Victim of Capitalism
Donation protected
Hello to all the generous folks of Gofundme!
I am Deekshitha Reddy (You may call me Dee!) and I am raising money for my friend Zainah Al Essa who has been charged unauthorizedly and unethically for an unwarranted misunderstanding between us (the hotel guests) and La Quinta Vacation Rentals over our stay in April, 2015.
It was the weekend of Coachella - the ultimate dream of any music/festival lover and college student! I had been looking forward to Coachella for the past 3 years of my life and it finally seemed to be happening as I had moved to LA. But yet, there were doubts - it is an expensive festival afterall. Finding a place to stay in the Indio Valley during the event is such a hunt! With all the hotels booked or way overmarked during the season. My boyfriend and I were supposed to go together - but so close to the festival it seemed like it was not going to happen anymore because it was too expensive and difficult to book a hotel or find a spot to camp.
However, a door did open in the last minute and my boyfriend found a place to stay with his friends whereas Zainah, my ever generous friend, offered myself and a friend of mine to stay over with her and split the costs of the hotel that she and her boyfriend were going to stay in over weekend. Everything seemed perfect! Something finally worked out after all!
Little did we know that the trip would turn out far more expensive than we had planned for. The hotel (La Quinta Vacation Rentals) misunderstood that my boyfriend was staying at the hotel too when he was dropping me back from the festival. They assumed that an extra person was staying with us in a 4 person room which violated their terms of agreement. As a result, they charged $400 to my friend Zainah's account unauthorizedly without any notification or evidence that there was in fact an extra person staying with us.
I do not understand how any hotel can accuse their guests of such a serious allegation without any evidence and charge them without any clarification. My friend and I repeatedly asked the hotel staff and manager Sandy Robbins to check their cameras to confirm that their allegations were incorrect. However, they repeatedly stuck to their allegation that we were indeed in violation of the terms. There was no evidence in the cameras it seems, sadly for us, because it seems there WERE NO CAMERAS. I do not understand how such allegations can stand if properly functioning cameras existed on the hotel premises in the first place!
So naturally, my friend disputed the charge with her bank (Bank of America). She seemed very certain that her bank can handle the charge. How can it not? We did not violate the terms, therefore, there is no evidence for the hotel's allegations. However, 3 months later, it turns out that the bank lost the dispute and she was charged anyway. My friend and I are completely shocked and we simply do not understand how this can happen. We are both international students in college in America - this would not happen in my country (although very many other disadvantages exist in my own country). Is this a side-effect of capitalism? Does a consumer have any rights or value here? These are questions that hound me after this unfortunate event.
Being international college students makes it very hard for us to finance such an unexpected charge that we incurred for NO FAULT OF OURS. We are not free to go outside and seek some kind of work in order to make up for this charge because of visa restrictions. I, personally, saved up for months to go to this event and didn't forsee it becoming so expensive. We tried everything - dispute the charge, writing to the manager of the hotel, leaving bad reviews on Yelp, TripAdvisor, literally every review site we could find - but the manager choose to stick to her story (which is completely FALSE).
This may not seem like a huge amount to crowd-fund to some of you ($400) - but to us, broke college students who look forward to every free food opportunity on campus, it makes a huge difference! Imagine if 400 people contributed $1 or if 80 people donated $5, that would solve our issue and save us much worry for the months to come. Every little bit counts a lot. Help us!
Here are the links to some of the reviews:
http://www.yelp.com/biz/la-quinta-vacations-rental-la-quinta-2
http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Review-g32584-d1848799-Reviews-La_Quinta_Vacations_Rental-La_Quinta_California.html
I am Deekshitha Reddy (You may call me Dee!) and I am raising money for my friend Zainah Al Essa who has been charged unauthorizedly and unethically for an unwarranted misunderstanding between us (the hotel guests) and La Quinta Vacation Rentals over our stay in April, 2015.
It was the weekend of Coachella - the ultimate dream of any music/festival lover and college student! I had been looking forward to Coachella for the past 3 years of my life and it finally seemed to be happening as I had moved to LA. But yet, there were doubts - it is an expensive festival afterall. Finding a place to stay in the Indio Valley during the event is such a hunt! With all the hotels booked or way overmarked during the season. My boyfriend and I were supposed to go together - but so close to the festival it seemed like it was not going to happen anymore because it was too expensive and difficult to book a hotel or find a spot to camp.
However, a door did open in the last minute and my boyfriend found a place to stay with his friends whereas Zainah, my ever generous friend, offered myself and a friend of mine to stay over with her and split the costs of the hotel that she and her boyfriend were going to stay in over weekend. Everything seemed perfect! Something finally worked out after all!
Little did we know that the trip would turn out far more expensive than we had planned for. The hotel (La Quinta Vacation Rentals) misunderstood that my boyfriend was staying at the hotel too when he was dropping me back from the festival. They assumed that an extra person was staying with us in a 4 person room which violated their terms of agreement. As a result, they charged $400 to my friend Zainah's account unauthorizedly without any notification or evidence that there was in fact an extra person staying with us.
I do not understand how any hotel can accuse their guests of such a serious allegation without any evidence and charge them without any clarification. My friend and I repeatedly asked the hotel staff and manager Sandy Robbins to check their cameras to confirm that their allegations were incorrect. However, they repeatedly stuck to their allegation that we were indeed in violation of the terms. There was no evidence in the cameras it seems, sadly for us, because it seems there WERE NO CAMERAS. I do not understand how such allegations can stand if properly functioning cameras existed on the hotel premises in the first place!
So naturally, my friend disputed the charge with her bank (Bank of America). She seemed very certain that her bank can handle the charge. How can it not? We did not violate the terms, therefore, there is no evidence for the hotel's allegations. However, 3 months later, it turns out that the bank lost the dispute and she was charged anyway. My friend and I are completely shocked and we simply do not understand how this can happen. We are both international students in college in America - this would not happen in my country (although very many other disadvantages exist in my own country). Is this a side-effect of capitalism? Does a consumer have any rights or value here? These are questions that hound me after this unfortunate event.
Being international college students makes it very hard for us to finance such an unexpected charge that we incurred for NO FAULT OF OURS. We are not free to go outside and seek some kind of work in order to make up for this charge because of visa restrictions. I, personally, saved up for months to go to this event and didn't forsee it becoming so expensive. We tried everything - dispute the charge, writing to the manager of the hotel, leaving bad reviews on Yelp, TripAdvisor, literally every review site we could find - but the manager choose to stick to her story (which is completely FALSE).
This may not seem like a huge amount to crowd-fund to some of you ($400) - but to us, broke college students who look forward to every free food opportunity on campus, it makes a huge difference! Imagine if 400 people contributed $1 or if 80 people donated $5, that would solve our issue and save us much worry for the months to come. Every little bit counts a lot. Help us!
Here are the links to some of the reviews:
http://www.yelp.com/biz/la-quinta-vacations-rental-la-quinta-2
http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Review-g32584-d1848799-Reviews-La_Quinta_Vacations_Rental-La_Quinta_California.html
Organizer
Deekshitha Reddy
Organizer
Los Angeles, CA
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