Malta First Car Hire & Argus website

I visited Argus Car Rental and they sent me a voucher that provided a link to Car Trawler, who gave me a cheap deal with Malta First Car Hire. It was to be a Peugot 107 but most of these cars are similar car sizes, i was given a Hyundai.

Firstly they were keen to get me to buy their daily insurance, as the excess was euro 1200 ! I have an annual cover which cost me for the year the equivalent of their two days of cover!

They then proceeded to charge me for a half tank of fuel (return empty) which they wished to charge me euro 45, now this car holds 35 litres of fuel and so a half tank at the local price or euro 1.43 should have been Euro 25. I asked how much i was being charged for the fuel, and the man said, "do you want a hire car or not?" I said that I resented paying such a mark up without being warned before hand, and he simply said "Im not paid to argue with you, do you want it or not?" "Argus forgot to put the details of the fuel cost on their web site" I pointed out that they were his agent, not mine.

Now as a tourist i simply haven't got the time or complex energy to walk away as there is no guarantee that anyone else will have a car, and besides, I had already paid a chunk to Argus.

I went out to get the car

The car was old, 90,000 miles, tired, but okish.The fuel guage showed just below a half tank, and so i asked the chap who was giving it to me, where the rest of the fuel was, and he launched into a major paddy about how he was only trying to provide a service, it wasnt his fault, and it was at half when he picked it up from the parking site sone 10 metres from where were standing.

What ever you do don't use Argus, don't use Malta First, and report this stuff to the tourist authority, because it really puts you in a bad frame of mind before your holiday.