Blue Star Group, Inc

Review: In my experience, [redacted] Taxi in [redacted] is routinely at LEAST 5 minutes late, usually closer to 10 or 15 minutes late, and twice this year so far it has been so eggregious - in both cases, an entire HOUR late. In both cases I had to find alternate transportation - most recently (on 19 November) I had to drive my husband to the airport myself at 5:30 in the morning. When we called dispatch, we were told that they were unable to get in contact with the driver. And did not offer to send another car. It is a completely unreliable service and it is the only taxi company in [redacted]. I'll be using [redacted] from now on.Desired Settlement: Ideally [redacted] would implement some major changes to avoid their constant tardiness problems and become a reliable company. Until this happens, I am not using them. Awful.

Business

Response:

I called and emailed [redacted] on Wednesday, November 26, 2014 as a result of us receiving this complaint. Then, on Saturday, November 29, 2014, one of our driver services managers, Ray N[redacted], called and emailed [redacted]. She emailed us back on Monday, December 1, 2014 and mentioned that she was out of town for Thanksgiving. Ray emailed her back and mentioned that he had met with the driver. Ray further noted that he did not believe the drivers story and we will be sending her a [redacted] gift card to apologize for this issue. She accepted that and she gave us her address at [redacted], MD [redacted] to send her the gift card. We will process the gift card by the end of this week and get it out to her by next week. Please let me know if you need additional information.

Thank you,

Carl

Consumer

Response:

[A default letter is provided here which indicates your acceptance of the business's response. If you wish, you may update it before sending it.]

I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and find that this resolution is satisfactory to me.

Regards,

Review: Failure to honor a reservation made to transport an elderly disabled woman with dementia via wheelchair taxi. The woman (my mother) was picked up from assisted living and brought to my sister's home, but then [redacted] cancelled the return reservation saying they had made an error in making it in the first place. They then refused to pick up my mother and return her to assisted living. We were left without transportation late at night (11 pm) and had to scramble to find another means of transportation. Thankfully, my mother was returned to her home at 1 am by another company. This was a significant safety issue as she was without her medication, a change in incontinence diapers, and no means of being transferred from her wheelchair to more comfortable seating or a bed.

Previous experiences with this company have included CHRONIC failure to pick up on time, or waiting at the bottom of the driveway instead of proceeding to the assisted living drop off area to pick up the passenger.Desired Settlement: Appropriately train dispatch/reservation staff to make reservations which can be fulfilled

Reprimand employee who disregarded this policy

Appropriately attend to the safety needs of elderly and disabled riders who require wheelchair taxi service

Business

Response:

Thursday, October 09, 2014This is in response to Revdex.com complaint [redacted]. Below is an email that I sent to [redacted] on Tuesday, October 7, 2014. It is my understanding that this complaint has been resolved. Please let me know if you require any additional information. Thank you.From: S[redacted], Carl Sent: Tuesday, October 07, 2014 4:33 PM To: [redacted]' Cc: QUALITY ASSURANCE Subject: [redacted] complaintGood afternoon [redacted],This email is a follow up to our conversation we had this afternoon. As I mentioned to you, our lines are monitored and recorded for quality assurance purposes. This incident is a prime example as to why our lines are recorded and is one of our best tools to conduct our research. I have investigated the details of this complaint and my findings are explained in the body of this email.The initial reservation from [redacted] to [redacted] came in on Saturday, 9-20-14 at around 7:14pm for a Taxi Plus vehicle for an immediate pick up that was conf [redacted] picked up the passenger within approximately 30-40 minutes after the call was placed. As I mentioned, due to the high demand, it typically takes up to 2 hours or longer for an ASAP reservation for a Taxi Plus.A return trip from [redacted] to [redacted] was requested for 10:00pm immediately after the initial reservation noted above. The 10:00pm reservation was put in to our system at 7:17pm and was conf [redacted]. At around 8:15pm, a woman called and gave us "reservation [redacted]." Our agent, Herbert, says "OK, [redacted]?" Then, the woman says, "Yes, the customer canceled so you don’t need to send the cab." I have attached the recording of the call. The call in reference begins at the 1:30 mark of the recording. While I had you on the phone, I held my cell phone up to my speaker so you could hear this recording.As we discussed, I am not sure who it was that canceled this call if it was not you, your sister, or your mother. The woman seemed firm and confident about giving Herbert the confirmation number. Perhaps it could have been someone from the assisted living home that called to cancel. So, when you called us around 10:30pm to check on the status of the taxi, Herbert coincidentally answered your call.Herbert mentioned to you that he thought it you had called about 2 hours prior to cancel the trip. You asked him if he was insane as you mentioned that you did not cancel the return trip, nor were you aware of anyone that made that call. Herbert then put the trip back in our system and we began to work on finding a Taxi Plus driver to transport your mother. We do not have many Taxi Plus vehicles working after 8pm or 9pm unless we have prior knowledge of needed service. Most of our Taxi Plus business is during the day. So, the drivers typically work when they know there is Taxi Plus work available.Our staff, including the supervisor on duty, Simone, attempted to call our Taxi Plus drivers to find someone to run the trip for your mom. Unfortunately, we were not able to locate a driver at that time of the night. However, as I mentioned, I am not happy at all with the manner and tone in which our nighttime supervisor, Simone, spoke to you. That was unacceptable and I truly apologize for that. Simone will be reprimanded for that. It is obvious to me that you did not know that someone had called with your confirmation number to cancel the return trip. Simone should have remained professional and better explained things to you from our perspective.On Wednesday, October 1, 2014, you received an e-mail from [redacted] from our office. She mentioned that we reimbursed the credit card $18.84, which was the cost of the trip from [redacted] to [redacted]. Obviously, we did not charge anything for the return trip, as we did not provide that transportation.We probably would not have had an issue if the mysterious caller had not called to cancel the return reservation. Perhaps you could forward it to your sister to see if she recognizes the voice on the recording. It could also be that someone gave us the wrong confirmation number and her cab was never canceled. I will recommend to our COO and CEO that we send your mother a Barwood gift card to help attempt to make up for this bad incident. Can you confirm if your mothers address [redacted], MD [redacted]?I do not blame you one bit for posting ###-###-####your comments on our [redacted] page and contacting the County in relation to this complaint. However, I hope you now have a better understanding of where things went wrong. I will forward this email to the County to let them know that I have been in contact with you and it appears that we have resolved this issue. Please let me know if you disagree and I will certainly do whatever is needed.I know you mentioned that you have been using a specific driver for your mother, but please feel free to contact me directly in relation to any future reservations for your mother. I apologize for everything that your mother and your family went through that night. Please don’t forget to confirm your mother's address. Thank you.Respectfully,Carl S

Consumer

Response:

[A default letter is provided here which indicates your acceptance of the business's response. If you wish, you may update it before sending it.]

I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and find that this resolution is satisfactory to me. I appreciated the efforts of Carl S[redacted] to find the cause of the reservation cancellation. I hope that such a mix-up can be avoided in the future.

Regards,