Copy of my letter to Orange Coach Charters dated 29th Dec2012 to which I am yet to receive a satisfactory response…….

I am writing to express my utter disgust at the service and attitude given by your driver at my son’s wedding yesterday. Not only did he embarrass us in front of our guests he will have done irreparable damage to the reputation of your company.

The day did not start well when he arrived early at our home and harassed our guests into leaving before they were ready, he then proceeded in a very arrogant manner to tell my wife that he would not pick up guests from an address that was on his schedule. This issue was soon resolved once he realised his mistake.

None of the above would have mattered had our return trip not taken on its final farcical and somewhat disturbing climax.

I fully accept that our meal had taken a little longer than anticipated but we are talking a matter of minutes not hours and when I met the driver in the street a few minutes before our anticipated departure time, I explained that our guests would be ready in about ten minutes, the response I got from your driver was that he didn't care about my guests, that he had another appointment and that he would be unloading and abandoning our luggage in the street. I must say that I was shocked by his response. This was a wedding which is an emotional event that does not always run like clockwork and I would expect your driver to have been a little sympathetic.

Had I been told that there would be a excess charge for running late I would have happily negotiated with the driver and although he later claimed that such an offer was made to me personally I can assure you that no such conversation took place.

By the time your driver had finished unloading our luggage our guests were ready to board the bus. I was then asked to leave the bus but I refused as I felt that I had a responsibility to ensure our guests safe passage home and I was not about to abandon them on the streets of the CBD late at night, especially as some of them had young children with them.

The following behaviour and language used by your driver in front of the children defied belief and to top it all once we were ready to leave he stomped off for about ten minutes. By the time he was finally persuaded to return by one of our guests, two of our other guests were so distressed that they had decided to take a taxi home and then once on route the driver got lost and had to be given directions.

I must admit that after we eventually arrived home and away from our guests I did give the driver a piece of my mind but under the circumstances I think I was pretty restrained.

Arranging a wedding is a huge undertaking with a vast amount of elements to be arranged. After reading your impressive promotional material I did not for one moment think that it would be the transporting of our guests that would prove to be the one thing that spoilt the event, such a disgrace.

I will not be sending your company an invoice for the damaged crockery caused by your driver nor the for the cost of providing a taxi for our guests who were too distressed to remain on the bus but I would respectfully suggest that you do not subject any more of your customers to this hideous little man who would probably make a good truck driver as long as he did not have to deal with the public and that you provide me with a written apology from your company so that I can at least pass it on to our deeply offended guests.