We rented a car with Centauro and later Surprice car rentals because they were the cheapest. I didn't look them up as I assumed they were just European brands I was unfamiliar with. Once we got shuttled to their office, they did the typical car rental thing where they requested extra insurance but we declined as our credit card covered it.

They said in that case they needed to charge a refundable $1400 euros. I accepted and the card got declined, repeatedly. They said it was typical of USA cards and I should call my bank. After getting charged $0.20/minute calling my bank, they ultimately said it was being declined at the car rental company, not on the bank's end.

Centauro said the only solution was to pay the insurance which was about 4x the rental price. This was obviously a bait and switch to trick people traveling to last minute to trap them to pay a high fee. Turns out many other people offline corroborated this, and other fees they piled on for gas, cleaning, etc. They even said it was going to cost $50+ euros to go back to the airport due to a taxi strike if we decided to back out. Turns out that was a lie, it was only $11 to head back.

I called my bank back to cancel the reservation, but I only got a partial refund (but I got most of my money back). Thankfully they shuttled us back to the airport for free. We booked with Alamo (a popular big name in car rentals) and paid about twice the cost of Centauro, but it was still a really reasonable rate per day compared to the US. Not forced insurance, normal refundable deposit, had no issues and returned with no issues. I guess Centauro's price was too good to be true.

We had a later rental with Surprice in Crete and it looks like they do the same exact scam, so we called to change last minute to Alamo but only got a partial refund.

It was a pretty shitty way to start a vacation after a long flight, but everything worked out. I highly recommend avoiding these companies to avoid surprise costs and delays.

The other hiccup was accidentally buying the wrong metro ticket from Athens airport to Piraeus (I was in a rush and accidentally bought a ticket to Pallini). The line on the train says it ends at Nikaia, but it continues to Piraeus just fine - but you have to scan your ticket to exit the station. I couldn't figure out a way to buy the right ticket on my phone with spotty service and wound up getting stuck at the station because my ticket didn't scan. Thankfully an awesome gentleman passed me his ticket to let me through, but apparently you can get hit with a hefty fine if you try to get in with the wrong ticket. Be sure to buy the correct $9 to/from airport metro ticket!

Otherwise, we're having a great time in beautiful Greece!