I share the story because I do not wish anyone to face such terrible situation like this. Everything I posted here is true. If anyone would like to see evidence, send me message, I'll provide them.
Warnings! Do not use this school.
Do not make any payment in advance or you could lose portion of your money and maybe over 2 months time dealing with their administrative failures, dishonesty, rude and no quality service.
This is what happened.
3/19/18. I paid $599 via paypal on their website for lessons.
3/20/18 I tried calling and texting school the whole day, from 9am. to schedule first lesson. No one responded to calls or text. I contacted driving instructor myself and informed him that it's been all day I could not reach the school to set up an appointment so I do not want to start using thier service. The instructor said I should talk to school. Finally at 7:40pm their staff answered the phone.
I informed the staff clearly that due to their below standard service, I don't want to take any lesson with them. I requested for a full refund.
( Please note that the $599 was made to them less than 24 hrs.)
The staff claimed that her boss is on oversea trip and it might take some time for a refund. I said that's fine with me, I just want a refund.
3/22/18 I received a Paypal notice for a refund of $581.33 instead of $599 ($17.67 missing).School informed me that paypal service is charged upon me. I disagreed to that since I never used the school's service. I never accepted that refund and money returned to school.
I then dispute the $599 charge with my credit card company since no service was taken place. All seemed well, I received full amount money back from credit card company. I thought issue was solved.
4/28/18 the credit card company reversed the dispute because the school informed them that I took 4 hrs lesson with them. But I NEVER took any lesson with this school! NEVER!
I contacted the school, they said it was a mistake. It supposed to be for another student who took class with them. Then they said it's Paypal mistake and would let their boss know.
4/30/18 I got text from school saying it is paypal mistake and I would get the money back any day.
Their money back any day never came.
5/21/18 No refund from school. They also never informed credit card company of their falsely claim that I took lessons with them. I still got charged at $599.
I contacted them again. Their staff said that her boss made the payment via Paypal. I confirmed that I never received any notification from Paypal and I still got charged from my credit card. She said she would ask her boss to call me.
5/22/18 Her boss never contacted me. All I got was text messages saying that Paypal messed up the payment. And it's also because of credit card company that the money couldn't be refunded.
My response was, first of all, the credit card company their staff mentioned is not the company I use the service. So please check. Secondly, credit card company just informed me that the school told them that they will refund me directly.
Later in the day, I got Paypal notification for a refund. But it's only $575! $24 is missing from the total amount.
I checked with them and they said $24 is to cover Paypal service fee for two refund transactions. I said it's unfair to make a potential student cover Paypal fee for school's mistakes (they could not be reached for class appointment, they charged money to a wrong person, they denied credit card dispute by providing false information, using info intended for someone else to claim and they didn't refund money, without following up).
The staff said she would check with her boss again. Then texted me saying that not just me, school paid Paypal fee too. And her boss said he should charge me 30% cancellation fee if I cancel payment for any reason but he never did. And I just cancelled the service for basically no reason. And their instructor called me and made appointment and I cancelled it. So I have to understand that business has its own policy.
(At this point, I had it with their lies).
My last response was I cancelled because no one responded after payment was made. I called the instructor, not the other way(detail mentioned above). For $24, just take it! I'll tell the world this truth for no one should ever have to face such dishonesty like this again.
They replied they never experienced a case like this.
Note: from Yelp's comment 5/18/2018, it doesn't look like they never experienced this.
It's deemed unethical for seller to charge Paypal fee to buyer, esp on service that never happened.
For 30% fee, quoted from Terms and Conditions page " There is a 30% cancellation fee for any unused portion of your lessons (any referral fee will also be deducted)". It's not applicable in this case because there is no used/ unused portion since service never taken place. http://golddrivingschool.com/terms-and-conditions
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