Differental Reviews 461

Avoid This Company at All Costs – Fraudulent Practices!

If I could give zero stars, I would! Auto Union / Differental (ITA Rent S.R.L.) is running a complete scam, and I strongly advise everyone to stay away.

I rented a car through HolidayCars and was supposed to receive a Fiat 500X, which I did. However, upon returning the car in perfect condition and with a full tank, they falsely charged me €200, claiming I received an "upgrade"—which never happened. The same car, same registration number, no changes whatsoever!

What makes this even worse is their absolute refusal to respond to emails or acknowledge their mistake. Their staff at the drop-off location admitted the charge was a system error and told me I’d get a refund within a few days—but that was a blatant lie! They simply ignored all my messages afterward.

From what I’ve seen, this is their business model:
✔️ Offer very low rental prices to attract customers
✔️ Invent non-existent upgrades or damages to charge extra
✔️ Completely ignore complaints and avoid refunds

I am shocked that HolidayCars continues to list them, despite many similar complaints. Their dishonest tactics not only cost me money but also wasted my time and caused unnecessary stress. If you rent from them, be prepared to fight for your money—or better yet, just don’t rent from them at all!

🚨 BEWARE – This company should not be in business! 🚨

A scam. My VISA golden debit card was not a credit card. Hence the rental cost increased from 110 euros to 695 euros for a week to cover the additional insurance. Incidentally, this costs 105 euros on their homepage. All other rental companies just take out a larger deposit.

I had the unplesant experience of dealing with this company. I picked the car into great conditions and delivered with the same, however the rental company decided to keep the money and to add other expenses to my credit card.

The car has not had any accidents and damage, I explained this to them as it is also evident from their picture after their inspections.
I am trying to contact them multiple times without success.

Highly recomended to stay away from them,

I recently rented a car from DIFFERENTAL AUTOUNION and was charged nearly €700 for a barely visible scratch on the front window. Despite my repeated requests, the company failed to provide proof of the repair, such as an invoice or even evidence that the glass was replaced.

Additionally:
1. The damage was so minor that I doubt it justified a replacement.
2. The agency included vague "vehicle downtime" costs in the charge without clear explanation.
3. They initially entered the wrong email address, meaning I never received the initial contract or photos, and they refused to provide these later when I asked.

Their responses to my emails were dismissive, and they refused to negotiate, even when I offered a fair compromise. It feels like they are exploiting customers with hidden charges and vague policies.

I strongly advise no one to rent from them. Save yourself the frustration and choose a more transparent and fair rental agency.

Very bad experience. Poor instructions on how to find the transfer from the airport. We were calling apppx. 5 times and in one hour it appeared that the driver was on an other parking. At the end they charged us 50 euros as the car after 10 days of usage was not the same clean as we took it. In the raining weather 🙄

They deserve zero stars. Despite informing them promptly directly by phone and via VipCars broker (as I made the contract with them) that I would collect the car later as my flight was delayed and their promise both verbal and written on web chat of keeping the car at no extra cost when I arrived at the 'desk' an unprofessional scruffy looking assistant insisted I have to pay an extra €80. He kept of disappearing leaving the desk making some dodgy phone calls to his manager. I was there for ages.In the end as I needed to be on my way to see my father in hospital I had no choice than paying the extra charge. The car was given to me with no documents at all and later on I received a screenshot of the insurance details but still no libretto. It felt I was dealing with very dodgy scammers not a proper, professional rental company. Will definitely NEVER use again and my recommendation is to stay well clear of these scammers. They attract customers with low cost rentals just to than find any possible excuse to over charge you.

I rented a car in Sicily with Differental through Discovercars.com in June 2024.
When I arrived at the pick up desk, Differental asked me to buy the insurance (which was more expensive that what I paid for the rental). Since I was already covered with Discvercars.com I refused.
I took the car for 4 days, only used it to go from the airport to my hotel. When I brought it back, I was in a hurry and did not have time to check the car (my bad).
Later they sent me random pictures of little scratches that were already there and even of some that I already flagged the first they. Nothing was written on the paper explaining the damages. They invoiced me 500 EUR for each part of the car = 2'000 EUR! They are thiefs do not trust them.
Fortunately discovercars fully reimbursed me the amounts.

I am extremely disappointed with the services of this company. When renting a car, I was given one price, but in the end, they charged me much more without any explanation. When I tried to clarify the situation, the staff were rude, responded with irritation, and made no effort to help.

The service is absolutely terrible—it feels like customers are seen only as a way to extract more money. A complete set of what should never be in a proper service.

I do not recommend this company to anyone! If you don’t want to ruin your trip and your mood, it’s best to stay away from them.

Differental is total scammers!
Never ever think of contracting with this company.
When I returned the car, their employer said he found a minor crack on the front window, which is absolutely the mark of windshield wiper. And he unilaterally charged more than 1000 euros via my credit card without any of my approval.
They have their own modus operandi and script as well to rip you off. Such a terrible experience.

Scammers

Dont rent from them.

I recently returned the car to them and they are trying to pinch so call new scratches on the car of which we have proof they were there upon collection. They charged my card with €1500 and now we are in the middle of the dispute, I will go through everything to sue this company. This is unacceptable.
Has anyone came to a conclusion or resolve the issue with them?

I recently rented a car from Differental in MXP and I couldn't be happier with my experience! The staff was incredibly friendly and professional, making the entire process smooth and hassle-free. The car was in excellent condition, clean, and well-maintained.

The rates were very reasonable compared to other rental services. I especially appreciated the flexibility they offered with the rental duration and the additional insurance options.

I highly recommend Differental to anyone needing a reliable car rental service. Great job, Differental!

Poor service at Catania location. They wanted to charge us more for the fuel which was not at max level when we picked up the car. They wanted to charge 42 eur for the service while fuel for max level costed w euros. Seem like they were trying to cheat us. I will not use this company again.

Best colleges! Gloria perfectly!

I am still yet to recieve my €150 security deposit back, after 3 months since my rental and many chases. This fee was also not explained until collection. Staff were rude and unhelpful

Fontanarossa airport in catania. Booked via CHECK24.de. First, It seemed like the rental company would be autounion. There was no clue that it would be differental, probably to hide the extremely bad reviews they got. When trying to get the car, the guy at the desk pressed us to book an insurance for extremely overpriced 50 euros a day although I explained that we already booked an insurance. He tried to persuade us with false claims that our insurance is not valid. Also, the Jeep renegade we booked was not available. They really seem like scam artists and fortunately we read the bad reviews on Trustpilot before paying for the car. We cancelled the booking for the car at differental and went to sicilybycar instead, where everything was perfect.

scam!! The initial pictures were taken from far away and the car was wet.Then they charged us with the amount of 300 euro because they found some minor scratches. No one was there when we drop the car so they just e mailed us that there were scratches which we did not make.

Charged for 'damage' like others here.

scam artist. no protocol when returning car. then they're fabricating scratches and will not return deposit. do not rent a car from them.

We had a lovely holiday to Lake Garda in September but just wanted to advise anyone thinking of hiring a car to avoid Differental care hire from Milan Bergamo airport.

I paid €379 euros for 2 weeks €140 of which was for 2 car seats to fit a 1 year old and 3 year old. We had to get a 20minute shuttle to collect the car so we were in the middle of nowhere. On arrival there was another customer who was distressed that they didn’t have a car seat available for her young baby. In the end she had to leave without the car seat.

We were then issued our car seats which were the complete wrong size for our children. They were trying to put my 1 year old on a booster seat 🤦‍♀️. On complaining they tried to say this was fine. They eventually agreed to go and buy the correct car seats, telling us we’d have to wait at the office for an hour. We agreed to this as we didn’t really have much choice.

In the end we waited for 3 hours in a tiny office with some very restless kids. They returned with a car seat clearly from their mates car, covered in crisps. They couldn’t fit it in the car right so it was precariously strapped in with the seat belt and wobbled severely. It was a disaster but with hungry kids and no other way to get to the site we felt we had no real choice but to accept this.

The actual car was fine although not the one I booked. We hit the motorway and were driving in torrential rain, it was pretty stressful driving for the first time in Italy let alone in such poor visibility with car seats that are obviously unsafe. Then a warning light flashed up on the dashboard with a KM countdown. The warning was in Italian and after googling it was telling us to urgently top up the AdBlue and if we turned off the engine it would not restart. We didn’t know if the engine would suddenly stop on the motorway (we don’t have a car that needs AdBlue so no idea about how that works).

We called the hire company and they were useless telling us to get AdBlue immediately and that they would reimburse us. We stopped at 4 service stations but they were unmanned. In the end we just drove to Bella Italia and on stopping the car it wouldn’t restart.

We had to waste the first day of the holiday finding AdBlue and sorting that out and luckily the car did restart (I’m told some cars would still not have restarted at this point).

We returned the car in exactly the same condition we was given to us but a day after we got an email saying we were being charged £500 for a scratch. The photos don’t even show any scratch. We have photos take before and after the hire period that are identical. We disputed the scratch and Differental just said they were going to charge the credit card. We then tried to claim for this amount through the car hire excess insurance we took out and they cannot pay out until they have received an invoice/damage matrix from Differental but they are no longer responding to emails and the insurance won’t pay out until they have this.

I read the trust pilot reviews before hand and thought ah well you only ever get people posting when things have gone wrong and that they probably did damage the car. I can 100% say there is no damage to the car we hired, this is just a pure scam where they charge you low rates to get you to hire then make up damage so they can charge you more. It’s crazy this is allowed to happen.