Bad experience with Inverness Taxi

Just back from an excellent UK cruise. While docked in Invergordon a few of us approached the taxi company at the pier (Inverness Taxi) and asked about a taxi into Inverness with a return back to Invergordon later that day.

The ride into Inverness was OK with the agreed upon £50 paid upon arrival. (price quoted was £50 each way). We were dropped off in front of the Tourist Office and agreed upon a time to 2:00 PM to be picked up and returned to Invergordon. We were all at the meeting spot promptly at 2:00 and no cab. We gave it 5-10 more minutes then decided to call the cell number the cab driver had given us... no answer :eek:

Being in front of the tourist office we asked if they could call Inverness Taxi to see what was going on. They apologized and said they would have a cab for us at the Tourist office within the next 30 minutes. Again, no cab. The tourist office called them back to find out what was going on and were then told they were too busy to send us a cab! You would think they could have figured that out before promising to send a replacement cab!

Thankfully the tourist office reached out to Sneckie Taxis who said they could have a cab there within 20 minutes. It promptly arrived as promised.

All in all we wasted more than 90 minutes between the original cab pickup time and when we finally got taken care of by Sneckie Taxis. We were thankful we had planned to return to the ship early (that plan went out the window when Inverness Taxi failed to show up) so while we cut it much closer to departure time then we like, there was enough slack built in.

I have sent a link for this to Inverness Taxi. I wonder if they will reply?

No excuse, but I guess they are a small company and found themselves to be overbooked.

You are an individual, and many small taxi firms have long term contracts with companies and local government - as it was around 3 pm when they finally said they were too busy, I would guess that the taxis were tied up with taking schoolkids home on council contracts.

You won't be there tomorrow, the long term contracts will be. Not fair, but life isn't.

I know the difficulties small taxi firms face. Whatever the reason, they were aware of this party's deadline and could have made an alternative arrangement.

I think this is deplorable behaviour on the part of Inverness Taxis, Inverness is in a main tourist area of Scotland, the local economy including their taxi companies do a lot of tourist business. What signals does this send out to tourists/visitors to the area.

A strong letter of complaint to the company with copies to the local taxi licensing dept and tourist authority, this company need a good kick up the backside if this is how they treat customers.

No excuse, but I guess they are a small company and found themselves to be overbooked.

 

You are an individual, and many small taxi firms have long term contracts with companies and local government - as it was around 3 pm when they finally said they were too busy, I would guess that the taxis were tied up with taking schoolkids home on council contracts.

 

You won't be there tomorrow, the long term contracts will be. Not fair, but life isn't.

The original pickup arrangement was made for 2:00 PM, if they had other more important clients they should not have agreed to that. Also, once they had screwed up, why make it worse for us by telling the tourist office they would have a replacement cab in 30 minutes at 3:00 if they were too busy?

I think this is deplorable behaviour on the part of Inverness Taxis, Inverness is in a main tourist area of Scotland, the local economy including their taxi companies do a lot of tourist business. What signals does this send out to tourists/visitors to the area.

A strong letter of complaint to the company with copies to the local taxi licensing dept and tourist authority, this company need a good kick up the backside if this is how they treat customers.

The tourist office is well aware of this having been involved with the booking of the replacement cab booked for 3:00. They were as shocked as we were. I've also followed up with an e-mail to the tourist office thanking their employee for helping us out.

I just received this email:

HAPPY CABBIES TAXIS

 

happycabbies@live.co.uk

 

Hello

 

Thank you for your email, however we are actually called Happy Cabbies Taxis and have no affiliation to Inverness Taxis. We have Inverness Taxis as our website address because it's a good address to have. Hopefully they post the phone number they called which would be either 01463 222222 or 233333. We have had a few complaints which are actually from them. The fare from Inverness to Invergordon for no more than 4 passengers would be £32 on tariff 1. So yes it seems they were very over charged.

 

Regards

Laura

Just back from an excellent UK cruise. While docked in Invergordon a few of us approached the taxi company at the pier (Inverness Taxi) and asked about a taxi into Inverness with a return back to Invergordon later that day.

 

The ride into Inverness was OK with the agreed upon £50 paid upon arrival. (price quoted was £50 each way). We were dropped off in front of the Tourist Office and agreed upon a time to 2:00 PM to be picked up and returned to Invergordon. We were all at the meeting spot promptly at 2:00 and no cab. We gave it 5-10 more minutes then decided to call the cell number the cab driver had given us... no answer :eek:

 

Being in front of the tourist office we asked if they could call Inverness Taxi to see what was going on. They apologized and said they would have a cab for us at the Tourist office within the next 30 minutes. Again, no cab. The tourist office called them back to find out what was going on and were then told they were too busy to send us a cab! You would think they could have figured that out before promising to send a replacement cab!

 

Thankfully the tourist office reached out to Sneckie Taxis who said they could have a cab there within 20 minutes. It promptly arrived as promised.

 

All in all we wasted more than 90 minutes between the original cab pickup time and when we finally got taken care of by Sneckie Taxis. We were thankful we had planned to return to the ship early (that plan went out the window when Inverness Taxi failed to show up) so while we cut it much closer to departure time then we like, there was enough slack built in.

Hello RickT,

I'm a welcome volunteer at the Edinburgh cruise ports and have forwarded your post to a couple of the volunteers up at Invergordon whom I know. They're obviously on the spot, so can maybe look into it

They need to refund you the £50 you paid for the first journey as a way of apology for all the stress, bother and inconvenience and explain very clearly why the taxi wasn't there at the time it was booked for and who messed up.

 

The person(s) who messed up the booking schedule should be responsible for making the apology and compensating you financially.

The chance of any of that happening is zero.

As for people suggesting writing letters...

Thanks to everyone for your comments suggestions.

Just a few points:

1) I'm not looking for compensation or a refund of any sort. The fare of £50 was OK as there were 6 of us.

2) It seems Inverness Taxis (or Happiecabbies) are missing the point. The NO SHOW of their cab was the issue, not the price. The promise of a replacement cab which also became a No Show was actually worse as it further limited our time/options to get back to the ship.

3) Thanks to tartanexile81, anything that can be done to ensure future travellers don't have this happen to them would be good. Please let the volunteers know we loved the piper as we departed the ship in the morning and the Pipe Band for giving us a wonderful send off!

4) Thanks to Sneckie Taxis for having a cab available and actually delivering on their promise of a pickup time :)

As mentioned I've contacted Sneckie and the Inverness Tourist office to thank them for their help. Should I be fortunate enough to return to Inverness/Invergordon I'll be sure to avoid Inverness Taxi.