I had a terrible experience booking the Cobra Experience and would never in my wildest dreams even think of recommending this to ANYONE I know.
From the onset, I struggled to book with an advertised black Friday special as it was not properly loaded on their booking and payment system. Which resulted in huge confusion later and a super delay in a refund for the amount that I booked.
Then I struggled to get anyone to contact me back regarding booking the actual experience. I sent David whatsapps and asked him to send me the details for Matt or at least send Matt my details but no luck. Eventually I had to go into the emails to find Matts details as I was advised that he was the person who would confirm my booking.
So after emailing Matt with no response, I eventually had to call him to make a booking and an excuse was used that they were moving offices and didn't get my emails.
Then I finally made the booking and it was not the car that I had originally booked in terms of the colours that I opted for when I purchased the voucher. I emailed regarding this but received no response from Matt once again.
Then the day of the booking came, I received an auto generated email to say that delivery starts at 9am. So as we do not live in Cape Town we decided to just go down to the Oranjezicht market for breakfast. After breakfast my husband (who I purchased the experience for as a gift) caught a lift with a friend who was interested in purchasing a Cobra himself. When he got there, the office was closed at around 11am. He called me asking for the number of the person who I dealt with so I sent him Matt's number. When my husband called Matt he said that he had already left the office and had started his day with his family already so it would be a very big inconvenience for him to drive back to assist us. When my husband said that we didn't know there was a cut off time for pick up he said that he would be coming back to open for him so that we could collect the car.
After he put the phone down with my husband Matt called me and started screaming at me over the phone. Starting with why I never answered my phone as he tried to call me (which he did but as I was in the very noisy market never heard my phone) and then about how he has been waiting for two hours for us to collect the car from 9am. When I explained that I wasn't aware that there was a cut off time for pick up he started screaming further and personally insulting me, taking me on in regards to my profession (according to him because I am in the hospitality industry, something he could only have seen on my email signature on the emails he never responded to, I should have known better??!!) and about how it is stated on the website that collection is at nine and no later. He refused to listen to any of my reasoning which was that it was NEVER stated that the cut off time for collection was starting at 9am and ending at 9am. If this was sent through on email I would have known, it also doesn't say that the collection has a cut off time on the website so in NO correspondence was this mentioned to me? I would never assume that a car rental space would close during the day because what if a person would like to only use the vehicle for a shorter period and didn't want to drop it off at exactly 5pm, my assumption would be that you as the client would have that flexibility to drop off or pick up as you would like as you are paying a premium for the rental?
As Matt went on saying that he had started his Sunday with his family and was under no circumstances going to come back to assist me, I said that it's fine, then they can just refund the money I paid. After which he started screaming even louder that there would be no refund as we are a no show and we have lost the booking money as a no show penalty fee. He refused to listen to anything I said making it extremely upsetting and very frustrating so eventually when I realised there would be no discussion and no reason and I was being treated like absolute crap and not at all like a customer who has paid a premium for an experience, I politely told him that I would be hanging up the phone.
I called my husband, by now in tears to tell him that he could call Matt as my husband was very confused standing outside the pick up point with me still at the market as Matt told him he would come back to open and then screamed at me saying how he refused, which makes it very clear to me that Matt has absolutely ZERO respect for women and finds it a lot easier to mistreat and bully a woman, but to a man he will speak politely and treat with respect.
In the end we never went on the experience that day. So with the money that we spent on dog sitters, driving from our home in the West Coast to Cape Town and the hotel that we booked to stay in to have the experience was all in vain and a huge expense.
My husband then made contact with David, the owner of the company, and he explained to him what had happened. David seemed shocked in Matt's behavior and said that we would not lose the money, and that he wanted us to come and have the experience and that he would really make it a worthwhile experience for us to apologise for the really bad experience we had had. He even thanked us for pointing out that no where on his correspondence or website it had stated that pick up time is only between specific times and that it would be something they would look into from their side. He also promised to call me and apologise to me directly.
This apology call only happened a week or so after the promise was made. I explained to David that I really had a very bad taste in my mouth working with the company and being treated so poorly and that I think I would rather have a refund as we would again have to book accommodation, drive through for 90minutes and all those expenses need to be added up as well. David then promised that if we came he would really make the experience worthwhile to compensate for the previous bad experience. I said that I would discuss it with my husband and we would see as I was at that point 5 months pregnant and didn't think waiting too late in my pregnancy to do the experience would be such a good idea.
We were convinced by David and the promises he made of making up for what was lost with the first experience so we booked again and off we went. Well, we got absolutely NOTHING to even acknowledge the horrible experiences we had before this. In fact, not a bottle of water, not even an apology from Matt who gave us the car on arrival and drop off. I really did think that the minimum would just be a decent apology for someone who ruined our day, the entire experience and who had left me in tears just because he has no idea how to communicate with his customers.
I was still owed my refund and was promised by Matt to get it first thing on Monday. I eventually had to send an email by Wednesday asking what was going on, with no response, my husband again had to call before anything happened as it was clear by this point that a woman does not deserve the respect of being answered.
I really felt like this was a golden opportunity to just improve on the experience we had with them, but sadly they take no value in their customers and their customer experience and for that reason I would seriously never ever recommend that anyone goes through that hell of working with this company.