Complaint Review: BHP Room Acquisitions INC - Beverly Hills California

We entered into a contract with BHP Rooms Acquisitions, Inc. to provide hotel accommodations at the Hotel Indigo during the American College of Rheumatology 2013 annual meeting in San Diego and we paid them $27,630.00 in full for this service.  BHP Rooms Acquisitions, Inc. did not deliver the hotel accommodations and they did not return our payment.

BHP Rooms Acquisitions, Inc. (http://www.bhpremiere.com/) is also known as BHP Premier, Beverly Hills Premiere Tour Operator, BHP RA, Azoulay Enterprises Incorporated, Gabriel Azoulay (BHP Rooms Acquisition’s President) and David Galiani (BHP Rooms Acquisition’s Vice-president). 

Three days before our client’s arrival in San Diego we received a call from Gabriel Azoulay indicating that his company had only paid a deposit to the hotel for these accommodations (even though we had already submitted payment in full to his company) and he was unable to make the final payment of $16,884.00 because the IRS had frozen his bank accounts.  He asked for us to make this additional payment or the rooms would be charged to our clients upon check in.  When we considered making the payment, he indicated that payment was NOT to be made to the hotel directly, but to a third-party called Sage DMC in San Diego.

We contacted the hotel and were informed that they had not reservations or payment for our clients, neither from BHP Rooms Acquisitions nor from Sage DMC.  We spoke to Alberto at Sage DMC, who told us that he had the rooms through the congress housing, and that he will release the rooms to us once he received the money; we checked with the congress and they did not have rooms for Sage DMC at Hotel Indigo.

The congress housing department sent an emergency message to all their properties and fortunately got our group protected, but we had to pay in full for the rooms again.

We followed up with Hotel Indigo and sent the rooming list confirmed by BHP Rooms Acquisitions, the invoices of the payments BHP Rooms Acquisitions received and they reconfirmed that they did not have any contact from BHP Rooms Acquisitions, they did not know who they were and they had no record of our group.

After exhausting all possible venues to get a refund on our payment we had no option but to seek legal remedies against Gabriel Azoulay and his company.  During the process of preparing the lawsuit we uncovered that that “BHP Rooms Acquisitions, Inc.” is not a registered corporation in the state of California or in any other state in the United States.  In other words, it does not exist.  We also found that Grabriel Azoulay and his related companies (Azoulay Enterprises, BHP RA, Inc.) have had federal and state tax liens and several judgments against them by Marriott International, Inc. ($84,469.00), CS & M Associates d/b/a Sheraton New Orleans Hotel ($149,318.00) and Handlery Hotels, Inc. ($134,255.00).

Their website is current but they no longer answer the telephone and have an automated voicemail asking to send requests via email.  The different addresses published in relation to any of the above mentioned companies are either vacant or other belong to other businesses (e.g., restaurants.)

The likelihood of recovering our payment is low and will be very difficult.  Nevertheless, we find it only fair to share our experience since BHP Rooms Acquisitions keeps an updated website and is still offering rooms for congresses through 2015.

We have all proper documentation to support the foregoing and we will be open to produce copies if requested.