Walkers school of motoring

livalicious

Hi there,

I decided to take some driving lessons, and decided to go with Walkers. I booked up 5 lessons, which were discounted from £23 per lesson to £100. I had two lessons so far with the instructor.

I had my third lesson booked for Tuesday at 19:30 and rung up Walkers office on Monday morning, and left a message saying i wish to cancel that particular lesson. I also rung them and confirmed twice that I wanted to cancel. Now i just assumed they would inform the instructor (which is the whole point of ringing them!). Tuesday evening the instructor turns up and I explained the situation. He was obviously not a happy bunny as his office didnt inform him, he said i should have rung his mobile which i could have done, but at the time I thought ringing the office would suffice. He also said he wont charge me this time for the lesson but in future I was to give him 48 hours notice. Now up to this point I wasnt 100% sure about the instructor, I didnt feel that comfortable with the way he was teaching me and his manner was quite abrupt which put a bit on edge during my lesson. But I was going to give him the benefit of the doubt and carry on with the lessons to see if it got any better. But after the way he shouted at me because of the cancelled lesson etc., I wasnt so sure.

I thought about it and decided not to use him again, so I rung him the next day to cancel my bookings. He said he was going to charge me full price for the two lessons i already had, which was fair enough. He also said now that im no longer a pupil he would also charge me for the cancelled booking as I didnt give him 48 hours notice. I was unhappy with this as he had already said the day before he wouldnt charge me because it seemed as though I did try to let him know and was now going back on his word. But I reluctantly agreed as I felt that at that point there was not much I could do about that as it was less than 48 hours notice.

Last night I remember that on their website Walker's say that the first lesson is £9.99 and normal price thereafter. So surely I should then only be charged that for my first lesson and £23 for the second and £23 for the cancelled lesson? So I should be refunded £44 instead of £31?

Could anyone please advise me if this is correct before i dispute this with Walkers and the instructor?

[Deleted User]

You told the office that you wanted to cancel the lesson so it's there fault for not telling the individual instructor. I would pay for the two lessons you had at full price (as you're probably not entitled to the discounts as they were for block bookings) and demand the rest of your money back. If he doesn't give it you back, I'd take him to small claims court/moneyclaim.

I hated learning to drive because of the problems of trying to find the right instructor and all that jazz.

Indout96

I would dispute this with walkers, not the instructor but to be honest is it worth the bother of going to court for £13 even if you are right.

livalicious

I spoke to the manager at Walkers yesterday (after leaving messages for him to ring me for 2 days, finally got hold of him at 17:00 after insisting on speaking to him). He said to reach a compromise he would tell the instructor to charge me £20 per lesson as per the original agreement. He didnt say anything about the cancelled lesson and not informing the instructor, etc. Because I didnt give him 48 hours notice, i didnt think I could really argue that, so i accepted that offer. So i should be refunded £40 instead of the £31 the instructor said he would pay me back.

He should be dropping the money in tonight, i just hope its all sorted, i really dont want to be chasing this man for MY money. I must say my driving experience has been somewhat tarnished with Walkers and their seriously lacking customer "service". Would not recommend them to anyone in future.

Thanks for the advice guys.

Indout96

Glad to hear you got a result. :beer: