Who needs to pay the bill?

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imfromda305

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TruStory here:

I am in London, I call my friend that I'm heading back to Santo Domingo. I'm telling him that I got the hotel taxi who would pick me up for 1000 DOP. My friend tells me, no no no I got someone who could do it for 500 DOP. I ask him if he is sure, because I can just call the hotel cab. He say it is okay.

** Before this situation happened, I missed my flight. I contacted the hotel (by e-mail) that I'll arrive later. No problem.

So I'm at the airport, due customs I miss my flight.. again. But this time I have no appointment with the hotel, just my friend. I contact him (by text message) to say that I'll arrive 5 hours later.

So I'm landing in Santo Domingo, and I call my friend to tell him I just landed. He's surprised and expected me 5 hours earlier. So he waited on the airport for 5 hours, because he didn't receive my text message.

Also, that someone he was talking about who I had to pay 500 DOP wasn't there.. he arranged some random dude for 1000 DOP.

So now we're at my friends house, it's pay time.. random dude expects me to pay $100 because 1000 DOP won't cut it. Because yeah, he waited for 5 hours and received a 750 DOP fine.

So this is my thing;

- I said hell no! Fck that! I was really ****ed about the situation, had my friend just let me deal with the hotel this wouldn't happen as I earlier had the situation of missing my flight and I let the hotel know. Somehow my friend didn't get the message.

- My friend who is in the middle advice me to just pay.

- Random dude of course wants his money, from me or my friend.


So my question to you guys, who needs to pay the bill? I should? My friend should? Or the taxi should be happy with the 1000 DOP I gave him as that is the price that has been told when my friend told him to pick me up.
 

imfromda305

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And to let you know what happened, taxi dude kept bothering my friend.. my friend acted like when I don't pay I'm the one who would get in trouble. So finally me and taxi dude bump into each other. Like I told him that day, I ain't gonna pay sh*t!

So he followed me all the way to El Conde, my friend was with me.. he reached out to the El Conde police and we all went to the police station.

The messed up thing about this, they put my friend in cuffs and they wanted to put me in cuffs too.. but I'm a tourist so I could go home! LOL!

My friend spent the night there and in the morning we all had to go to the station to get this thing sorted out.

Verdict: The police said, I wasn't the one to blame.. it was taxi dude his responsibility yet my friend needed to pay 1000 DOP or else he would staid locked up. Because like I said in the story and like the police was saying, all this would be prevented if my friend just let me keep the hotel taxi.

Now you guys may look at me like a &^*& and I don't care, my thing is a principal thing. I know I was going to pay 1000 DOP, of course 500 DOP is better but my friend keeps nagging so even if he said his friend was 1000 DOP I still had to say yes because believe me.. his Dominican annoying way of getting things done. I know it's not fair for the taxi dude to wait 5 hours cos time is money, but I sent a text message!

I want to know what you guys would've done if you were in my shoes.
 

Bronxboy

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Jul 11, 2007
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OP PM me as to why close.

Well, this being DR and the police were involved, pay up and move on will be the consensus IMO and why use up all the bandwidth to come up to the same conclusion at the end.

Cut your losses and enjoy this great country. ;)
 

Bronxboy

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OK. I will grant you a reprieve.

"After all, we are not all murderers despite what this undertaker says" The Godfather
 

Bronxboy

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Ok, I will chime in.

The police should have never been involved for such pettiness.

Principal or not, in the DR, principal dont count. The number a days locked up will. 1,2,3,4,5,6...................... "damn, when can I go home"

All for a few bucks!!!!!
 

VJS

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Sep 19, 2010
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You should have confirmed the price before getting into that taxi, and if the driver said $100 then, just get another one. The guy waited for 5 hours? - so if you had to cancel a flight, he would still be there, waiting? - I say not your problem. Your friend is a moron for handling this whole thing badly and allowing it to escalate to police (and by the way, if it was just you and the driver, it could easily be you there overnight).
 

Africaida

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Jun 19, 2009
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Thank you VJS !!

I don't even believe this guy really waited for 5 hours.

My first thought was that your friend was splitting the $100 with the taxi, but it doesn't seem so.
 

Bronxboy

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I do not believe he waited.

Waited at least an hour, picked up others, and then came back, yes!!!!!
 

bochinche

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Friend probably thought he was doing you a favour.
Seems like a couple of things went wrong as you missed your plane.
Turns out that you are mistaken that he is a friend, or he is a much better friend to you than you are to him.

Doesn't change anything, you should have paid, chalked it up as one of 'those' experiences.

If you are not prepared to do that, then what are you wasting your time here for?
 

Givadogahome

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Sep 27, 2011
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You know, sometimes things go wrong and might not work out how we would like or expect them to in our own little world. But I do take the knocks and chalk it down to experience and lesson learned when things do go wrong. If you try to fight all differences on your principles then you will not last long because things whether you like it or not, simply DO work differently in the DR. Right or wrong, just put it down to an expense on an education, and we all pay for our educations, so why not also those non academical life educations that are so much more valuable in real life.
 

bob saunders

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Friend probably thought he was doing you a favour.
Seems like a couple of things went wrong as you missed your plane.
Turns out that you are mistaken that he is a friend, or he is a much better friend to you than you are to him.

Doesn't change anything, you should have paid, chalked it up as one of 'those' experiences.

If you are not prepared to do that, then what are you wasting your time here for?

You should split the tab with your friend, but lower it to $25 each. Average Taxi driver in Santo Domingo doesn't make $100 PER NIGHT.
 

dv8

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Sep 27, 2006
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i am tacana, well known fact. i would not pay at all. the taxi driver waited? well, good for him. i'll be happy to pay him 1000 pesos over 500 and use him again. he wants 100 bucks? no way, dude, you lost both time and the fare you could get with me, i'd have an airport cab to take me home and pay them instead.
 

belmont

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Oct 9, 2009
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You all missed an important point in this mishegas (ask Tambo for the spaglish definition). The OP said that due to customs he missed his initial flight and was delayed 5 hours. The driver says he never was notified by text. So the original flight arrived minus the OP. How would the driver know to wait for the later flight? Was he going to wait for every flight from the OP's home for the next week?
 

Como_un_cameron

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Jan 8, 2011
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You all missed an important point in this mishegas (ask Tambo for the spaglish definition). The OP said that due to customs he missed his initial flight and was delayed 5 hours. The driver says he never was notified by text. So the original flight arrived minus the OP. How would the driver know to wait for the later flight? Was he going to wait for every flight from the OP's home for the next week?

No matter what. In this country yo need to take care of things yourself, and don't expect anyone who's for their first time in their live at an airport to arrange things for you. Things here tend to get lost in translation and then the s..t hits the fans.

Tranquillo por favol
 

VJS

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Sep 19, 2010
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Rule #1, #2 and #3 in DR: do not, ever, use a service, or buy anything, before confirming the price - at least with new vendors. When you skip this step, you are setting yourself up for some nasty surprises when it's time to pay, with very limited recourse.
 

imfromda305

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Dec 9, 2011
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OP PM me as to why close.

Well, this being DR and the police were involved, pay up and move on will be the consensus IMO and why use up all the bandwidth to come up to the same conclusion at the end.

Cut your losses and enjoy this great country. ;)

Yeah, I do thank you for re-open this topic..

The people above you and yourself keep saying cut your losses and keep it moving.. I didn't lose a thing.

The thread was the story of what happened and caused this mess, my second reply was the solution that was given by the police.

So basically, I already knew back then I wasn't going to pay and it wasn't my fault.. so did the police. The reason why asking this (using up the bandwidth!?!?!) is because me and my friend are wondering who should have paid the bill.

We are not fighting, we are not hating.. he is just 1000 DOP lighter and a little bit wiser. And honestly, nothing else but my stubbornness didn't make me wanna pay and I was actually surprised that the police was going to back me up.

So given this inf. to y'all, I just want to know your meaning.
 

imfromda305

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Dec 9, 2011
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You should have confirmed the price before getting into that taxi, and if the driver said $100 then, just get another one. The guy waited for 5 hours? - so if you had to cancel a flight, he would still be there, waiting? - I say not your problem. Your friend is a moron for handling this whole thing badly and allowing it to escalate to police (and by the way, if it was just you and the driver, it could easily be you there overnight).

When getting in the taxi, nobody indeed let him know what I would pay. But before this whole thing the taxi dude knew he was going to the airport to make 1000 DOP, little did he know he had to wait for 5 hours.

He mentioned the $100 when he dropped us at our friends house.
 
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