Shady Local Operation – Same Scam Happened to Others
ORIGINAL POST 18/07/25: I was unfortunate enough to be given a car with Simply Rent a Car in Paros after booking through Holiday Autos, who then subcontracted my booking three more times and I ended up with this poor excuse of a company.
My experience starts with being constantly hounded by telephone from representatives of Simply Rent a Car wondering where I was, when I had arranged to pick up at the port and my boat was late. They told me they only hold the booking for 30 minutes or charge it as a no show, which is ridiculous as I had paid for three days. With the majority of their bookings surely coming fresh off the boat, you would assume they would be used to tracking that information. This was just red flag number one.
There is no office, no card machine, no paperwork — just two guys handing over keys outside a pharmacy on a busy road. I was told to enter my card details into a random payment site on my phone for the deposit. None of this felt legitimate or transparent.
The car was also in an absolutely terrible state when I picked it up. It was a blue Renault Clio, which was completely covered in scratches, scrapes and dirt. As I was a bit thrown off by having to climb into the car to fill in my card details on a website I'd never seen before, my husband took photos of the car as best he could on a busy road with another car parked immediately in front.
When returning the car (to an abandoned industrial yard), we were told that we would have to be charged €680 for a small scuff to the front bumper — damage I did not cause, however we had no photographic proof. It would have been impossible to see on pick up as the car was already in poor condition, covered in scratches and dirt, and no inspection was done properly with the agent. The representative said this was in line with the terms on their website, a website which I now know states €350!
The sales agent tried to play the "good cop" and I was told the scratch would be charged but that I would "definitely get it back through insurance". Insurance, in fact, would not cover it as Simply Rent a Car's excess is €700. The cost of the damage being as close as it could possibly be to the mandatory excess is incredibly suspicious.
I’ve since contacted the company multiple times by email requesting:
Timestamped photos of the damaged area before and after hire
A final rental invoice
A repair invoice or cost breakdown
They have not responded to a single message.
I’ve since discovered that another customer left a Trustpilot review in July describing a nearly identical situation — charged almost the same amount, also without proof or response. This shows a clear pattern of extorting customers with no documentation and hoping people won’t challenge it.
I’ve escalated the matter to Greek consumer protection (EKPIZO) and a bank dispute is in progress. I strongly recommend avoiding this company — and I urge others to take photos of every part of the car if you’ve already booked with them.
EDIT 22/07/25: Interestingly, two glowing 5-star reviews have appeared shortly after I posted mine — each directly contradicting the specific issues I raised, even going so far as to name the same model. These users have only ever reviewed this one company. I’ll let others draw their own conclusions, but the timing is certainly notable.
July 1, 2025
Unprompted review