How Not To Fall For Costa Rica Car Rental Scams

The only Costa Rican experience I have had was as a student at a language school there. I stayed with a wonderful local family and their advice was to always take public transporation. A group of us did that and it was great. Bus, van and plane, easy and affordable.

your article, exceedingly thorough, was longer than the rental contract i ACTUALLY read some months ago! i was basically pleased with our experience, though ~ $1650 for 2 week van rental (seated 10 of us, somewhat crowded) was more than half of our residential vacation rental. and … the colone/$ exchange rate was, um, ‘adjusted’ to a bit higher than the supposedly? inflexible 500/$.

one thing YOU nor anyone in C R can do much about is the ADDITIONAL “fees” my credit card company charged when the monthly bill came later!

Beware of Economy Rental Car of Costa Rica, they robbed or cheated me in every way possible way! Just returned form 17 day trip to Costa Rica where we needed a rental car. Searched Internet for car rentals and found Economy offered what seemed to be best prices??? Booked a “5 passenger” car for 15 days for $238 plus insurance and taxes. Got my Collision Damage Waver insurance certification from VISA to save $15/day CDW insurance charge. Only needed to pay the CR Government required Liability Ins of $15/day and the taxes I believed. When I got to the Economy counter at the San Jose airport I presented my printed reservation form showing the $238 charge and my VISA CDW form. They then quoted me $922 for the 15 day rental!!!! I called them CROOKS and pushed back and made them recalculate the charges in front of me. Oh, suddenly, $238 + Liability Ins + 13% tax = $525. Next they give me not a 5 passenger “intermediate” size car but a 4 passenger “economy” size car for the “intermediate” size price – the second way they cheated me! Then I asked about additional driver charges – quoted $15/day or $225 for 15 days when later I saw their posted rate on a small print reader board behind the counter that additional driver fee was $10/day. Declined the outrageous additional driver fee and 1 week later was quoted $5/day at Economy’s Playas del Coco office!!! Then when I turned in the car, they played games with the exchange rate using an exchange rate of 545 Colones/US Dollar. Quoting me the rental fees in US Dollars and converting it to an artificially high Colone exchange rate and submitting that inflated charge to VISA gave them an extra $15 when VISA used the actual conversion rate to convert to US $ and bill my credit card account!! My Masters degree is in International Finance. Unless you like to be cheated in every aspect of a car rental, DO NOT rent from Economy Rental Car!!!

I experienced similar with this car rental company…avoid Economy Car Rental like the plague. I just returned from my first trip to Costa Rica. Booked a mid-sized SUV from Economy Car Rental thru’ Expedia for 8 days, and was similarly scammed when I picked up car and was told that total cost will be 3 times higher due to “mandatory liability insurance”. Another scam technique is on the gasoline. In all my years of renting cars, this is the first time that I have been provided a car at pick-up with only 2/5 tank full and was given the feeble excuse that they didn’t have time to refill. I was so disgusted by this company that I took special effort to ensure that I returned the car with 2/5 tank full, and could tell from the face of the guy on returning the car that he was not very pleased.

This information is very helpful with, thanks.

Like your other readers, I was ripped off by Economy rent a car. Do not rent from these scammers!! I missed a small dent on the roof and was forced to pay for the damage that there is no way I personally caused. They were eager to show us the spot we missed seconds after pulling in with the vehicle and ready to charge for it immediately. You can tell they do this scam repeatedly, but never actually repair the dents either. Take a video, no matter who you rent from, but never choose Economy, as they also have hidden fees that will cost you more than double the rate that you booked the vehicle for! Good luck.

We are currently in Costa Rica and rented a car from Economy for two weeks. I was aghast when we arrived at the Liberia airport location (offsite) and the agent took out a pencil and added literally double our online quote for the “mandatory” insurance. We declined all insurance as we normally do when renting (as we have credit card coverage) and were also charged a $5,000 deposit for having done so. I really felt they were making up numbers on the spot and taking advantage of us, especially as we were at the counter with two small children and had no alternative to accepting what they said. We have the car for three more days. Do we have any recourse at all? Any suggestion of what we might do?

Do you have any experience with NÜ Car Rentals? If not could you recommend a company now that its been a couple years since this post was made? Thanks for the great info.