Xperience Days Horrendous Customer ServiceHoboken New Jersey

On approximately March 1, 2009, I booked an "Extended Helicopter Ride for Two" in the city of Atlanta thru Xperience Days. I had never heard of the company before and had found them by searching for "unqiue gifts" on the internet. The gift was a surprise for my husband's 40th birthday and I was very excited. The booking was scheduled for Sunday, May 10th at 1:00pm.

When I booked the event, the representative was extremely nice and helpful. I advised that the event was a surprise for my husband and the rep was very accommodating with regard to having everything sent to my work address instead of my home.

As far as I was concerned, everything was set and I had made sure by booking this event well in advance of the actual scheduled event day. As the event date became closer, I started watching the weather reports just to make sure things would work out perfectly. Unfortunately, scattered showers were predicted for that weekend so on Thursday, May 7th, I contacted xperience days to find out what the policy was for cancellations and to change my contact information. The rep, again, very nice told me that if the event was canx due to weather, they would gladly reschedule at no charge. I gave her my updated information and she advised me to update my personal information on the site and I did that as well.

On the day of the event, Sunday, May 10th my husband and I arrived at the location at 12:45pm (our scheduled appt time) and I was immediately told by the pilot that there had been a scheduling conflict and my event had been canx'd because the plane needed maintenance! Understandbly I was extremely disappointed and embarrassed considering that this was a suprise event for my husband's birthday! The pilot told me that he tried to contact me several times with the number that he was given by xperience days but apparently the number he had was my work number. I explained to him that xperience days had two numbers in the system and that they should have given him both. Disgruntled, he said he would contact them and inquire about why he was only given one number.

Obviously upset, I contacted xperience days on the following day.When the rep answered the phone, I politely said "I'm calling to get a refund on an event that was cancelled" The rep very dryly, said "we don't give refunds" I said "well, the event was cancelled by your company, not me" and the rep asked "was it due to inclement weather?" and I said "no, it was due to the helicopter needing maintenance" so she says "hold please"....after about 8 mins, she comes back to the phone and says "Well, I called the pilot and he said that he called you several times, so...we can't give you a refund" by this time, I had become more irate and told the rep that the pilot was given only one number and there are two on my account. The rep then tells me that I am wrong and that they only had one number and it wasn't there fault if the pilot could not reach me. This is a good time for me to point out that the pilot called me on Friday afternoon at 5pm (at work) when I had already left the office and he called again on Sunday (the day of the event) at 10:51am, approx. two hours before the event started which meant obviously I was in route. The rep was very rude, dry and unsympathetic so much to the point that I asked to speak with someone else because I felt like we were not getting anywhere...the rep chuckled and said "Well, they are just going to tell you the same thing" before putting me on hold for approx. 10 mins.

When the second rep gets on the phone, she was just as rude and the previous rep. I asked what could the company do to accommodate me for cancelling my event. The rep said "nothing, except reschedule...you should have given the correct contact number" I asked "What are you willing to do to accommodate me??? Can you offer me a discount that I could use toward a future event?" to which the rep answered "we don't give discounts...thats the nature of the business" After that comment I told the rep that I would reschedule, but not until after I had told everyone that I knew how horrible their customer service was and she said "fine" at which point I hung up the phone.

The reason that I am so upset and disappointed is not because the event was cancelled. I can understand that things happen that are totally out of anyone's control. (Eventhough there is nothing stated about "maintenance cancellations".) The reason that I am writing is because I am so shocked and appalled at how rude and unsympathetic the customer service reps were. When you are ordering the services they are the nicest people in the world, but as soon as there is a problem they are mean and evil. Throughout my conversation with both reps, not one of them apologized. No one said we understand why you're upset, no one said, we will try our best to make the next experience better. All they did was basically say it was MY fault for not giving them the right number when in fact I had done so 4 days prior to the actual event!!!! In addition, the documentation that I received at booking says that the pilot may cancel at anytime due to inclement weather, it does not say anything about maintenance.

I will never use this company again. I wish I would have known about this site previously because I would have seen other reports about how awful the customer service was.

Mrs. Collins
Atlanta, Georgia
U.S.A.