Ciao Alli,
Thanks for bringing your side of the story, I will try to answer this review by points and try to bring everything on the table to give a better understanding to everyone:
"We arrived 20 minutes early, but the tickets distributed to us had the incorrect meet-up location, which was 700 meters away from the actual meet-up location."
We run this tour on a daily basis, twice a day, with 12 people total per day, I believe we never had any issue with the meeting point, actually in some reviews people also mention how clear our instructions are, the same instructions you received and I do not understand how you end up on the other side of the meeting spot.
" Theresa (the tour guide) was not where we were told and the sign she held was not as described. When we finally found the group, she would not wait 5 minutes to let us redeem the Pompeii entry tickets we bought online. When we asked if we could meet them inside and exchange phone numbers to communicate and meet up, she flat-out refused to help or cooperate with us and told us we were kicked off the tour. "
Theresa, the lady that you call unpleasant and rude is the same lady that in other reviews people speak very highly about her.
What really happened is that you arrived late at the meeting point, there was already all the group waiting for you and when you checked in you didn't even have the right entry fee to the ruins, a clear sign that you never read our instructions.She decided that since the group had to wait that long for you and then you were demanding them to wait even more to go in line and wait to exchange the ticket I believe it wasn't fair to the rest of the group, so she decided to not affect their experience as well for a lack from your side, was she rude? I do not know, I wasn't there but I hardly believe so knowing her.
I would like also to bring attention to the fact that if we made a mistake about the meeting point on the voucher how did the rest of the group get there in time with the right ticket and meet extremely easy the guide?
"We appreciate the refund they gave us but are very disappointed because this could have easily been avoided if the communication and cooperation had been better. "
You put the wrong number on the reseravation, which I tried to call with no success, in fact I have the call log that when you realized you probably mixed up you called me from another number.
When You called me you asked me "Giuseppe can we get a refund?" I asked what happened, you gave me your "version of what happened" I felt bad because I'm a traveler myself and the way you described it looked bad from our side and I didn't want to call Theresa to give me her side as well cause she was busy running the tour so I did what an honest person would do, I issued a full refund straight away, even if I didn't have to and without even waiting to hear from Theresa, it's quite sad you decided anyway to leave a 1-star review, but I believe this whole review is self-explanatory to everyone.
"If you read the other sub-5 star reviews, you can see how defensive and rude Giuseppe sounds."
This is the only point of the review that gave me discomfort, people can call me whatever names I do not care about, but calling me rude quite bothers me a lot.
In 5 years that I've been face to face with people all over the world this is the first time it ever happens, I actually went back and red again my replies to some other reviews and I do not see anywhere an answer where I do sound rude, you didn't even got to meet in me in person and you are calling me rude so quickly? Quite unfair, dishonest and low, we only got to talk over the phone, actually whatsapp, I wish I could attach the screnshoot of the conversations, at any point I'm talking rude, aggressive or bad, I was raised with manners, I was raised to not judge people easily and to be kind, these are the three morals I live by, I believe you should make them yours too.
Last thing I would like to bring up is "How a rude person like me would issue a full refund without questioning anything? "
I should to stop it here to make this reply look as professional as can be but I'm italian and I love what I do, so I will add what my grandmother used to say " Money makes the person rich, but it's the manners that makes him quite the man."
Have a great one Alli, all the best.