hoppa
Shocking experience! Avoid at all costs.
My experience with Hoppa was, without exaggeration, one of the worst travel-related services I have ever encountered.
The taxi Hoppa arranged for my outbound journey was frankly unsafe. The vehicle was really old, visibly in poor condition (parts of the dash were missing!), and in no way appeared roadworthy. The driver looked alarmingly young, the car was in a state of disrepair, and there were two large, worn tyres loose in the boot, which meant we could not even fit our luggage properly. Capping it off, the seatbelts didn’t work. This alone should have disqualified the vehicle from carrying paying passengers.
The driver drove at excessive speed and clearly did not know how to get to the hotel (I had to find it on Google Maps and direct him), which did nothing to inspire confidence in either his competence or safety. This was not a minor inconvenience; it was an experience that felt genuinely unsafe.
Immediately after this journey, I emailed Hoppa to cancel the return transfer; a week, then, in advance. I followed this up again multiple times before the return date. Despite this, Hoppa failed to cancel the booking and still attempted to treat the return as active. This is either administrative incompetence or complete disregard for customer communication.
What followed was an utterly unacceptable customer service experience. Hoppa claimed to conduct an “investigation,” which in practice consisted of forwarding my complaint to the same taxi company I was complaining about. Unsurprisingly, that company simply denied everything — despite the fact that I had provided photographic and video evidence of all of the issues. The taxi company also made demonstrably false claims about local road laws. Worse still, their replies to me included swearing and aggressive language. Hoppa was entirely unconcerned by this behaviour, and stood by their taxi firm.
Despite all of this, Hoppa’s eventual “resolution” was to offer around £5 in compensation. This was after unsafe transport, ignored emails, misleading handling of the complaint, and deeply unprofessional conduct by them and their subcontractor.
It is also worth noting that Hoppa’s terms and conditions attempt to disclaim responsibility for the taxis they arrange — which says a great deal about their business model. They take your money, outsource the service, and then wash their hands of any consequences.
In summary: Hoppa does not check the quality or safety of the taxi firms it works with. It does not properly read or engage with customer complaints. It does not conduct genuine investigations when issues arise. It does not take action against taxi companies even when presented with clear evidence of completely unacceptable behaviour. And it does not treat customers fairly or seriously. I had to issue court proceedings to make them properly respond.
I would strongly advise anyone considering Hoppa to avoid them at all costs. With any luck, my review will go towards ending a shameful business.
