Viator had outsourced this journey at Carmel Car Service.
Because the starting point was outside Manhattan (in Jersey City, actually), they made me pay an payment additional to the amount agreed upon when booking at phone. Altough they knew where the starting point was already when we phoned (otherwise they would not have been able to pick me up in the first time).
The driver compelled me to pay for tolls and tip before he would start. Amazingly, there were no tolls on the journey (to JFK airport - there was certainly a construction area and some congestion, but actually no tolls; at least on the route the driver chose). Moreover, the driver compelled me to pay the tip before he started; motor turned off - otherwise he would not have started. I am not shure if this was even legally correct.
I was very disappointed with our return journey. The car arrived on time at the hotel, and that is the only positive I can give. We had a number of issues, some of which I would have overlooked had it not been for the last one...
1. The driver did not exit his car to help us load our bags, the hotel concierge helped us.
2. The driver did not speak to us for the entire duration of the journey, apart from uttering the word "Terminal?"
3. The drive spoke very little English, probably account for issue no.2
4. On arriving at the airport, the driver (in broken English) said we owed him $51 for tolls + tip. We were unaware that tolls were not included in the price we had paid, a fault of the website not making it clear I feel. We said we were unaware and debated this (with difficulty due to language challenge), and the price suddenly dropped to $17 + tip! So I don't know whether we were being overcharged originally or not! I gave him a $20 bill to cover this and the tip which he looked at in disgust saying "not enough". I gave him another $2 as that was all I had on me, and he again looked annoyed and said "people always tip 20%". Well, where I come from, tipping is discretionary, not a given, and I will always tip for good service, but conversely I will not tip if the service is poor or, as it was in this case, non-existent. As the driver could not be bothered to help us with our bags or even speak, and then may or may not have tried to overcharge us on the toll fee, he was very lucky I didn't leave his vehicle giving him zero! I found his attitude disgraceful and the incident soured our departure from NYC.
Disgraceful behaviour by cabbie; demanded tolls and tips upfront – when we queried this, he tried to dump us with our luggage in the rain on eighth Avenue. Called his dispatcher who agreed the voucher was ambiguous and firmly instructed cabbie to complete the journey
We have lodged a complaint