SIXT car rental review

Friends were visiting Austria last summer and if the car company SIXT had not been so disappointing, I would not write a review about them here.

When they got to the airport to pick up the car, their credit card was not accepted as a deposit because the limit was too low, even though they used it to pay the rental fee online during the reservation. So I had to get there to use mine as a deposit... what a pain in the a**. Other rental car companies accept cash deposits though.

For heaven's sake nothing happened during their trip and the car was returned at an unmanned SIXT car park at Wien Westbahnhof (Vienna West station). As strange as it sounds, they did not get any receipt or proof that the car was returned properly. After inquiry by e-mail they got an invoice by e-mail without any text in the message. Still, this was no proof for whatsoever.

So they happily returned to their home country and we thought that the SIXT episode was over. Around 2 months later SIXT sent us another e-mail. I cannot remember the exact wording, but my friends were accused of breaking several parts of the car (damaged doors, back side of the car etc.) without any proof and demanded more than 200 euros as far as I can remember. This was more than a third of the rental fee by the way. Doing some research on the internet I found similar cases of SIXT customers from Germany. According to a customer staff at SIXT try to gain some money by sending a fake damage report to the last 6 customers. Maybe one "dumb" guy would pay it. Anyway, I wrote an English letter for the friends that there are enough witnesses who can testify that the car was returned in proper condition and any charging of the credit card would lead to legal actions from my friends' side. Since that we have never heard from SIXT again.

From this experience, I will never go to SIXT to rent a car and cannot recommend it to anyone anymore. I just cannot trust them.