Victoria Cars Review

Overall Rating

None that I can think of

Awful service, understaffed, unhelpful and rude

On average I hire 6 cars p.a. in Catalonia, booked through an online broker. When I booked a car for Barcelona I noticed that the hire location was off the airport which wasn't ideal but it stated the location was 3 minutes away from the airport which didn't seem bad. The evening before we flew I received a call from Victoria Cars confirming I wanted the car and the pick up location. When we arrived there was no one there. I called the number I'd been given and after several rings the phone was answered rudely and I was told someone would be with me soon. After 10 minutes I called again and was told someone was on their way. After another 10 mins I was told they were 7 minutes away. 15 minutes later they arrived to pick us up. The office location is at least 10 minutes from the Airport, in the suburbs and difficult to find. When we arrived at the office the driver of the van had to unlock it, he was the only person working and had also been answering my calls which hadn't left him in the best of moods. When I expressed concern over finding the office again he became aggressive and told us he'd take us back to the airport. He then made us wait for 20 minutes while he served a Spanish couple who'd arrived after us. When he did serve us he started bullying us again and asked if we wanted the car. After making peace with him he said he understood that people would be tired after their flights but this was peak season, a strange time to only have one person working the office and driving the pick up bus. Against our better judgement and 2 hours after landing we said yes. When we drove off in the car there was an immediate rubbing noise as if something was catching on the wheel. Foolishly I continued to drive and arrived back at the airport where I stopped and found I had a puncture. After several phone calls and promises that there was someone at the airport who could help (and promises to call us back which never materialised) we changed the tyre and tried to get back to the office. As we'd worried it was difficult to find (particularly with the handwritten map we'd been given). We called to confirm instructions and were told to follow the map. 45 minutes later we found the office, still serviced by the solitary person we'd met earlier only to be told that the tyres weren't covered, even though I pointed out that we'd called within minutes of leaving and the tyre was obviously damaged on pick up. We gave up. When I returned the car I parked in their lot which was basically on the grounds of a demolished house and made of broken up stones and bricks, hardly surprising the tyre was punctured and unlikely to be the first time this happened. I'm not disposed to writing complaints but in these circumstances would like to help people avoid the problems we had with Victoria Cars in Barcelona which basically put a dampener on our holiday.