I had a negative experience with Forest Hill cars a couple of weekends ago which was both surprising and disappointing. The end result is that I won’t be using them again. I thought I would set it out here to see what other members of this forum think.

After a lovely meal in the Camberwell Arms my wife and I needed to get back quickly. The baby sitter had phoned us to say that our youngest (22 month old boy) had woken and was inconsolable and we felt we needed to get back as quickly as possible. It was 11.30pm. I phoned Forest Hill Cars (having paid £14 to them to take us there in the first place) who said that it would take half an hour for a car to get to us. This seemed like too long so I also phoned Greyhound Cars who also said it would take about half an hour. I decided that I would cancel whoever didn’t make it there first.

Greyhound turned up after about fifteen minutes. So I called Forest Hill Cars to cancel. This is the bit that was surprising and disappointing. The lady at Forest Hill cars got very angry that I was cancelling. I explained that I had to get home urgently and that I felt I had given sufficient notice. I was met with a barrage of abuse which culminated in being told to f* off. She also said that I would be put on their black list. I think this was totally disproportionate and completely unprofessional. The fact is that I phoned and cancelled. A lot of people I assume would not have done so. On top of this, I have been a loyal customer of Forest Hill Cars for several years and this isn’t how I would expect to be treated. They are not the only cab firm in town and I doubt if abusing and threatening hitherto loyal customers is a sound way to conduct their business. What are other residents’ experiences of Forest Hill Cars? I won’t be using them again out of principle.