Monday, August 18, 2008

AAA Limo in Austin, TX

*When you "google" this, I want to be one of the first things you see...

This is the email I sent to Mike Green, the owner of AAA Limo in Austin, three separate times. He FAILED to respond to me. I am posting this because if I can save just one person from this Limo company, then I'll feel I've done the Austin community a service.

Saturday, August 2nd, 2008

Hello,I am writing to discuss a disturbing experience with your company and driver on Saturday night, August 2nd. As you are aware, I hired AAA limo for my husband's birthday on July 12th and had several issues with the A/C malfunctioning, the driver not knowing where he was going, taking the longest routes, being late bringing us home, and insulting me when it came time to pay. You were very apologetic, did not charge me for the extra 20 minutes it took to get us home, and offered us a free hour on our next trip in order to keep our business. You assured me that we would have your company's best driver and that we would not have to give him any directions. So we gave AAA another chance.

When the driver arrived Saturday, we paid in cash up front, then he requested directions to the location. Right there, I was not pleased based on what we'd discussed before, but I let that go. The hour long ride was made extremely uncomfortable because the limo's A/C was not blowing cold air. But we all shrugged it off, determined to have an enjoyable experience. Once we arrived, my husband and I stayed back to discuss this with the driver and he said he would go get it fixed.

Before he left, he chased my husband and I down because he thought a champagne glass was missing. He was clearly agitated and told us that we would be charged if it was gone. It was not missing, by the way. Then he left for TWO hours.

When he finally returned, we had been ready to leave for some time. We get in and we start the remainder of our evening. He spent quite a bit of time telling us how long we could stay places. We were okay with that, sort of, but he did convey the attitude that we were at HIS service, not the other way around.

Our final stop of the evening was at [redacted] club near our home. As a side note, we have hired limos multiple times with this being a destination point and have never had an issue with a driver waiting in the parking lot. There is so much security around these places, that it was quite possible the safest stop of the entire night. Our driver again told us when he would pick us up, but he also asked that we call 15 minutes ahead of time. The bottom line, though, was that he told us when he would pick us up. At the appointed time, he was not there, so we called him. He took 20 minutes to get there, and by this time, there are 10 of us waiting in the parking lot, looking at our watches, concerned that we were now going to be charged additional money because of his lateness.

When the driver arrived, my husband started to talk to him to ensure that we would not be charged time for his mistake and the driver became very agitated and angry. When another person in our group explained to him that it was his JOB to pick us up and drive us places, the driver told him to, "Fuck off."Sadly, those words instigated a reaction and started some yelling back and forth. The driver then called the police, locked us out of the limo, and basically held us hostage for close to an hour. We did eventually get back into the limo, thankfully. For the most part, we were trying to be calm and rational. Two of us might not have been as calm (the two mothers on board - myself included) because we were concerned that our babysitter did not know where we were as we were so very late in getting home.

When the police arrived, the driver told him that we were "too drunk" and that one of our group threatened him. The driver was never threatened by any of us. [redacted]. That is not what we do and we do not associate with people who would do something like that! As far as being "too drunk," even the police officers thought the driver was being ridiculous! He told all of us, including your driver, that he is on the DWI task force and that we did the right thing in hiring the limo. We did the right thing.

Our friend, however, was forced to spend $50 on a cab home as he was not allowed back in the vehicle.

The sad thing is that the entire incident could have been avoided had the driver known his place as someone who was HIRED to drive us. We spent a good deal of money with you on Saturday night, and with that, we do expect a certain level of service that was not met. And as the driver left our home in the wee hours of Sunday morning, his parting words to two of the men with us were, "You're just a couple of little faggots!"

I'm not going to sit here and ask for my money back. I want to be sure, however, that my husband's credit card is not charged anything as we did pay for the entire night up front and in cash. Additionally, it would definitely be a gesture of good will to reimburse our friend his $50 cab fare.We gave your company a second chance to have our business and we were treated very poorly to say the least. Yes, you gave us a great price on the hourly rate, but I guess this is a prime example of "you get what you pay for." I know that small businesses thrive on word of mouth and repeat customers. At this point, we cannot give AAA anymore of our business.I do hope that you do the right thing.

Thank you,