Wow, wish I'd seen Laurie's comment prior to booking this truck. And actually, our experience was even worse than this despite my many efforts to peacefully rectify a bad situation in a way that was fair to everyone.
One of my two big kids was sent home from school with LICE -- obviously a highly communicable parasite -- Friday afternoon the weekend of my kids' joint party. After a Friday scramble to begin to eradicate this nasty creature, Saturday morning I called and emailed to ask to postpone for a fee since I didn't want to expose our kids' friends (or the gaming truck!!!) to LICE.
I had thought that would be well-received since I was doing the right thing by saying, look, my kid has lice, and I doubt you want that on your truck. I guess if someone didn't care about kids getting lice, they'd care about getting the bad word of mouth if kids contracted lice after being on his truck. Couldn't have been more wrong.
I had mistaken the dates and thought it was Sunday when it was actually booked for Saturday, Matt emailed me to say I mixed up the dates and that there was nothing he could do about it. I acknowledged this, and said we could have overcome that mixup, but asked to please work with me because it was a moot point, seeing as one of my kids had lice. A date mixup wouldn't have been a big deal under normal (healthy) circumstances because there were only 10 kids, and most of them live on our street and were around. I explained this, but also explained that we felt it was our moral obligation not to put our friends at risk.
Despite several attempts to contact Matt PRIOR to the scheduled time, I received no response until Sunday, AFTER the truck was scheduled to come. (The truck did not come.)
When I finally did hear, Matt sent an email he had been too busy to respond prior to his committed date and time, removing any and all options from me. He told me LICE was not the issue, it didn't matter because I had confused the days.
This was starting to upset me because if I'd realized he would be so unwilling to work with me, I'd have put my kids on his truck and let him deal with the lice. (***ATTENTION PARENTS, let's repeat, 1) did not seem to mind lice on his truck, 2) took punitive approach for being honest, and 3) unwilling to work with someone for admitting this to avoid risking others.)
I acknowledged once again that I had confused the dates, but that this wasn't the point and would he please work with me.
When I didn't hear back hours later, I sent an email saying I was becoming frustrated and would just dispute the charges since the services were not delivered.
Finally heard back from him the next afternoon (must have been me saying I'd dispute the charges) telling me he would "let me" rebook for $75 and only on a Monday through Thursday. Too little, and far too late. Disputing the charges and looking to book an entirely different party for my kids.
I know as a parent in a region that has battled lice in every single elementary and middle school, I'd be very interested to have the information that Matt was completely unwilling to work with someone who was trying to do the right thing and not spread this hideous parasite. read more