Bay Area Limousine & Transportation

I REALLY wish I’d come to Unilocal and read these reviews before I booked a car with Bay Limo — but I was in a rush and needed a car.
Highlights:
The owner answered his phone at a playground, making it both completely unprofessional AND impossible to hear what he was saying.
His driver did not pick us up at baggage claim like EVERY OTHER CAR SERVICE I’VE EVER USED, and he gave his driver the wrong cell # for me (probably because he couldn’t hear me over the phone while he was on the swing set). So my husband and I were waiting at baggage for 10 minutes, when we could have been in a taxi or Über ride.
Then on our return, our driver didn’t A) know our names, just the name of the hotel we were staying at and B) didn’t know where we were going.
During our phone call at the playground and via email, Sam mentioned that gratuity was NOT included, so I tipped the drivers. Of course he charged me gratuity.
Shame on me for not doing my research. They’re incredibly unorganized and unprofessional and added unnecessary stress to the trip.

DO NOT USE THIS LIMO COMPANY. I reserved the limo for a one day tour of the wineries in Napa Valley in June of 2013. The air conditioning in the limo did not work and the temperature that day was 90 degrees. But even more problematic: on the way to a winery on Spring Mountain, the limo overheated. We had to get out on the side of the road because the limo was filling up with smoke. We started walking up the hill; 2 kind people stopped, our group split up, and we got a ride up the hill to the winery. This is the response I received to my request to be credited for 50% of the charges: «I am sorry that the limo was a little bit over heated at the day of the service. The limo was actually very close to the winery. We have our vehicle inspected every week. As you know things does happened. That was the reason Randy gave you almost one hours over time free that we did not charge for it because of the inconvenience. Sorry to tell you that we can not credit back to you 50%.» To state the obvious, the excess time (one hour) was caused by the limo breaking down on the hill, not because we extended the time we had reserved for the day. I have never posted a review before, but I believe people reserve limos for special occasions and I want potential customers to know of the risks associated to using this company. BE SAFE and AVOID USING THIS COMPANY.

After reading the other comments on this company, it makes me feel a bit better that I was not alone in being overcharged. Highly recommend against using them unless you like bad service.

We used this company. We paid in full. About 4 months after they sent us a bill for near $ 300 in late fees. While this could be a mistake– reading all of these other reviews– i think is just a bad company.

DO NOT TRUST THIS COMPANY. THEY ARE FRAUDS.
I used Bay Area Limo for a wine tour. We came back on time and even tipped the driver $ 50. To my surprise, three months later, I received a charge of $ 275 to my credit card statement. When I called them, they said that was for a late fee from my trip three months ago, though they refused to produce any proof/​receipt of my being late. Unless you want someone taking advantage of your credit card and taking your money, I would not use them. Plus, the limo was super cheap and old.

I was driving BEHIND this limo co. First of all, they don’t know how to drive and almost ran us off the road when they pulled out in front of us. Second, they were constantly driving 20 miles UNDER the speed limit. Third, they were swerving so much I thought they were drunk. I called the phone # on the back of the limo and the guy that answered (while he was driving in front of me). He was such a jerk!

DO NOT USE THIS LIMO COMPANY!!!
If i could give them company a big fat zero i would. We received a quote over the phone for a day trip to Sonoma wine country for a certain price. But had to pay much much more after the trip was finished. Horrible customer service. DO NOT USE THIS COMPANY!!!

DO NOT BOOK WITH BAY AREA LIMOUSINE & TRANSPORTATION. THESE PEOPLE ARE SCAM ARTISTS AND SHOULD NOT BE LICENSED TO RUN BUSINESS IN THE UNITED STATES.
I booked with Sam Chai, the owner. He quoted me $ 70/​hour flat rate. He was quick to say that only 3 limos were available at that price (something that I believe was said to get me to book with him). And I did (like an idiot, without having read any reviews). I received the confirmation email saying the agreed upon rate was $ 75+. Upon seeing this, I called him and he changed the price to say $ 70+. Didn’t make a different because I was still overcharged. When the limo arrived (on time), the driver took a copy of my credit card and had me sign (stupid me). He reassured me that I was signing only for the deposit. Yea right. At the end of four hours, we got dropped off, I paid the driver $ 100 CASH tip, and that was it. It wasn’t until the middle of the week, when I checked my credit card statement that I noticed the charge for $ 336. When I called and asked why I was charge $ 56 extra, Sam told me it was the tip and when I told him that was unauthorized, he said he would refund me the difference. BULL. SAM IS A LIAR AND UNFAIR BUSINESS MAN. I called over 10 times and kept getting the run around. I was never refunded the money.
I hope this will stop anyone from using this company.

Negative stars for this Jackwagon. Very dishonest, rude and unreliable. Don’t even bother making a reservation… you will just be disappointed. He left us high and dry (actually wet… it was raining) at 1am in downtown San Francisco. Let see how long this guy can stay in business… not very long by the way he does business.

WORST LIMOUSINE SERVICE EVER!!! I hired tis company for my daughters wedding and it was a very simple set of instructions. Pick the girls up at my house at 11:30am, drive them to the church, wait until the ceremony is over and drive them one mile to the reception. I also specifically asked Sam the owner about the service when I booked it and what type of car I would get. He assured me that he only has 2009 and later Limousines. I said great as this was my first daughter getting married and I wanted to make sure I had a nice car. NOT! First of all the driver was late. Then he had no idea where he was going. (Do they know they can get GPS systems for $ 100 now). When bridal party arrived in a 2005 Town Car which wasn’t even washed looked OLD I was really pissed! When I went to pay for the Limo there is a 20% Service charge plus a 10% service charge. Again I had specifically asked if there any additional charges and he had told me only if I use a credit card so I told him I would pay cash. He also told me that I tip the driver as I feel appropriate. Well the driver told me the service charge was not his tip but after the fact Sam told me it was his tip. Well I dont like to stiff anybody so I tipped the driver as well.
This is a shady Limo service at best. With old cars that they dont even bother to wash. This «Limo Service» is nothing more than an over priced Taxi service and I would much rather ride in a taxi as they probably know where they are going.

We hired Bay Area Limo to drive us from our wedding to a hotel for the night: a simple, one-​way trip. As the time to leave approached, I was nervous that they hadn’t called at any point in the night, but figured they were professionals and would probably be there early and waiting. I was wrong.
We made our happy exit and walked out to where the limo should be and… nothing. Waited a few minutes, and then called to see what was up. The guy on the phone first denied that there was any reservation matching my location, so my now wife looked up our confirmation number on her phone and I told it to him. Oh yeah, our driver is on his way there. He’ll check in and call me back to see where he is.
We wait another ten minutes. We’re literally sitting on the curb in tux and wedding dress. No call.
I call back and learn that he tells me the location of the driver (far away and off course) and that it will be 12 minutes. Traffic, he explains.
Embarrassing as it is, we rejoin the people still at the reception hall to wait. 14 minutes later we get a call saying he’s here. I don’t know where he was, but it wasn’t the front entrance. We talked to the driver on the phone and explained to him how to find the main entrance (which a map or just following street signs would have done). A thousand tourists manage every day, I expected more from a professional bay area driver.
He arrives, almost 40 minutes late now. And with the barest mumbled apology we’re off. The ride is fine. There’s not a minute of traffic delay, by the way.
The bill was presented with a big, mandatory tip which is outrageous. But we’re exhausted enough to not fight. He took like five minutes to fumble with our credit card making a rubbing (do people really still do that?) and we were finally done.
Looking at these other reviews, I so wish I had checked here first, and I despair at trying to get any of my money back. Avoid our mistake; never hire Bay Area Limo.

Started out shaky, then absolutely catastrophic.
I had been planning this wine-​tasting event for over 2 months with the initial intent to rent a large vehicle and a designated driver to accommodate for the 7 person party – which I TOTALLY should have done! 3 or 4 days before, we decide to hire a limo service to eliminate the need for a DD and to hopefully have an awesome time.
The driver was barely on time, not good.
We opted for a 10 passenger limo and the company agreed to charge us a flat rate of $ 65 per person for an 8 passenger limo with a «free upgrade» to a 10 passenger. They sent an 8 passenger limo.
The driver then presented us with the bill demanding that we pay first. And get this: a %20 Gratuity charge. Now, this may be my first limo experience, but I’m certain it is customary and logical that you give a tip for the service AFTER the services are rendered and IF it is deserved! At this point I just want to get on the road as soon as possible so we fork over a total of $ 624 stated on the bill, giving him a (completely undeserved) $ 100 tip.
At this point, over 20 minutes have gone by and we haven’t even left, on top of the driver already being late! His GPS somehow took us the LONG way to get there.
The rest of the day was pretty hard to mess up but it still gets EVEN WORSE. While eating an early dinner, we receive a text message from our driver at 5:35pm saying that over-​time charges begin at 5:00pm.
We’re faced with being stranded in wine country or paying another $ 200.
Definitely taking this a$$hole to small claims court.

A very dishonest service. Do not use this company. Two main complaints with them. First, I ordered a limo from them for my wedding. Instead we got a Suburban. Whatever, we can live with that. Then there was the overcharge and the BS excuse that they gave for it.
After the original quote, I noticed a considerably larger than expected charge on my credit card. After an inquiry, this is the invoice that I received from them. Specifically, note the tax amount. I pointed out that with 9.25% sales tax, a nice round number of $ 8 just did not make sense, which meant the whole thing was made up. He never responded to it. I am also reporting them to California Board of Equalization for charging fictitious tax.
Trip Fee: $ 65.00
Wait Time: $ 15.00
Stop: $ 0.00
Miscellaneous: $ 0.00
Meet & Greet: $ 0.00
Fuel Surcharge: $ 0.00
Tolls/​Parking: $ 0.00
Drivers Gratuity: $ 16.00
Tax: $ 08.00
Other: $ 0.00
Discount: -$ 0.00
Grand Total: $ 104

I give this company negative stars. They were horrible and lied about everything.
They broke the contract we had and even shorted us on limos.
I booked 3 limos with them for my wedding, and only two showed up and they were not even the limos we ordered! They also showed up very late! My entire wedding part, bride and groom, and all family were shoved into 2 small limos that were dirty, old, and not at all what we ordered.
The drivers forced us to pay and we had to give them a credit card because we almost missed our own wedding. We found out later they charged us more than the initial amount when they shorted us limos and the ones that were there were dirty!
Sam is a horrible person to do business with. He is a liar and does not know how to run a company. He rips people off and my wedding was almost ruined because of him. Unfortunately I was stuck with dirty small limos and paid more.
Sam was responsive and always called and emailed me back BEFORE the event, and now that it is over and we want a refund he refuses to correspond trough phone or e-​mail. He is a horrible person who should not be allowed to continue doing this to people.
DO NOT EVEN CONSIDER THIS COMPANY!!! Save your event and go with ANY other company!!!
I am writing an update to my original review. Sam told us he would refund some of the money and now refuses to because he saw the I wrote a bad review on Unilocal.The only reason there are not more bad reviews on help is BECAUSE HE IS PAYING PEOPLE TO KEEP QUIET about the mistakes he makes!!! He told us he would refund us $ 200 if we did not sue or report him to the BBB. He is scum and I wish very bad things on his company.

If there was away for me to give no stars, that is exactly what I would give them. This the worst company I have ever done business with.
My boyfriend contacted Sam about an 8 passenger limo for my birthday. He told us the price would be $ 285 for 4 hours, but then said $ 260, when we said we would call him right back. After giving him the times and credit card information for confirmation (we wanted to pay the driver in cash), we confirmed the price again and he said yes the price would be $ 260.
When we got into the limo (which only fit six) the driver informed us the price would be $ 348! I asked why the price was now $ 88 more and he said we should speak to Sam.
When my boyfriend spoke to Sam, he said the extra money was for tax, tip and a 20% additional tax for having more then 4 people. My boyfriend asked why he didn’t tell us of any of these fees prior, he didn’t have an answer. Keep in mind he knew we would be paying cash, he just kept saying that, the fee is now $ 348. After several minutes of trying to understand why he decided to charge us these new fees and arguing with him, I told he to take his limo back (well maybe I said to shove up his a**) my boyfriend tipped the driver and my party and I took several cars to our destination.
I wonder how many people he does this to and the people just pay the extra fees.
***DO NOT DO BUSINESS WITH THIS COMPANY**
I almost forgot, the driver did not provide us with a copy of the Way Bill. You should always have a copy of this bill. It shows all the fees and your destination on it. Make sure you look at the California Public Utilities Commission website for more information about your rights.

Ordered a limo, our requirement was that 4 people could sit comfortably in tha back, with two facing two. Dude rolls up in a normal car, where 3 people are squished in the back, and one person sits up front. And he was 30 minute late — and naturally, we had pre booked some vineyards etc so we were on a tight schedule. We called the management company and agreed for them to send a Denali, and we would wait an aother hour and just cancel our lunch appointment.
Dude comes back in a Denali, and expects us to put the address in the GPS and guide him there. He had no idea where he was going for anything, and in total we probably lost about 20 minutes driving around lost. I don’t think thats too bad for the whole day, but we only had 2 vineyards on our agenda, so it was kinda messed up on his part.
We were pissed, it was a bad start to what was meant to be an awesome weekend. We called the management company to complain, and he took it out on the driver. The driver actually wanted us to call and complain tomorrow morning so that he could make sure he got paid tonight. Poor guy.
Definitely won’t use this service again. We got into fights between ourself in the car on the way home because we were upset about the messed up day. The driver interjected and said that he done us a favour by letting us drink in the car — wtf? the whole reason we hired a driver and limo service was so that we could drink in the car and celebrate our birthdays! Then decides to correct himself and say that only the driver shouldn’t drink — um, ya think???
Definitely don’t recommend. Don’t go near this company.

A friend of mine rented a limo for her birthday and when it arrived I found out which company she had unfortunately decided to enlist… (Bay Area Limousine & Transportation).
And *surprise* *surprise* the guy she made the reservation with lied about how much the ride was going to cost. In the end we argued him down on the price (not to the original agreed amount) and she had to cancel her credit card to avoid possible additional illegal charges. What a birthday downer.
Please feel free to read about my first experience with BA limos below…

I never post these comments but in this case since Bay Area Limo doesn’t have a comment section on their site I feel the need to post. I would have liked to know of others experiences before retaining BALimo’s services. Since the organization has no interest in customer service, I’m grateful there is a platform to post a warning.
Actually I agree with the post above — I would give it a 0 star rating if I could.
I use limo transportation services often and for some reason I was not able to use my choice companies so I called BALimo to give it a try.
I too, dealt with Sam in the reservation dept. Before and after our experience.
Our trip was a Father’s Day wine and picnic in Rutherford /​Napa —
1) Very unprofessional Driver — Lacked experience in etiquette. Lacked driving experience and poor comprehension of instructions even with a GPS. This resulted in going the wrong direction landing us in bumper to bumper traffic. All passengers were car sick from the drive. It felt like we were in a bumper car ride.
2) The vehicle had not been cleaned. I am picky about that and it was the first thing I noticed. All limos should be immaculate for their passengers. Inside and out. Bar ware should be cleaned. There were no beverages provided. We had to go back in the house and get our own.
3) The driver realized our displeasure and told me that he wasn’t charging for the last hour (we went over 30 min). The driver took scenic routes which doubled the driving time both directions. Not sure if this was intentional or if he was truly lost and confused.
4) No documentation was presented at the end of the trip. BTW the cc was imprinted before we even left the driveway.
5) The bill came and not only did they charge for the overage they included a 20% tip for the driver.
6) I called Sam after receiving the surprise billing to my credit card to voice my concerns regarding their business practices. He hung up.

I had a positive experience with this company after all was said and done. Here is my story:
I had booked a limo to pick up my husband and myself plus our two friends and drive us to dinner. I spoke only with Sam Chai, and he was very accommodating. He even gave us an upgrade to a stretched limo for no additional fee (probably because the regular limo was in use or something – whatever the case, I appreciated it!). I gave him my credit card number to hold the reservation, and he promised not to charge it until the night of our dinner.
Well, on the day of our «date,» my husband developed a severe migraine and I had to cancel the reservations. Apparently I was supposed to give 24 hours notice in order to get a full refund, and Sam had already charged the full amount to my card. Needless to say, I was frustrated. I could understand Sam’s point of view, but I did not see this disclaimer/​warning anywhere on the website, nor was I told this during any of our discussions. Sam understood my frustrations and that this reservation cancellation was out of my control, so he agreed to allow me to reschedule the limo for a future date – same deal, stretched limo, no additional fee.
Sure enough, when we finally decided on a date, I emailed Sam and he provided us with a lovely stretched limo with the nicest driver I have ever met. I double-​checked my credit card, just in case (you never know), and have seen no additional charges.
So, this was not a horrible experience. Maybe they have learned from their previous mistakes. I think they will improve with age; they might even be better now than they were before.
SPECIAL NOTE TO SAM: PROVIDE A DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF YOUR RULES AND REGULATIONS SOMEWHERE ON YOUR WEBSITE OR EMAIL THEM TO THE CUSTOMER. I could have easily taken you to small claims court and won, but I like to give small businesses a second chance, and you proved to be a decent businessman. Good luck!

DO NOT TRUST your wedding or important event to BAY AREA LIMOUSINE & TRANSPORTATION (
). This is the «WORST» limo service AND with terrible customer service in the bay area.
I had reserved our «White 10-​Passenger Limo» 6 months in advance and received several emails from the owner below stating that everything was set. I had also given my credit card to pay in full so we did not have to pay the driver and deal with any transactions on the day of our wedding. The owner reassured me that everything is all set «2 days» prior to the wedding day!!!
Email sent from owner:
«HELLO ORLANDO,
DON’T WORRY. IT IS ALL SET. WE WILL SEE YOU ON SUNDAY
REGARDS,
SAM Y. CHAI
–
BAY AREA LIMOUSINE & TRANSPORTATION
Sam Y. Chai
INT’L/DIRCT: 415.850.7693
TOLL-​FREE: 866.552.3880
FAX: 415.585.5732
EMAIL:
WEBSITE:
.net»
On the actual day of the wedding, Bay Area Limo first showed up with a «FILTHY BLACK LIMO» that you could not even see out of the windows. Next, the driver was very rude and asked for the payment in full with cash! Third, the driver did not know the streets of San Francisco and took all the wrong routes with no apologies.
This company has no sense of customer service! I called the owner that day to ask what had happened to the white limo, but he did not answer his call because he was «out playing golf» according to the limo driver. I spent a half an hour arguing with the driver, letting him know that we took care of all the fees in advance, yet he insisted on receiving cash. We were late to our reception because the driver relied on his portable GPS System and disregarded our directions.
I spoke to the owner the next day and he offered NO APOLOGIES saying that our limo driver was his «BEST» driver and that they had mechanical problems with the white limo. No compensation was offered when I asked how was going to take care of all of our problems that was experienced.
Trust me… you «DO NOT» want to have to go through what we did on our wedding day!
I do… HIGHLY recommend «The VIP Transportation Company,» which we used for my wife’s Bachelorette Party. She loved it and had no problems such as we did on our wedding day.
San Francisco, CA 94 112
(650) 619‑7058