.com. After waiting for over two and a half hours, my order was inexplicably canceled by Green Motion, leaving us scrambling to find an alternative.

Our holiday plans were completely ruined. We were forced to book a last-minute car from another provider at a much higher cost. The entire experience was a fraudulent mess. Even after the trip, my attempts to stop the payment through my card company were unsuccessful, so I was forced to pay for a service that was never rendered. This entire ordeal caused significant stress and even led to arguments with my girlfriend. I will be telling everyone I know to steer clear of CarRental8.com and Green Motion.

If I could rate them lower I would. Yes they are cheap but they are cheap for a reason. They provided my family with an unsafe vehicle for a week to which we were told there was nothing they could do in the meantime until it’s returned. They tried to refund us $200 out of our $900 bill. It’s now been 3 weeks and we’re still fighting with them. The supervisor is “always busy” when we call to follow up. Do not book with them, they are 100% a scam. Their customer service is abhorrent and they do not care. Read the reviews on better business bureau before you book.

The Great Majorcan Car Rental Heist (Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Taxis)

Well, where do I begin with this masterclass in customer disappointment? We booked a car through carrental8 and once at Gold Car at Palma Airport we experienced how they have apparently perfected the art of turning what should be a simple car rental into an expensive magic trick - watch your booking disappear and your wallet get €950 lighter!

Here's how their "system" works: You book a car through a perfectly legitimate site like CarRental8.com, arrive excited for your holiday, and then - SURPRISE! - Gold Car informs you that the car you booked is actually a "different class" in their mysterious parallel universe booking system. The solution? Just hand over nearly €1,000 more and Bob's your uncle!

But wait, it gets better! When you dare to question this obvious scam, their staff transform into aggressive, confrontational warriors defending their sacred bait-and-switch operation. Any attempt at reasonable discussion is met with hostility and a complete unwillingness to help. It's like they've been specially trained in the fine art of being entirely unhelpful while somehow making you feel like YOU'RE the problem for expecting to get what you actually booked.

What really warmed my heart was discovering we weren't special - there were THREE other families outside their office sharing identical sob stories, all having endured the same aggressive treatment. It's almost heartwarming how consistently awful they are. At this point, I'm convinced they have a quota: "Jenkins, we need to scam at least 4 families per hour AND make them feel terrible about it, or we're not meeting targets!"

The customer service was so spectacularly appalling that I'm genuinely impressed. It takes real skill to be that unhelpful while maintaining such aggressive confidence in your bait-and-switch operation.

In the end, we walked away car-less and significantly wiser about the creative ways holiday budgets can evaporate. The taxi to our hotel cost a fraction of Gold Car's "upgrade" fee and came with a driver who actually seemed pleased to help us.

Unless you enjoy surprise financial adventures, aggressive confrontations with unhelpful staff, and have a burning desire to fund someone's creative accounting experiments, maybe try literally ANY other car rental company at Palma Airport.

Save your money, save your sanity, and save yourself the pleasure of Gold Car's "customer service."

Avoid like a sunburnt tourist in August

We arrived at our destination a day late due to flight delays completely outside of our control. Upon arrival, the rental car counter informed us that because we were a day late they could not honor our booking.

I contacted carental8.com and after a bit of persuading they issued me a full refund!

Don’t use this company’s services if you want to rent a car in Europe and you are European. You are paying Carrental(8), which is based in the USA, for nothing. They just reserve a car for you, and that’s all. They call it a prepayment, and you only see it after you have booked the car.

No TAXES, no FEES, and especially no INSURANCE are included. I paid them almost 200 EUR (for a 6-day rental – cheap, I know), and they made a reservation for me with Europcar. When I finally went to the desk, Europcar calculated an extra 500 EUR for insurance and taxes. So, in total, I paid almost 700 EUR. And they won’t rent you a car without the insurance fee If you are from Europe. It’s a complete scam.

My advice – never, ever use this company’s services while traveling in Europe.

Do not use this company, they have a history of not paying up when required. I booked an unlimited miles car in Scotland, when I returned the car, I was charged excess fuel because Car Rental 8 advised the company I rented from that I had a 1100 mile limit, but my booking confirmation from Car Rental 8 shows unlimited miles. I have had numerous emails back and forth and it is evident that they are not going to pay the excess fuel bill, even though it was their error. Be warned, stay away from using this company as a booking agent, they will rip you off. I am adding a review to every site I can in the sole hope that they lose more than the 52 pounds of refund I am requesting in future business,

Well its been 5 days since they responded to the message below, no contact and definitely no refund. I stand by my review above. Please don't use this company. I'm hoping at least that they lose more than 52 pounds as a result of this review.

Absolute scam this site wouldn’t recommend. I still have no clue what the £95 was for I paid to this site. I paid that then when I got to the desk I paid another £347 so in total I paid £442 to hire the smallest bog standard car for a week. You’re better off waiting till you get there and just go to the desk you will get it cheaper.

This outfit, CarRental8 is the most purposefully misleading online outlet. You can not rely on or trust any of their "promotional" materials when making a booking. Do not ever make a pre-paid booking with CarRental8 as they will clearly not honor any of the promises made, such as "free amendment", "flexible cancelations" and "no booking fees". Customer service representative is most aggressively abrasive person who has zero interest - none what so ever - to assist. Would highly recommend never to use this booking site, as this is just an other scamming outlet. BUYER WE FULLY AWARE - and run and find something reliable and honest.

In july 2025 We book and paid in full , a car rental for maui for 2 week in nov 2025,and then sale price dropped by $85 in august. I requested a amendment to booking and was approved within a week and $85 was credited to my card. Nice and thank you.

I had to add a day to out reservation and had difficulties doing it online because Carrental8 had changed their system since my original reservation. I was able to speak with someone who updated my reservation. Fingers crossed all goes smoothly at pickip

I wish i could give zero star. Total fraudulent website. I booked for my trip a d at counter thry charged again same amount and said its for security. Once i return car, put lot of fraudulent charges like gas was not filled, keys not put properly ( which i put)etc etc Also i at counter told i dont want insurance nd still they charge for insurance. I wish i could talk to person who ask me proof and i give him a photos. Seriously they ruined my tour

WARNING AVOID. They are OK when all goes smoothly but a very expensive nightmare when things don’t.
Had to cancel as airline cancelled my flight due to industrial action. I have emailed carrentals8 customer service 5 times over 6 days and they don’t/won’t respond. Personally I will never use this company again and unless anyone wants to risk the price of their booking suggest to everyone else try to avoid. There are far more reliable companies out there

- Customer service does not reply to emails, 4 days running now
My rental did not comply with their terms of Agreement.
My terms stated full to full fuel. I received the car with less that a quarter of a tank. It was not the local firms fault. Those are their terms which CarRental 8 had misrepresented.
My car was NOT an airport pick up, as I’d been told and as I’d requested. The main body of the letter said airport pickup but I didn’t notice in the small print the hire firm was 3km away. Again not the local firm’s fault. The number I was given did not reply and we had not been given instructions where to wait. It was chaos.
I’m still waiting for Custoner Service to reply to 4 emails that I’ve sent then each morning

Booked a 7 seater car. Turned up to an Italian airport with three young children in tow. They did not have a car for us. Could not even give us 2 cars instead. Told us to cancel and sort out own car. This was nearly 11pm at night. Had to get a taxi to our accommodation and waste half the next day trying to sort a car. Shocking customer service telling us different things. Have been told we can have any extra costs reimbursed but are still waiting for a reply to original e mail.

Incredibly bad service.

From sending me an e-mail requesting a payment to cancelling from their end 45mins!!!!
You literally gave me no chance to even process the payment.

Terrible!

Avoid this company

Terrible - made a booking they sent me details of a website (no number) and got the time wrong so the rental company wasn’t there when we got there - had to wait over an hour - book with somebody else these guys are charlatans ref 275126409

Case number is 4589798 or ZEZNLZ-DGXXP.

I paid for additional insurance cover. However you have not provided any details of the terms and conditions of the insurance, how to make a claim and who the underwriter is. Please respond to my emails and queries..

I rented a 12 passenger van for my family vacation. I show up to Budget car rental at the airport. I gave them my booking number and they said they didn’t have my vehicle I had reserved and paid for over a month prior. They said there was nothing they could do other than give me my money back. It’s been two weeks after my rental and I’ve tried to contact them over 6 times and they still haven’t given me my refund. They said it will be another 10 days.

Issue when collecting hire car. Tried to call car rental 8, 3 times and sent 5 separate emails to try and get them to help resolve it.
After an hour with a 5 and 2 year old who were very distressed, there was still no response. We ended up having to pay out of pocket for another hire car.
We sent another 2 emails after doing this and over a week later, we have still not heard from car rental 8. Extremely disappointed. Hopefully they will read this and finally reach out as the 7 emails and phone calls we have made have gone unanswered for over a week.

I booked a reservation on Aug 09, 2025 for Aug 13, 2025 - Aug 18, 2025 and was confirmed by carrental8.com, card was charged and basically everything went through. On Aug 11, 2025, I received a email saying that my reservation was cancelled. I clicked on the link to find out why and it said that it was cancelled by ME. I then called the first customer service representative and was provided that my reservation was not confirmed by Avis and so it was cancelled, there is nothing else they can do. I asked to speak to a supervisor, who named Genet Mahti and was given that the reason for the cancellation was due to a fraud in my credit card. I told Genet to send me something in writing explaining this and was given an terribly written email with wrong dates. I asked to speak to someone else and she basically said "Nope, there is nothing more we can do, no more helping, this is your problem now." At this time, I was given three different reason why my reservation was cancelled. I called my bank and verified that everything went through and nothing is suspicious. I also called Avis and they said that they have confirmed the reservation but then it was cancelled the the third party company - which is carrental8.com. Absolute horrible customer service. I am now stranded with looking for a different option that is more than doubled my initial price due to last minute booking. DO NOT RENT WITH THIS COMPANY!