I reported the below to Holiday Auto's after returning from my trip. I was emailed a week later stating that they would not be doing anything as I had signed for the car at the time of taking it (which is what anyone would do) and the case was closed. No investigation in to the amounts charged or anything, completely washed their hands of the matter. Not a great follow up. ‘Firstly, in your instructions to collect the car it states, ‘Please proceed through to Hertz counter’. I think the instructions would be more useful stating you need to proceed to the actual Firefly counter. Maybe a bit confusing as it was late and I was half asleep, but may be useful for other customers going forward as I queued up for an hour at Hertz only to be told this. So, I presented my documents at the counter to collect the car but had a debit card and not a credit card. I don’t carry a credit card and have never had any issues with holding deposits being placed on my debit card, in fact one was placed on the card at a later stage as I will explain in a bit. I was then informed that the only way I could take the car was to take out the full insurance package which was €280.44. I have an annual rental car insurance policy which is why I did not take the insurance in the first place. At this point I explained that my debit card had cleared funds if they wanted to take the €1537.50 as the deposit and I would get it back if I returned the car undamaged. They said I could do this but it would take 6 months to get the money back. When I said I would proceed with this (as there is no way I would be waiting 6 months to get the money back) they then changed their mind and said I could not do this. I then offered to call up my details online to get the details of my credit card, they said the card needed to be there in person. I then explained that should the magnetic strip in a card be damaged they would enter the details manually, and me giving them the card details would be no different. Again, they would not accept this. My only option was to accept the unwanted insurance. I feel that because I did not have a credit card on me in person, the whole situation was engineered to make me pay the insurance payment rather than a deposit that I would have got back. I then noticed a holding transaction on my debit card (as mentioned earlier) which amounted to the difference of €280.44 minus my original payment of £149.80 which then disappeared. I returned home, and on the 8th August a payment has been taken from my account for £264.75. I cannot work out what this payment is for, it is not the difference between the original amount I paid and the new amount that I was quoted with the insurance. It is also not the amount that I was quoted with the insurance so I have no idea what is going on really. Ultimately, I have been charged £414.55 for a week’s car rental which is disgusting.’