Pandora Bus

Warning: Fraudulent Sale!!!
If I could give this company less than one star I would. I didn’t even get the opportunity to get on the bus. To preface this story, I’m no stranger to the cheap-​ticket scene. I’ve been traveling by bus (through companies similar to this one) all over the northeast for almost 10 years now. I also frequently take bus trips to Virginia to visit family. What happened on Sunday night is by far the worst experience I’ve ever had.
I had a ticket for a bus that was supposed to leave Pandora’s Richmond, Virginia location (3201 W. Broad Street, between Cleveland St. and Highpoint Ave.) at 9:40pm. When I arrived at 9pm, myself and a few others were told that the bus had been rescheduled for 11pm, because it was «stuck in Holiday traffic». Patrons inside the station (if you will), were waiting for buses to NYC and Atlanta.
Shortly after 11pm, a bus pulls up out front. The driver gets out and announces that the bus will be going to NYC, and that we can board in ¹⁵⁄₂₀ minutes, leaving us to wait in the rain and cold. Amongst the crowd, there is some confusion as to whether he the bus is destined for NYC or Atlanta. After about 30 minutes, I went back inside to confirm with the woman at the ticket counter that the bus is indeed headed to NYC. A group of angry NYC-​bound customers are already at the window. At this point, she admits that our bus is the one, broken down, in the parking lot across the street. A man comes out from the back saying that he’s still trying to repair it, and hopes to be done in 15 minutes.
Mind you, while all of this is going on, the woman at the counter is telling people that the next bus to NYC is coming at 12:30am; meanwhile, with over 100 customers who have been waiting for hours, she continues to sell tickets to walk-​ins for the mysteriously missing NYC bus and Atlanta bus, clearly and purposefully overselling, with full knowledge of the situation.
At about 11:45 another bus pulls up (behind the one that’s still sitting, driver MIA). The driver gets out, refusing to answer anyone’s questions. A few disgruntled customers went into the bus to ask the passengers their destination. It’s Atlanta. So now we have 2 Atlanta buses and no NYC bus. And more importantly, no prospects for resolution.
Back inside at the counter, we were told that we needed to contact Goto Bus (the website from which most customers had purchased their tickets) in order to obtain a refund.
Even if one to two busses more busses were to arrive, there’s no way in hell, it could have accommodated the number of people now waiting to go to NYC. I left around midnight, resolved to buying a train/​plane ticket.
The best part of this story, is the next morning when I attempted to contact both Goto Bus and Pandora. I called Goto Bus’s advertised phone number –straight to voicemail, which was full — click. After that failed, I decided to phone Pandora’s NYC branch. I the number listed on my receipt. The woman I spoke to on the phone vehemently denied that the Richmond location was affiliated with her company in NYC, and would not claim responsibility for the incident. She hung up on me mid-​conversation.
This company a) is openly and blatantly practicing fraud; b) has no concern for the welfare of their drivers or patrons, as their buses appeared to be both raggedy and unstable.
I informed both parties (the bus company and the website) that I will be reporting them to the appropriate state and federal authorities regarding their fraudulent activity and the condition of their commercial vehicles.

The ticket is cheap, but it’s not worth it. The bus picked me up an hour late. The bathroom smelled awful and stunk up the whole bus. In the middle of the night some mysterious liquid (I hope it was water) started dripping on me from the ceiling. I had to change seats. The bus was supposed to arrive at 8:30 am. I slept through the night, and when I woke up in the morning we were two hours behind schedule. After already being two hours late, we popped a tire. The bus driver did not speak any English, and the customers on the bus were very frustrated because we had no idea what was going on, and he couldn’t explain it to us. He just yelled at us in Chinese. The tire took an hour and a half to fix. When the bus finally arrived in Manhattan we were 4 hours late. DO NOT RIDE THIS BUS. IT’S A NIGHTMARE.

Driver talked on the phone for an hour while driving, and was also texting. The drivers do not speak or understand English well enough for even basic communication. Driver did not stop at published stop address in Richmond, instead just a random gas station.