Complaints procedure

1. How to complain

Any of these reaches the same place.

• Phone. 01206 701701. Dispatch answers 24 hours, every day. Ask for your complaint to be logged, and ask for it in writing if you would like a record.
• Email. info@abairporttransfers.co.uk.
• Message form. Use the contact page and choose Complaint as the subject.
• Post. AB Airport Transfers, Gurney Benham Close, Colchester, CO2 9AG.

Please raise it as soon as you reasonably can. Booking and dispatch records are kept for at least twelve months, so a complaint made months later can still be investigated properly — but memories are fresher early on.

2. What to tell us

The more of this you have, the faster we can get to the bottom of it. Do not worry if you are missing some — we can usually find the journey from a date and a pickup address.

• The date and time of the journey.
• Where you were collected from and where you were going.
• Your booking reference, if you have one.
• The vehicle registration or the driver's badge number, if you noted either.
• What happened, in your own words.
• What you would like us to do about it.

3. What happens next

1. Step 1

   We acknowledge it

   Within two working days you will get confirmation that your complaint has been received, and the name of the person handling it. If you complain by phone, you can ask for that in writing.

2. Step 2

   We look into it

   We check the booking record, the dispatch times and any payment. We speak to the driver, and to anyone else in the office who was involved. If the accounts disagree, we say so rather than picking the convenient one.

3. Step 3

   We reply in full

   Within 14 working days of acknowledging your complaint we will tell you what we found, whether we think something went wrong, and what we are doing about it. If we need longer — because a driver is away, for example — we will tell you why and when to expect an answer.

4. Step 4

   If you are not satisfied

   Say so and ask for it to be looked at again by someone who was not involved the first time. If you are still not satisfied, take it to the council. Details are below, and using them does not stop you dealing with us at the same time.

4. What we can put right

Where we got it wrong we will say so and apologise properly. Depending on what happened, that can mean refunding or reducing the fare, covering a cost you were put to as a direct result, correcting how a driver was briefed, or changing how we handle that kind of booking in future.

Your rights under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 sit behind all of this. If a service was not carried out with reasonable care and skill, you can require us to put it right, and to a price reduction where we cannot. Our complaints procedure is a route to that, not a substitute for it. See our terms of service.

5. Taking it further

Colchester City Council. The council licenses this operator, our vehicles and our drivers, and it is the authority that handles complaints about licensed private hire in Colchester. You can complain to its licensing team whether or not you have complained to us first. Their current contact details are published at colchester.gov.uk — look for licensing. We are not publishing a direct number or address here because council contact details change and a wrong one would send you to the wrong place.

Consumer advice. The Citizens Advice consumer service gives free, independent advice on your rights and can refer matters to Trading Standards. Details are at citizensadvice.org.uk.

Data protection. If your complaint is about how we handled your personal data, the Information Commissioner’s Office is the supervisory authority. See our privacy notice.

Nothing here affects your right to take a dispute to court.

6. What we do with complaints afterwards

Every complaint is logged with what happened, what we found and what we did. Those records are available to council licensing officers, and we use them to spot patterns — a route that is repeatedly underestimated, a pickup point that is hard to find, a briefing that keeps going wrong.

We do not publish complaint statistics or satisfaction scores. We have not measured them, so any figure we printed would be invented.