Taxi Zero Transport

Response to complaint [redacted] by [redacted], Driver and Dispatcher, Taxi Zero Transport Taxi Zero [redacted] Concerning the events that took place on the weekend of November 8, 2005. Taxi Zero was called around 2:00am by a front desk person at the [redacted] to pick up a...

young man at [redacted] on [redacted] campus. We considered the front desk person our contact, and the young man was to be our customer. I was the dispatcher that night, and I had another taxi driver on duty who responded to this request. Our normal hours of operation end at 2:10am, a few minutes after the bars close. Since the call came in before 2:10am, I asked my driver if he would stay on and take the call. He agreed to respond to the call. The sequence of calls went as follows: 2:00am - initial call from [redacted] front desk – we informed them it would be about 30 minutes response 2:10am – my driver texted me he had arrived at [redacted] the place of pickup 2:10am – I informed [redacted] front desk we had arrived 2:15am – [redacted] had contacted the customer and he said he would arrive at [redacted] in about 5 minutes 2:25am – my driver texted me that the customer had not arrived at [redacted]. 2:25am – I informed my driver to continue to wait until I had a chance to check with the [redacted] front desk 2:25am – I informed [redacted] that the customer had not arrived at [redacted] 2:30am – [redacted] front desk told me they could not reach the customer by phone 2:30am – I informed [redacted] that we had waited 15 minutes from the time we heard that the customer was aware of our arrival, and since he was no longer responding to the phone calls, I would inform my driver we have a “no-show” and to close down for the night. 2:30am [redacted] front desk agreed with my assessment and reiterated that they could not reach the customer 2:35am - I called my driver. He confirmed that the person was a “no-show”. I told him to close up and go home. We have phone records to verify the sequence of events. Around 2:40am, I received a phone call from the customer’s mom. She was upset that we did not wait longer for her son. I reviewed the sequence of events and that we had waited approximately 20 minutes for her son, from the time he was informed that we were on site. She stated that we had waited only 3 minutes. She was not at [redacted]. She was not on the phone with me during any of these previous calls. She was neither the customer, nor the contact person. We did not hang up on any phone call with the [redacted] front desk (4 phones were made back-and-forth during this engagement). We were professional and courteous with the contact at the [redacted] We worked hard to solve the issue. We closed at 2:35am after having a “no-show”. I informed the mom that my account was fairly accurate and if she was not happy with our level of customer care, there was another cab company in town who might still be running. (they keep hours roughly the same as ours). I ended the phone call with the mom abruptly as she was making threats and being argumentative and she showed no signs of wanting to enter into a dialog about the events that had taken place. By her own admission in her complaint, her 17-year-old son, a minor, was alone on a college campus in a town that was “unfamiliar to him”. We offer taxi service. Chaperoning unsupervised minors is not a service that we offer. It was about 1 mile walk to the [redacted], and many students were out walking that night. It was about 45 degrees. He could have easily walked that distance in the 15 minutes we had waited. Also, people sometimes stay longer than expected at a friend’s room. Either of these could have happened. We lost contact with her son, and had no way of finding out where he was. He did not show up at [redacted] which was where we were told to wait for him. In the end, we were not compensated for our time.