Rentalcars.com rentalcars.com, priceline.com Took my money (prepaid car rental), agency was nowhere to be found, refused to refund my money! Internet

June, 2013: My wife and I vacationed in Italy and needed a car for a couple of days. I rented the car from Rentalcars.com online and prepaid for my rental. This is the only way they would book it.

I went to the Florence train station where they said the car rental agency was located and found none. So, we took a taxi to the car agency address a few miles away. The agency office was out of business and their phone was disconnected. I then took a taxi to the airport and tried to rent it from their agency at the airport. We were shunned from the ticket counter where they rudely refused to help us. We then rented from Hertz at significantly more money, but at least they were friendly and gave us excellent service.

I then sent an email to Rentalcars.com explaining the situation and asking them to refund my money. Rentalcars.com had a standard reply stating it typically takes 28 days or more to process.

Below is their actual reply almost a month later. Note that I couldn't even reply to their email...

"FromNo_Reply@rentalcars.com      Cancellation of your rentalcars.com Reservation - Ref: 249559693

Dear Mr XXXXX,

 Your reservation has now been cancelled and a refund of US$0.00 has been made.

 Your refund has been calculated as below:

 Cancellation fee: US$225.23  Amount Refunded: US$0.00

 Dependent upon your card provider this may take up to 7 working days to process.

 Sincerely,  rentalcars.com Reservations Team"

Yep, they shamelessly stole my money and it appears there is nothing I can do about it; except perhaps, cost them thousands of dollars in revenue and protect future victims by posting my experience in this review!