Originally Posted by dd992emo
I'm not a professional victim, so I don't get the problem. If I go to PL and bid $75 for a room and get it, why do I care where the $75 goes? Just give me the key and leave me alone. If I don't think it's worth that, nobody is holding a gun to my head to use PL. They can give it to the city, the hotel, keep it, or pay their subscription to spankme.com for all I care....
There are two issues. First of all, the situation with Priceline is a special case that complicates the situation. With most of the online sites, the customer is quoted a specific price, and then taxes are added to it. When a company charges a tax, it shouldn't get to keep that money as additional profit.
Second, the victim here is not the consumer, i.e. the hotel resident, and no one pretends that it is. The victim is the city of Los Angeles, which is out the tax revenue. This is not a suit on behalf of online travellers, it's a suit on behalf of the taxpayers of Los Angeles.
Ed