Who's with me? Car rentals are a massive rip-off, right?

Yet need to hire a car and the process remains as depressing and baffling as it has always been. It begins hopefully when you spot a good online price for a small vehicle and make your reservation. Then the big day comes.

You can always locate the company you booked with because they will be the one with the enormous queue. At every other window the staff will be staring into space but your reservation will be at the desk with ten people waiting, including one man who only speaks Greek and wants to swap his Honda Civic for a Bedford van but only if it’s electric.

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After watching the start of your holiday disappear before your eyes, you eventually reach the front of the line and that’s where the problems really begin. After being offered a bewildering range of additional payment options, the staff take a deposit the size of Belgium’s national debt, then reveal your choice of car is unavailable.

They always sweeten this by telling you that you’ve been upgraded, which is fine unless you’ve booked a Fiat Punto for ease of navigating the narrow streets of Rome and instead end up driving a two-tonne Dodge Durango down the Spanish Steps.

Do they even own the cars they advertise? I’m not sure because I really can’t remember the last time I got the one I actually booked.

This summer the Fiat 500 I’d reserved turned into some weird Kia with an enormous scratch down the side. And one on the bonnet... and the rear bumper. I pointed all that out to the man who gave me the key, shrugged and scribbled something on a piece of paper.

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Returning a week later, all seemed to be fine. I hadn’t added to the scratches, I’d filled up with fuel and even got back a few hours early. The man grunted and scribbled on some more paper and that was that until a week later when an email arrived charging an extra 200 euros for Protection Plus (whatever that is) and the cost of filling up the tank... which I’d already done.

After some badgering, they backed down and refunded the money but what an amazing business model. You promise a product for a price, then make people queue, then give them a different product they didn’t want, then charge them much more for it.

And the worst thing is, they have different logos, brands and promises but they are all basically the same. The car rental market is ripe for an ambitious disruptor to move in, rip up the spurious charges and calculations and offer a transparent price and good customer service.

Could the obstacle to that possibly be a cosy cartel involving car manufacturers who rely on fleet sales and the big rental operators who shield together to hold onto the biggest consumer-scamming operation in the holiday market?

So until Michael O’Leary decides to rip up the business model, get ready for summer of collision-damage waivers, additional driver charges and supplements for having a beard while driving an automatic.