West Coast Exotics - La Marque

Not too short not too long. Had a blast!

Unfortunately, and through **absolutely no fault of my own**, I have been unable to redeem the voucher I purchased as a birthday gift for my husband for a 5-Lap Ferrari drive through Exotic Driving Experience. I found out FIRST, before buying the voucher, that Exotic Driving Experience was going to be in my local area the following weekend which made it a perfect birthday surprise for my husband. NO WHERE on the company website did it stats that all slots were full and that the event is closed to new customers. I didn't know that information until AFTER my husband tried to redeem it. Every attempt he made showed that there were no events available for him to book. I contacted the number on the website, who happened to be a third party company that Exotic Driving Experience uses to schedule their events, but they were of no use, except to tell me that the dates we were trying to redeem the voucher for were full. She could not give me any further information about a refund (I understand the policy with Exotic Driving Experience is that no refunds are given, however when a mishap occurs through no fault of the customer they cannot enforce such a rule) or answer any questions I had because she said their company only helps with scheduling. She didn't even have a direct phone number for Exotic Driving Experience for me to call them myself. She did inform me that Exotic Driving Experience will be back in my area in November if we'd like to wait until then....NOVEMBER??!!?!! NOVEMBER?? Are you kidding me?!! That's EIGHT months away, in the middle of the busy holidays, during winter-- hardly a time we'd want to schedule something like this. Plus my husband works very long hours and cannot get time off during these months. I did get the email for Exotic Driving Experience and contacted them through it and even that was a hassle and an ultimate let down. I stated my annoyance about the event being full (something that could and "should" be updated on their company website) and the representative of the company, a Jessica Ritacco, emailed me back that they had a couple of spots open up if I'd like to book my husband in one of those timeframes. I was very excited and immediately responded with a "YES PLEASE" and included my phone number (I supplied my phone number in each and every email) for her to call me to complete my husbands reservation, but she did not. Just as fast as I became excited for a free spot to open, it was full and taken by another customer-- all because she failed to call me to finalize the transaction. Had she called me we would not have had any time gaps in completing everything. We exchanged three other emails about fitting my husband into an open time, and each one failed to work. Now I will say that one free "spot" DID work as far as the time and date however it was not with the Ferrari my husband had chosen to drive, but with a Nissan instead-- so once again, a huge disappointment. From tremendous frustration I told her to just cancel the whole thing and informed her that I'll be requesting a full refund, even if I have to pursue help to do so, as this inconvenience is due to Exotic Driving Experience's lack of communicating properly to their customers, which is no fault of mine. Upon the final emails that we exchanged she apologized for not being able to call me (I added in one of my emails that she should have called me to avoid confusion) and she explained to me that she couldn't call as they are a small company and she is the only person there handling customers (Wouldn't calling me have been MUCH FASTER than writing multiple emails???). I responded that if their small company cannot handle their clientele then shouldn't they hire additional help? Otherwise they risk poor business handling and leaving a negative impression on their customers. We have three more days until Exotic Driving Experience will be in my City, and if they find a resolve and are able to successfully get my husband booked to drive the Ferrari he wanted to this weekend, then I will update this review accordingly and increase my star rating. At the same time I am slightly nervous about using their services at this point because I don't want them to retaliate by treating us poorly (even though we did nothing wrong).... We shall see....