Don't Bother

I have never been more disappointed with a taxi company. We were attending a wedding as a group of 8 and so I made sure to book all the taxis 5 weeks in advance knowing it would be busy and we would be a difficult group to cater for. Direct taxis had a good looking app and even had minibuses which could fit all of us in. We therefore booked 3 taxi trips for the day Hotel - Church, Church - Reception, Reception - Hotel The first taxi arrived early to the hotel which was reassuring as we didn’t have to worry bout being late to the wedding. However, when we went out to the taxi we discovered it only had 7 seats. This was despite selecting the minibus size taxi on the app (which has 8 spaces, the next size down went up to 7). Apparently the app had registered just 1 passenger was requesting an 8 seater bus (there was no option to add more passengers). Dispatch had therefore decided that this 1 passenger could fit in a 7 seater without telling us! The driver was helpful however, and phoned dispatch for us. They were happy to send a minibus, however this would be at least a 25 min wait and would make us late for the wedding. They offered to send a second smaller cab, but again would be 20 mins. Instead we took the 7 seater and someone had to drive to the church. Not the best start. After the ceremony we had an 8 seater booked from the church to the reception. However, as one of our party now had to drive back to the hotel to leave his car and get an Uber to the reception we didn’t bother checking if they were sending a full 8 seater or less. However, 5 mins before our scheduled pickup time I received a notification from the app “We’re very sorry but we’ve had to cancel your taxi”. No explanation, just that it was cancelled. I phoned the dispatch and was told they had no record of the cancellation (but also didn’t have a taxi coming) but that I’d only booked the taxi that morning (despite it being booked 5 weeks ago). They also told me (multiple times) that we were now out of their operating area so they would really struggle to get us a taxi (again despite them having the booking accepted for 5 weeks). Eventually 30 mins after it was originally scheduled to arrive they agreed to send us a taxi but it would take at least 30 mins to reach us. Instead we cancelled this, half our group got an Uber and the other half hitched lifts with other guests at the wedding. Direct Taxis were now 0/2 and our confidence was low so I phoned to confirm at 4pm that our taxi to get back to the hotel from the reception at 23:40 was still booked and would definitely be for 8 people. I was assured that this was all good and that the taxi would definitely be on time. 23:40 arrived and I had received no texts or notifications from the app to say our taxi was en route. I called dispatch and after being passed around was told that there was a taxi in the area and it was just finishing with its previous trip. It would therefore be with us in 15-20 mins. 20 mins later our taxi finally arrived and it was the elusive minibus! However this was now 30 mins after it was booked for and we’d been standing in the cold for that time waiting. All in all a very poor showing from Direct Taxis. The whole experience put a downer on the whole wedding day as we were constantly worrying whether we’d actually be able to get from one venue to the next. Their drivers were very pleasant, but let down by the company massively. Apparently according to one of them it wasn’t the first time the app had caused a taxi of the wrong size to be sent out! I will be avoiding Direct Taxis whenever I’m in the area again and would advise people to not bother and to steer clear.

Chris W - 04/10/2021 | report this review