jafoo0's reviews

If you want a good example about how to make your customers mad and not get repeat business, try out American Limousine. We hired them for our wedding and they told us the charge was going to be $199. The service was fine, but we went 10 minutes over and the driver said it was no problem.. Apparently it was "no problem" for him, because when we checked our credit card statement, we were charged an additional 100 dollars.

We though.. Ok, no problem. Probably just a mistake.. We called their customer service, and they told us that additional 100 dollars was a prorated amount for the hour...They also said that it's not up to the driver how much they charge.-- which is absolutely ridiculous, and basically means anything goes! So let me do the math in my head, 100 dollars for 10 minutes.. That comes out 10 dollars a minute. Which means, if we went over 1 hour, it would have been an additional 600 dollars, and if we went over 25 minutes, it would have been an additional 250 dollars... It seems to me that my high school counselor should have been fired for NOT recommending me to become a limo driver-- 600 dollars an hour.. psh. I've been robbed.

This company seems like a scam and I feel what they did was down right criminal. We could have got ran into traffic, and who knows how much the bill could have gone up to? It's not like we told the driver to change where we were going, or pickup extra people. We didn't abuse the upholstery or make a big mess. I don't blame the driver, he was great-- I blame the company. If I could rate this company with negative stars, consider this review to have negative 5 stars.

Edit: Aug, 21, 2010
Called to complain again today, and apparently the rate wasn't "prorated" (so it wouldn't have been 600 dollars an hour). They said that they charged us for the entire 3 hours and the driver noted that we didn't tip. We informed the representative on the phone that we were quoted 199 which includes tax and gratuity. The representative said, well, that's only a 10% tip (... as if we knew?). So which is it!?!?!? Did American Limousine charge us the extra 100 dollars for the tip, or the extra 10 minutes (rounding up to the next hour)? It was interesting because once we informed the CSR (customer service representative) that they advertised that $199 was with tax and tip included, the CSR tried to back peddle and said.. oh.. well. that's just a note from the driver. First of all, how are we suppose to know that it's only a 10% tip!? When you advertise: "tax and tip included", you don't expect to pay anything more because the company has put in enough thought to how much they want to charge. I don't go to a restaurant and think, "Hey.. 8.25% is too low for tax.. I want to help California and pay 20% sales tax."

In addition, we pointed out to the representative that for the last 10 minutes, we were sitting in a valet line and the driver said that it was okay. We could have easily exited the limo, and apparently, ended the ride. Instead, we took the driver's word, and figured it was ok to sit in the limo. The representative, once again, said that it was not up to the driver. This makes no sense! The driver is an employee of the company, and he is speaking on behalf of the company. If it's not up to the driver (who is an employee of the company), then by that same logic, it's not up to the representative who I'm on the phone with (who is also an employee of the company).

Another interesting thing the CSR rep said was that, weddings reservations always run long. This implies to me that:
1. The company was expecting (or betting on us) going over, in order to charge us extra.
2. They weren't up front about their policies and charging procedures.

Dealing with this company in the beginning and during the ride was great, but after the ride, this company turned super shady. They seem to charge customers however they please with no accordance to a real set policy. What sucks is that we could have easily hired another local company for 235 dollars (tax and tip included), for 3 hours! ...Again the driver was great, the company is super shady.