XYZ Car Service, Steve Ellis, Arrogant, defensive, unapologetic, incredibly poor handling of the situation. Has no business dealing with customers. Brooklyn, New York New York

We have been loyal customers of XYZ for the past 5 years.  We have an established account with them, so each ride is automatically charged to our credit card. We need service quite a bit and spend over $40,000 a year with them.  I recently arranged for XYZ to pick up family members from the airport on our account. When the pick up was completed, the driver asked "how they would like to pay the $120 fare?", even though it clearly states in large print not to ask for a credit card or money from the passenger.  My confused relatives handed him $120 in cash.  Feeling that something was not quite right, they told me what had happened.  I called and spoke to Steve Ellis who is a manager.  

I politely explained the issue and he was immediately defensive, saying that it wouldn't make sense for the driver to take cash since that could result in a $5,000 fine,  but that he would call the driver to find out exactly what happened.  He called me back and said that there must have been a misunderstanding since this driver would never except cash- implying that my family was lying!  I insisted that they would never lie about such a thing (what reason would they have to?) and that the incident did indeed happen. I was getting very upset at this point since he was unbelievably unapplogetic and arrogant.  

I decided to call the driver personally, since he had left his card with my relatives so that they could call him directly (not XYZ) when they needed a ride back to JFK.  That way he could scam them again!  He said he did indeed take the money, but he was confused by it and did not know why he accepted it.  Huh?  This is the absolutely worst customer service I have ever encountered.  All I needed was "I'm so sorry this has happened, let me speak to the driver and get to the bottom of this so we can come to a resolution."  Instead I got attitude.  Steve should also do a little research before he starts yelling at loyal customers.  My husband is the former president of a company who is a major account holder at XYZ. Not any longer.  Steve has unwittlingly cost XYZ hundreds of thousands of dollars.