Avis They cancelled our rental 3 days before the trip and stole our deposit!

3 days before our rental they email to say they would not rent us the car to self drive and if we wanted it we would have to have a driver, even though we had sent a deposit to them and both parties signed a contract. We did not want a driver so we declined the offer. They said no problem we will refund your deposit or if you want you can leave a new €5000 deposit for the car and maybe they would let us self-drive. Theres no way we were leaving a €5000 deposit so we opted for the refund and found another company to rent from. (only mildly stressful)

Its been nearly 2 months and they haven't sent our deposit back. They've ignored emails until the other day when a review was posted on trip advisor. They are now telling us that since we did not want to pay the €5000 deposit it was us who cancelled the rental so they are keeping the deposit. Even though their emails clearly state we can take the refund or agree to pay the new deposit amount.

Thats some shady business practice there! I can only imagine how many others they have done this to and I really hope that no one has actually sent them a crazy amount of money for a deposit because from what I've seen it wouldn't surprise me if they kept it. People like this should not be in business, and there are plenty of reliable and trustworthy car rental companies in Madagascar.

I put together a webpage with the full details and all the contact we've had with this company. There are screen shots of our messages on trip advisor and also a PDF export of our emails you can open and view. www.raidadventuresscam.wixsite.com/madagascar

It sounds like this has been done before to another person, so I'm hoping to leave as many reviews as possible out there so people can be aware. There are lots of wonderful people in Madagascar and in the 2.5 weeks I was there I had only positive experiences. The other rental company that we used in the end didn't even require a deposit in advance (because we were arriving in 2 days) and they were professional and friendly. You can check them out at www.drive.mg the webpage is basic and theres little info on them but we had a great experience with them and I'd use them again if I were to go back.

AVOID RAID ADVENTURES MADAGASCAR