Undercover Which? investigation shows holiday car hire customers are being taken for a ride

You land in the searing heat of continental Europe, make it through customs and head to the baggage carousel, hoping your luggage is in the same place you are.

After that, there is just one more hurdle to overcome before your well-deserved holiday can begin: the car rental desk.

And that’s where things can really start to stall.

A recent Which? survey found travellers faced a range of issues when hiring cars on holiday, with as many as nine in 10 (89 per cent) concerned that car hire companies would take advantage of them during the process.

Pressure selling - as if holidaymakers weren’t hot and bothered enough - was a particular concern for one in six customers, who said they felt under ‘a lot’ of pressure to buy additional insurance at the desk, despite already having adequate cover.

To see how passengers are dealt with at the airport rental desks, Which? sent undercover investigators to Spain.

We visited popular destinations including Alicante and Malaga, posed as regular customers and filmed the interactions with secret cameras.

The footage made for concerning viewing.

We caught agents deploying a range of pressure tactics, including making untrue and potentially misleading statements about existing cover, as well as telling customers they could be liable for hundreds of euro worth of damage.

One undercover agent was told they could have to pay €760 (£648) - potentially more than the sum total of a family’s return flights - for one scratch if they didn’t pay for additional cover.

If you hire a car in Europe, the basic insurance - known in the business as a Collision Damage Waiver - is always included in the rental price, but if anything happens to the car the excess payable can be eye-watering.

That means it’s sensible to buy an Excess Reimbursement Policy (ERI) so that you can claim back any excess paid.

Alternatively, you can purchase a Super Collision Damage Waiver (SCDW) from the car hire firm directly but it can cost hundreds of pounds more, often with inferior coverage.

Not wanting to miss an opportunity, some car rental staff upsell customers SDCW in the hope of making the company extra profits.

One industry insider told us that car hire staff are often incentivised to upsell SDCW for a commission.

In Malaga, a mystery shopper was told that their ERI policy wasn’t valid, and the thing they bought on the internet ‘is for nothing’ - a statement likely to worry any traveller keen to leave the airport, hit the road and get to their accommodation as soon as possible.

The problem was: the ERI policy was entirely valid.

To be clear: upselling isn’t against the law.

But under the Consumer Protection From Unfair Trading Regulations it is illegal to use misleading or aggressive practices that are likely to lead to a customer making a purchase they would not otherwise have made.

We believe that the experiences of many of our mystery shoppers matched that description.

Spain has similar consumer protections, meaning holidaymakers should be free to hire a car without facing further pressure.

If you’re planning on a summer holiday this year and hiring a car, don’t get taken for a ride.

Make sure you book with a reputable provider or broker and to avoid pressure from pushy agents, buy your own ERI before travelling.

To read more about the Which? investigation into car hire companies and watch the undercover video filmed as part of the investigation, visit www.which.co.uk