Report Abuse

Report this review to the Review Centre Team

Here at Review Centre we work hard to make sure we are the best place on the internet for honest, unbiased consumer reviews - we are grateful for your help in keeping us that way!

2052441

Why are you reporting this review?

If you represent this business why not claim your page by creating a Free Business Account where you will receive improved review monitoring functionality.


★☆☆☆☆

“Car rental in Montenegro”

written by on 25/05/2013

When you want to rent a car in Montenegro things are a little more complicated than in the rest of Europe. Of course the big Avis, Hertz, Alamo, Sixt, etc. are all there but there seem to be only three places in the whole country where you can pickup a car and return it: Podgorica, Tivat and Budva.
On our holiday in August 2012 we needed a car for nine days. We wanted the start of the renting period in our hotel in Perast: Hotel Admiral. In Perast you certainly won’t find firms that rent cars.
So it seemed to be logical to ask our hotel owner if it was possible to deliver a car at his hotel, that we wanted to use for nine days, make a trip with it to Croatia and return the car nine days later at the airport in Podgorica.
Hotel Admiral answered that there was still one car available (at Bulatovic in Risan as it seemed afterwards). Costs 40 Euro per day. Total insurance included. We rented the car.
On the promised day a guy showed up with a VW Polo Tdi 2006. He didn’t speak one word of English. Really not one word. Even the word “car” didn’t ring a bell. He seemed to be the owner of the car.
Happily the receptionist of Hotel Admiral was so kind to translate a few things. I noticed that a creditcard, an ID, a contract or a drivers licence didn’t take any part in the process; these things were totally unimportant.
What was important: the discussion between the receptionist and the car-owner. Because we wanted to go to Croatia there were documents missing. It seemed that this was the first time that the guy hired his car to a tourist and that he didn’t possess the right documents. But he told the receptionist that it was no problem: he would have those documents in the afternoon and as we were heading to Herceg Novi: he would deliver the documents in our apartment in Herceg Novi that afternoon. After he gave us the key, the green card and some kind of blue card we left with his car to Herceg Novi. There we waited for the guy the whole afternoon in the apartment we hired, because we wanted to leave to Croatia the next morning. No-one showed up. In the evening my phone rang (the only thing the guy asked for in Perast was my cellphone number). A friend of the guy who spoke English was on the phone. He told us that his friend was very sorry for the inconvenience but next morning (!) at 10 am he would bring us the papers. But it was necessary that I photographed the blue card that the guy gave us in the morning and that I emailed that picture to a notary he mentioned.
The next morning at 10 am (Croatia was already out of our minds for that day) nothing happened of course. At 10.30 our English speaking friend called. “Sorry again for the delay, but I will deliver you the papers no later than 12 o’clock”. When he finally arrived, around 12.30, there was, including the afternoon of the day before, a whole day of our vacation ruined by waiting for these amateurs. I told him that I wasn’t going to pay the car rent for the first day. He understood that this delay had cost us a whole day of our vacation and said that he agreed in not paying for the first day.
A week later: I had promised our English speaking friend that I would let him know via an SMS at what time we would arrive at Podgorica Airport so that they could get there to get the car back and receive the fee for the car rent. I did so a day before we would arrive at Podgorica Airport. He sent me an SMS back that the mentioned time was ok and that they expected me to pay 360 Euros (9 days). I answered him that we made a deal not to pay for the first day. The answer he sent me was that this was out of the question. The owner of the car had not accepted the agreement I made with his friend…. They began to threaten us. In an SMS they wrote that we would better pay them the whole amount (minus a discount of 10 Euros) if we didn’t want to have a problem….
My advice: Don’t rent a car at Bulatovic Star in Risan. The only car you can rent is his own car and agreements he (or his friend) makes are not respected. If you want a car in Montenegro: rent it at one of the big firms mentioned above.

Was this review helpful? 0 0