ROME – Summer time and car rental companies are doing great business ripping off tourists with obscure pricing systems, many of which contravene Italian anti-trust legislation. An Italian Insider investigation discovered that Sicily by Car and Maggiore are among the biggest offenders bamboozling the unsuspecting and wary tourist in the Eternal City.

 SIcily by Car has the distinction of charging extra if you pay for one of their cars using a debit card rather than a credit card. Debit card users are obliged to pay a steep daily insurance rate that is voluntary for credit card users.

 While the consortium owning Maggiore, Avis and Budget in Italy charges you considerably less if you extend a two day rental by two days, even if originally booked by a broker site, Sicily by Car charges significantly more. Moreover while Maggior, Avis and Budget only take an authorisation from a debit card as a deposit against possible damage etc, Sicily by Car cashes the deposit from your card and charges a higher deposit for debit card holders.

 A spokeswman for SIcily by Car was unwilling immediately to comment. 

Maggiore for its part specialises in charging for non existent damage to cars if you don’t buy their insurance. An evil lady called Barbara at Maggiore’s drop off point at the Rome Termini station garage discovered what she claimed was a hairline crack in a plastic wing mirror in the car that Italian Insider returned.

 Even the Maggiore employee who cleans the cars told us “that is nothing that can’t be removed with a little polish, unfortunately it’s not me who makes the decisions.”  

Barbara was determined to find something to punish the customer for not paying for insurance, and she duly charged 200 euros on my card for the non existent crack. A complaint to customer service naturally got nowhere.

So be warned. Maggiore and Sicily by Car have got ripping off tourists and visitors to a fine art. The only honest company we can recommend in the Eternal City is Morini.

jf