Botched booking, no apologies and theft

<p>On the 31st of March I made an inquiry on the RoomsforAfrica website for the Treehouse River Lodge in Shongweni for the 6th of May.<br /> <br />They accepted my booking and I paid the deposit required of R550.00, I received a confirmation of the deposit paid and the dates etc on the 5th of April.<br /> <br />When my partner and I arrived there this weekend, we were told our booking was for the 7th of May and that there were other guests in our room.<br /> <br />We were shocked and I was bordering on tears but did not want to be rude to the woman, Alison, who clearly had no idea what was going on and couldn’t get hold of her daughter, Sue, who I had been dealing with all along.<br /> <br />Unhappily, to keep the peace and so that this woman did not have a heart attack, we agreed to move our booking to the next Saturday.<br /> <br />Within the hour of us leaving, I sent an email through saying that we would not be visiting and requesting my money back.<br /> <br />I did not hear from the establishment so started emailing them and eventually yesterday received a call from Sue saying that my booking was definitely for the 7th and “Good luck trying to get hold of Rooms for Africa” and that she would not be refunding my money.<br /> <br />I saw red and immediately emailed Rooms, asking them to send through the original emails that had been sent to Sue showing the date of the booking, which they did, even the initial inquiry made on the 31st of March.<br /> <br />I then received a call from Alison today saying that because I CANCELLED THE BOOKING (now referring to the Saturday AFTER the original booking) she would not be refunding my money and that Rooms for Africa have told her she doesn’t have to because I CANCELLED the booking less than a week in advance.<br /> <br />My partner even tried to call this Sue woman who told him to take it up with his lawyer and hung up on him twice!! She has since smsed me to say I must let the lawyers deal with this and she won't give me any of my money back.</p> <p>I have never in all my life and travels received this sort of treatment from any establishment and I just let them get away with my money and thinking it’s alright to treat people like this.<br /> <br />I have everything in writing, all of the emails from the website confirming the booking, the emails sent to the establishment showing the booking was made for the 6th etc. which I can gladly forward to you.</p>