Prom night offers the youth of America the opportunity to learn a number of lessons — how to fill a flask, the best way to use Visine without being obvious, how to charter a 40-person party bus without getting screwed by scammers. Alas, some teens in Alabama learned that last lesson the hard way.
According to WHNT-TV, around $2,400 had been handed over to a charter company for a bus that was supposed to ferry 38 students to the annual debauch. But they might as well have paid that money to rent magic carpets, since those don’t exist either.
“They’re all sitting at our rec center where we have our prom, looking for a ride to Chattanooga that did not show,” the school’s superintendent said.
WHNT tried to look into the charter company, supposedly based out of Birmingham. But they also found that the 888 number associated with that company is also associated with a number of other businesses, including a collection agency and a site selling guitars.
From WHNT:
There are other websites with complaints about the company failing to provide transportation for others who paid for services, including a wedding party in Nevada whose bus never showed.
The website for the Better Business Bureau in Northern Nevada and the Lake Tahoe Basin lists six complaints closed in the past 12 months, and gave the company an F for Delivery Issues and Problems with Service.
Luckily, the school’s transportation director arranged for a school bus to drive the stranded prom-goers. The parents agreed to foot the bill.
“This is very unordinary,” said the superintendent, “but again, we didn’t want to ruin their night, we had the means to help them, and decided we would go ahead and help them with this situation.”
Fort Payne Students Scammed By Prom Night Charter Bus Rental [WHNT.com]
Thanks to Anderson for the tip!
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Prom bus… sounds like a movie.
I’m writing the novelization to sell on Amazon as we speak.
If you’re listing it on Amazon, make sure you title it “Promethebus”
It would either be a high-school comedy film or a horror film…. about one of the best nights in High School, but the bus driver took the wrong turn… and died. Now, 24 teenagers must figure out how to survive the PROM BUS.
I was thinking more of a ghost ship type thing. One night ten years ago a bus filled with prom kids goes missing in a deep fog. They reappear mysteriously ten years later at the high school reunion to take revenge against their former tormentors and the kids who accidentally caused their deaths with a prank gone wrong.
Big twist at the end has the main protagonist ten years after that drop her kids off at the bus stop, the PROM BUS pulls up the kids get in. Fade to credits.
Damn. That is creative and sounds like a freakin awesome B-movie! No sarcasim. I really want to see this movie now. When does it come out?!?
Prom is like a wedding – 5 years later you wonder why the heck you spent all of that money on something you and your partner would have enjoyed just as much at a much smaller event.
And 5 years later, you hate the person you went with.
Unless you find yours on a reality dating show. I’ve been led to believe by the announcers and the one-on-ones that those are forever.
hah! enjoyed! clearly you weren’t at my prom.
but it’s ok, the drinks were warm, the food was cold, but at least the “dessert” consisting of an ice cream sandwich with a delicate strip of wrapper left on was cold. rock solid too hard to eat cold.
it would have been ok if dancing could have been done but the rooms [2 rooms] were too small for all the tables AND a dance floor.
i think i would have enjoyed it a lot more if it was the horror movie prom bus scenario described upthread
“Unordinary”? Would it be too much to expect the superintendent to know that “unordinary” is not a word?
Messrs. Funk and Wagnalls would would like to have a word with you.
Point Duke.
I maintain that “unordinary” is an awkward word with many easily conjured synonyms that do not make the speaker sound like a moonshine swilling simpleton.
I don’t see why one would object to “unordinary”; it’s a perfectly cromulent word.
“we had the means to help them, and decided we would go ahead and help them with this situation.”
At a cost of not more than one penny over the standard limo rate.
“This is very unordinary”?!? What the hell kind of word is “unordinary”? Is this some kind of Newspeak that I was not aware of?
Perhaps you need to embiggen your vocabulary.
Good heavens! How dare you, you frumious bandersnatch!
Listen you Texas brushpopper, keep talking like
that and i’ll whomp you with a knotted plough line.
Merriam-Webster says it’s a perfectly cromulent word
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/unordinary
Where did the money go?
http://www.buscharterdispatch.com/faq_customer.php
“What does Bus Charter Dispatch not do?
We are not a broker of charter bus services or companies, and we do not rent buses. We do not receive any money from the customer or bus companies when you use a bus company through our service.”
my guess they are the middle man or like craigslist for buses.
One of the bus the people paid for took the money and ran. The charter dispatch people probably doesn’t care if bus company they have listed are legit or not.
or like ebay being used by scammer.
I’m pretty sure prom night exists.
Are limos better?
http://consumerist.com/2010/04/prom-night-spoiled-when-limo-is-repossessed-in-front-of-teens.html
The linked article is gone but here is another link:
http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/290867
And this one is even better!
http://consumerist.com/2009/05/blessed-limo-provides-hellish-prom-service.html
Again, the linked article is gone but here’s another link:
http://www.king5.com/news/consumer/60784237.html
Anyone else notice that the news story about the murder had the word “sentencing” misspelled?