Rutherford's Punting Cambridge — Attraction in Cambridge

The tour itself was nice enough, but their back-end/management team is extremely shady and it was awful enough to ruin my entire experience and memory of this punting tour. I would never ever book with this company again or recommend them to anyone I know.

I booked on their site and got an error message stating my booking did not go through and I did not receive an email confirmation. I tried twice then called in and they said there were "technical difficulties" but the booking had actually gone through both times I tried, and they would get me a refund for the duplicate payment ASAP.

What followed was a endless loop of follow-ups trying to get my refund. For the first week, I called in every day and they told me "I'm not sure but I'll follow up with the accounts department to see what's going on." I asked to speak to the manager and they said they would get their manager to call me back shortly. Obviously, nobody called, and when I called in again, I had to re-explain the whole situation again to no avail.

After a week of following up every day, I FINALLY got an email apologizing for the delay and saying they had processed the refund as of that day and it would be deposited in a few days. I did NOT receive any sort of payment confirmation, but I took them at their word.

After waiting several days with no refund in sight, I followed up again. They said it could actually take up to 10 business days, but they assured me a refund had been processed. I continued waiting.

After 10 business days, now 3 weeks since I had initially booked my tour, I STILL had not received my refund. I called again, they said they would contact their manager and call me back. Nobody called me back. I called again, they said they would follow up again and either get their manager to call, or they would call me with an update. Nobody called me back. I sent a follow-up email, still no response.

After almost 4 weeks of this hellish loop of endless follow-ups with no results, I finally received a payment confirmation from them showing my refund had been processed, and I got my money back a few days later. I had NOT received this refund receipt the first time, so I have to assume they never actually processed the refund initially, even though they had assured me twice that they had checked and double-checked and a refund had been issued. I can only assume they were waiting for me to forget about following up, that if they waited long enough, I would give up on getting a refund and they could just keep my money.

The front-end staff seemed nice enough, but the fact that I had to follow up more than 2 dozen times over a 4 week timespan to get a simple refund processed due their own system error is outrageous. The fact that I was appeased with lies and no member of management ever contacted me is atrocious. Based on this experience, it seems as though this company is either grossly negligent or morally bankrupt in how they handle their customers and I would recommend others either stay away, or hope you never have any issues that require customer service, because it is truly...

DO NOT BOOK WITH THIS COMPANY - THEIR CUSTOMER SERVICE IS EXTREMELY POOR!

I booked on their site and received an error message online stating that the booking had not gone through so I tried again and the same thing happened. However when I checked my email it alerted me that I paid twice (without any email receipt or confirmation mind you, just a nondescript email from them). So obviously I called them and explained what happened and they assured me that I would get a refund for the duplicate booking ASAP.

This didn’t happen - instead there has been endless back and forth to try and sort it out which is extremely unacceptable. I called in multiple times to get an update on the status of my refund and each time I was met with “it’s being processed” or “we will call you back to confirm”. They never called me back and a month had already passed (refunds usually take 10 days to process) so I asked to speak to the manager as the contact number listed online is for the front of house, I was met with resistance saying that they’re not allowed to put me through to the manager - which makes absolutely no sense as this is now an urgent customer service matter.

I decided to send an email explaining the situation because maybe that way I could get through to the manager/customer service team and after a few days I receive an email trying to appease me saying they’re investigating the matter. Over 2 weeks have passed since I received that email and I’ve not heard back from them. This whole situation now has taken almost TWO MONTHS to resolve. This behaviour is extremely unprofessional and negligent, especially since the duplicate booking and payment is due to their faulty system. To this day I still have NOT received any compensation.

It’s also disappointing to see that I’m not the only person who’s experienced this kind of hassle negligence. STAY AWAY from this company - I don’t know how they are still...

Appalling service… Went to Cambridge with my wife for my birthday, met Harvey by the bridge and was offered a good price (we thought at the time) we had a meal booked at 1 so booked a punt ride for 3… however when we tried to pay, the card machine would not work, we tried at least 5 or 6 times with 3 cards, but it was broken. Harvey called the dock and explained what was happening and to book us in for 3pm. We offered to walk down to the dock and pay, but we were told, “ you don’t need to do that now, pay at 3 when you arrive” so we left. We went to the bank and got cash just in case the machine at the dock did not work either. We then had a lovely meal at the ivy and returned in good time for our punt, we got in the queue, and were asked if we had paid, we said no and explained what happened and tried to pay then. But we were told by a very rude woman that because we had not paid our place was not available, “ how do we know if you would show up!” She then said Harvey was wrong to not send you down to pay “I told him to” but we were there when Harvey spoke to her, so I believe she lied to cover her mistake. It was made out that we were at fault, yet all we did was follow their instructions. My wife was devastated, she had been looking forward to the trip for months. We had to stand there trying to argue our point with a host of spectators being made to feel as if we were in the wrong, when we had simply done as we were told. She was rude, condescending and clearly did not care. Fortunately for us we met a lovely guy from Cambridge Punters who offered us a ride after a short wait at a much cheaper price. So my advice to anyone going to Cambridge and wanting a punt ride, would be avoid Rutherfords and seek out Cambridge Punters who saved the day for us, Dan our...