Sicily by Car, www.sbc.it

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★★☆☆☆
1.8
22.0% of users recommend this
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Latest Reviews

“Sham Artists”

★☆☆☆☆

written by ukzuza on 26/12/2023

We returned the car at bergamo airport in the condition we received it, unfortunately after the trip they decided to charge us £180 for damage in a boot which was already broken and not done by us. We obviously took pictures only from the outside lesson learned for next time, they are a disgusting and seems like they cheating on many customers like us. Avoid at all cost. They seem cheap but you will end up paying more than expected

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“I received a damaged car and they knew it beforehand”

★☆☆☆☆

written by Albert1594 on 30/09/2023

Company that is not reliable. We rented a car in Malta and got a car with a damaged engine. When we took the car to leave the airport and go to our accommodation, it stopped by itself 7 times in the middle of the road, with the danger that entails. Along the way the emergency engine light came on. We opened the hood to check for a fault and the battery was loose. We returned it to the airport the next day. Worst of all, the worker who receives the cars told us that they already knew that the emergency engine light came on. In other words, they gave us a vehicle in bad condition knowing it beforehand. They gave us the option of exchanging it for another vehicle, but obviously we refused, because we no longer trusted them. In short: a very distressing and dangerous experience. Of course, they do not want to give us back the money for the rental, hiding behind their policies, even though they made us lose time of our vacation and put us in danger.

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“Avoid At All Cost!”

★☆☆☆☆

written by Julio292 on 18/09/2023

I suggest for everyone to steer clear of this company. When we picked up our car in Palermo, Sicily, the staff behind the counter urged us to get the Gold insurance package. He said that it'll be a care free experience and they cover ALL damages and we would have zero worries. He even said that it'll cover every single thing from vandalism to theft and accidents - down to rim scrapes! His lines were "you don't have to worry about a thing". So i asked him if all the current scratches and damages on the car, if there were any, would need to be flagged, and he said no cos we are covered entirely so it doesn't matter. Being naive, we hopped into the car and drove off even though there were a couple of very fine hairline scratches and rim rubs here and there. After our trip in Sicily, we drove to Catania to return the car. We were very careful the whole trip and had ZERO accidents or rim rubs etc. But to our surprise the very rude staff over there shook his head and pointed to the side of the car and said that the car was scratched by "vegetation" and that we have to pay. Get this, they cover you if you scrape the entire car along the wall, bash it into a tree, spray paint over it, but god forbid if you have hairline scratches on the car caused by vegetation rub. I disputed this and tried to explain what his colleague in Palermo told me and was shouted down by their staff who treated us like dirt. I asked him how is he certain that it was caused by vegetation and he said "i'm an expert". That's the most ridiculous thing i've heard - how can they prove that the scratches were caused by vegetation??? My child ended up crying cos of the commotion and it was a disaster to say the least, so i stopped debating with the thuggish staff as it was pointless. Those hairline scratches were ridiculously fine and they were the same hairlines i saw when i picked up the car. The staff at Palermo said that i "didn't have to worry about a thing" and i could drive off carefree and not have to worry about any sort of accidents. Obviously this is a ploy to trick people out of their hard earned money. I ended up having to pay £599 for the insurance and those fine fine fine hairline scratches. But if i were to smash the car entirely i didn't have to pay a cent! Where's the logic and justice in that? These are the biggest cheats we've come across and it's such a shame as Sicilian culture was a very beautiful thing to experience only to be destroyed by these terrible people right at the end of the trip. Avoid at all cost.

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“Dishonest customer service at Trieste airport”

★☆☆☆☆

written by ciccia on 20/03/2023

I picked up a car for rental at Trieste airport from Sicily by Car on the 3rd March at around 21.30. At the time of booking, I paid £10.78 for the basic package (one day rental). On the 13th March I discovered, with my big disappointment, to have been charged Euro 25.23 on my credit card. I called immediately the Sicily by Car counter and the sales assistant said to have charged me insurance and that I should have read the rental agreement accurately. I argued that he informed me only of the deposit to be charged on my car and omitted to ask me whether I wanted insurance. I would like to highlight the followings: 1. I have been asked to sign the rental agreement without having the time to read it. The sales assistant scrolled down the I-Pad quickly pointing out where I had to sign. I trusted him given that he mentioned only the deposit as a charge to my credit card. I HAVEN'T BEEN OFFERED ANY INSURANCE. 2. After having read the rental agreeement yesterday, I have discovered that I have been charged road assistance, insurance for damages and theft and “servizio in stazione” which I don’t know what it is. If I add up the three charges, I still don’t reconcile the amount with the Euro 25.23 I have been charged. 3. When I called to complain saying that I have been charged disonestly, he first said that another colleague dealt with me on the 3rd March. I replied saying that I recognised his voice and asked for his name. He refused to give me his name for “privacy protection”.

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“Quality of vehicle ”

★★☆☆☆

written by on 07/01/2023

Having paid almost £200 for five days, to hire a small car, the quality of the vehicle was poor. It was an Opel Corsa, that had already covered 90,000k, the interior was scruffy and the exterior, well, the record of the damage on the rental agreement looked like it had been in a war zone and someone had peppered it with gunfire! On the plus side, the car ran quite well and checkout was quick. At check in the queue for prole waiting to collect their vehicle was quite long. I handed the keys over to the staff and got on my way.

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“TERRIBLE”

★☆☆☆☆

written by Carlieq1986 on 30/12/2022

The worst service I have ever experience. Although I have book and prepay a luxury car I have been delivered an open grand land with 90.000 and check problem engine.

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“Use any other company”

★☆☆☆☆

written by Suley31 on 19/12/2022

Terrible company who will do anything and make up excuses to take money from your account. They lie to take money from you and have 0 customer servicee to help you if you have issues. They take your money in 1 second but when you have an issue they ignore you. Use any other company but them. The worst car hire company ever

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“Worst rental car company we've ever had”

★☆☆☆☆

written by ckpleiser on 18/08/2022

Worst rental car company we’ve ever had. Half way through the journey the tyre blew up. The car was given to us with a tyre that was under inflated. 1.7 to be precise. It should have been 2.3. No warning lights have come on. We put this back to the correct air pressure / tyre pressure twice. Sicily clearly gave us a car with a puncture. Luckily no damage was done to us personally. But they should check tyre pressure before they endanger their clients. Esp as the tyre was on the side of my 4 year old. We hit a storm and were 3 miles away from our hotel and through the tunnels with nowhere to pull over. We had 1 day without a rental car and no contact from the company about when we would get the car. We spent 7 hours chasing them and discovered eventually that the garage they sent the car to was closed until Monday. We had a couple of valuables in the car that we didn’t get back. We had no contact from Sicily to keep us posted. Very stressful to say the least and terrible way to treat clients. Sicily informed on the phone with management approval that the taxi would be paid for. If they had told us this was not the case we would have taken alternative action. To tell us after we have paid is not good enough. We had a 4 year old and luggage and had to make our way to Verona and then to the airport. We lost a whole day of vacation and Sicily's rental car is to blame. Both of their office rental companies in Verona and Venice assured us it would be claimed back. They just said that they didn’t have funds to finance through the till. This is sharp practice and we expect a full refund and compensation. We will take legal action if this is not done

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“car hire ruined holiday”

★☆☆☆☆

written by Monicap455 on 13/03/2022

We received a car that wasn't fit-for-purpose. Hazard lights flashing regularly and once needed recovery as brakes failed in very light snow. Also as journey back to the airport took an extra 2 hours there was not time to fill the tank before returning the car. I was charged 70 euros for less than a quarter of the tank. My 3 emails about all of this have been ignored.

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“Do not use these people”

★☆☆☆☆

written by Waldy176 on 23/02/2020

Had a terrible experience at Bergamo airport. Waited 1 hr 15mins to check in for the car, then told to go to parking to collect key. Waited another 30 mins there as nobody at the office. Finally got keys to a filthy dirty car, covered in mud with used tissues left inside. There was no adblue in the car, no windscreen wash, a warning light about oil was on - requested a roadworthy car and was told to go back to the terminal if I wanted to change. Went back there and no one at the desk, went back to parking and they had gone too. Forced to take a car not safe for the road, on return the drop off row was full so parked in the next row and went to drop keys. The attendant in the office took the keys and threw them at my feet telling me I had to move it to the right row where there was no space. Incredibly bad experience with your company and your staff are very rude.

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“DON'T CHOOSE THIS CAR RENTAL COMPANY! ”

★☆☆☆☆

written by Costello280 on 03/01/2020

We rented a Seat Toledo car from Milan. It wasn't the car we reserved and we paid more for this car, because they told us it was the last one. The car was looking good, though. When we returned the car, we had the gas tank fulled 10 km before arriving at the parking spot, but they charged us with 50 euros more for nothing. When we called them, they told us that the gas tank wasn't full, which was not true. We even sent them photos with the car's dashboard, but we never got a response even though we called them several times. We hired cars in the past from different companies and we never had any issues. We do not recomend this company.

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“Fictious traffic violations”

★☆☆☆☆

written by Annabelz94 on 24/09/2019

I received a charge on my credit card for "traffic Violation" yet no evidence has been provided to support this. DO NOT USE THIS COMPANY

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“Imaginary fines!”

★☆☆☆☆

written by stephcy on 19/07/2019

we were informed of 2 charges today of 61 euros each.. no email explanation. i really hate that these people might be the reason for us never going back to Italy. Never ever book with Sicily by Car! Never! 

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“We booked a car in Naples via Ryanair. We chose the...”

★☆☆☆☆

written by studio1arch on 01/04/2019

We booked a car in Naples via Ryanair. We chose the option of insurance with Ryanairs broker as people said naples was crazy for driving (true). On arrival thye refused to allow us to take the car because we did not have a credit card and would only let us take it with a debit card if we took their very expensive insurance on top of our own! This seems like extortion to me. They also took a very large deposit off us and to date we have not been reimbursed. Looking at the other reviews on this site i'm starting to wonder if we will be! Definately would not recommend this shower.

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“Used Sicily by Car in September. No problems , in fact...”

★☆☆☆☆

written by npgibbons on 07/02/2019

Used Sicily by Car in September. No problems , in fact quite good. Booked through RyanAir. However now in December I have been charged twice by AutoEuropa in Catania, €61 each time (wasn't in Catania) and the 5 days later charged by Autonoleggio AutoEuropa another €61 for Bari (wasn't there either). Thats €183 for nothing. These seem to be associated to Sicily by Car. Someone must be sharing my credit card details. Please please avoid!!

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Bobsansom's Response to npgibbons's Review

Written on: 08/03/2019

I am just experiencing exactly the same problem. Rented in September 18 and just been charged 3 times totalling £164. Really annoying and time consuming to try to resolve - still not there yet !!!!!!! - never again

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Npgibbons's reply to Bobsansom's Comment

Written on: 19/03/2019

HI THERE
AFTER INVESTIGATING ON MY OWN I EVENTUALLY FOUND OUT THAT THE FEES WERE FOR FINES FOR PARKING VIOLATIONS THATI WAS UNAWARE OF. AUTOEUROPA WERE SENT THE FINES BY THE LOCAL AUTHORITIES BUT IT WAS UNCLEAR THAT SICILY BY CAR AND AUTOEUROPA WERE LINKED.

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“Worth place to rent a car”

★☆☆☆☆

written by Quinlanio1993 on 23/01/2019

The worth company to rent a car at ! i arrived in bergamo airport milano and i was trashed talked to by an employee and disrespected. I had my cedit card and bought my driver licens and debit card with me and bought my passports with me with my new and old name, as i just changed name. The employee did not want to take my credit card where my name was stated differently but he wanted my debit card and charged me 210 euros. Now he said all documents needs to be with the same name so how could he use my debbit card where there was stated the same name as on my credit card. I could understand if it was stated with the new name. I'm really upset about this situation as its not right to act like that to a costumer. I wanted to pay the deposite. I have all prove that and videos that he didnt have an explanation why and how he acted towards me,If it was for extra insurance then be honest about that it. Dont laugh to my face. Thats not right costumer service. Then we went up to get the car and the car was really dirty and when i said i wanted a clean car then he replayed take it or leave it. I didnt have a choice i had to take it if not my holiday was ruined, but without knowing that later there wasnt any blue water for the windows the enginee broke down and we were stranded no where in the dark with snow no heating two girls and no where to get help we called them up and they kept on disconnecting the calls luckly for us a car stopped on the way after 1 hour standing in snow and helped us. We were so scared anything could have happend. Then when we got back to the airport we talked to them and ask for an explination the only thing they said was not our problem. This has been a nightmare. Never again will i come to italy you ruined my experience and my holiday!

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“Avoid "Sicily By Car" at all cost.”

★☆☆☆☆

written by meaganphilpot on 09/01/2019

Avoid "Sicily By Car" at all cost. This car rental company is for you, if you like to: - feel stranded - spend hours trying to contact the office - go round and around in circles on the phone through the different departments of the company, and lastly like to listening to ' on hold music '. After our car starting then turning off automatically dozens of times over, noticing on the dashboard that it came up with "overdue service". We rang the 24 hour roadside assistance, they will tell you they can pick up the car however wont bother in providing a replacement vehicle, or any sort of assistance with organising you to be able to leave the place you are in. By saying well, "That means, we will be stranded" they said well call the Milan Malpensa Airport (where we picked up the car) after spending a total of 4 hours on hold, calling the office we finally got through, we even called the english office, to call them and they STILL couldn't get through! When we talked to the person I dealt with about the predicament we were in, we were met with a "I cant do anything, it's your problem' attitude. Essentially, as a customer you are to look after your rental car, yet when it breaks down, they simply feel they dont have a duty of care to help you out.

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“WARNING! Endless waiting, dirty cars, horrible staff.”

★☆☆☆☆

written by Vanweelie on 13/12/2018

Sicilybycar:  Name:   Pick up date: 10-11-2018 Drop off date: 24-11-2018 Pick up & Drop off address: Bologna Airport, Italy Arrived on the 10th of November at Bologna Airport, not the busiest day of the year you would think. But Sicilybycar does not find it necessary to have more than 1 employee. There were not that many people actually, but due to terrible performance, rudeness and inefficiency and lit. every person had a problem with them, it took 1 hour for 4 customers! I asked after 1 hour waiting if it would be an idea that another colleague would come to help out, especially when they KNOW how many people have rented a car that day and they KNOW their arrival times. Well, the attitude of this woman! wow wow and wow! What was I thinking, she was already working from 7 am (was 13:00) and was so tired and stressed, so who was I to say anything about the absurd waiting time and the waiting yet to come! She just screamed with the upmost arrogance: who bought priority! After almost 2 hours of waiting, we had an issue with the snow chains, they should have been for free which was also mentioned in the contract, but we had to pay 49.50 for them, she also wanted us to pay for 24-assistance, but we refused (If the police checks you and you do not have the snow chains you get a big fine! So we took them.) We finally found somebody walking around who had to give us our car, he could not find our car, this took a while. Then we had to ask twice about the snow chains. The car was very dirty especially the outside, it was extreme. We complained at Sbc and they would fully investigate and lit. wrote that snow chains are mandatory thus delivered for free (or included in the rental price) in that period unless you specifically unchecked the snow chain- box. In our case, it was clearly checked, mentioned on the contract and that it was for free. Of course, they will not reply to me, nor will they give me the money back, they are not intrested in customers at all, they like to take your money though. What a horrible company and please go elsewhere this is insane and I am not the only one, check the reviews it seems standard that they take money from your cc weeks after, we keep a close eye on ours, luckily we live close by for a year so we can go to the police and file for cc fraud if Sbc decides to do so. We are renting cars for years all over the world, this was by far the worst company we have ever encountered.

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“Totally useless customer service-non existent”

★☆☆☆☆

written by neillinks on 21/09/2018

Made the mistake of renting from them at Marco Polo Venice to head up to the Dolomites on a ski trip. When accessing the snow chains on the journey into the mountains they were found to be unfit for purpose. Local police tried to assist in installing them, deemed not roadworthy, new chains purchased from a local garage. Complained at the reception desk at the airport when handing car back, advised they were unable to assist but to contact customer services. Despite numerous emails seeking a refund for the cost of the snow chains, the new ones were left with them at the airport, no replies, zero acknowledgement of the problem. a company well worth avoiding, unable to comprehend the meaning of customer service

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“Very good”

★★★★★

written by 231Finch on 29/08/2018

I booked through doyouitaly for a trip to sardinia and then read the reviews on this company ! It didn't fill me with confidence. I planned to go right through the car when we took delivery at the airport and take photos of any damage. On arrival the check in went very smoothly and I was very pleased to receive a brand new car, no scratches or bumps. A week into the holiday and I had kerbed one of the front plastic wheel caps which when I checked the paperwork would cost me roughly 34 euros plus admin charges which I thought was a bit steep, but it was my fault. On my return to the airport the nice check in guy at the garage park gave it the once over and checked fuel levels and said all was ok and that my credit card would be automatically refunded the excess in full ! which by the way was carried out before we caught our flight. So 5* for this company.

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Asked by asha1246 on 23rd August 2015 Report this content
I have rented the car from Apt Capdichino, Napoli. Can I handover this vehicle from Roma Fiumicino airport where their branch office situated? If possible do I have to pay extra payment for that facility? Please reply to this question soon since I have to arrange journey back to Germany.

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Answers (2)
Report this content mattbenville Written on: 24/08/2015
It is normal, in my experience, to be charged extra when returning a car to a different location from the one you hired it from.
Report this content TheMomentHumansBlink Written on: 28/08/2015
... most likely you will pay extra charge for returning to another site. You can try emailing them, you might receive a reply on how much extra you have to pay. Good luck!
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