Dear Colleagues and Friends in Facebook This is to inform you that my former business partner, Carlos Melia, is no longer associated with the firm of Haute Experiences LLC. Due to outstanding tax liability to business debt and unearthed financial irregularities Mr. Carlos Melia is not longer part of my company. I have taken this decision after a long silence and grievances I never thought that I would expect from Mr. Melia. The reason that has generated this letter is to clarify my vis-à-vis position due to some rumors persisting in reference to the non-operation of Haute Experiences LLC and as well as a form of unravelment I feel an obligation with my colleagues, travel agencies, hotels and guests who came to our business launch sites and to those who in one way or another we promised to work together in the future. My temporary association with this person start in May 2012, after an email sent by me, he mentioned that he was looking for a business partner, I flew to New York immediately to meet with him and have a chat in person. After hours of discussion analyzing his business ideas, Mr. Melia told me he currently couldnt work in the United States because he did not have a work visa. He told me about his disadvantages and concerns each time he went abroad and came back into to the US. He also told me about his deplorable living situation. Back then, he promise that the company and destinations will be ready by the end of the year 2012. Mr. Melia revelation caused me to pitied him and beyond starting a business partnership, I offered to help how to source out resources as hiring an immigration lawyer upon my return to Atlanta that could help change his legal status in the US. After meeting with a prestigious immigration lawyer - I was informed that it was very difficult case already since, my company could not provide him the sponsorship. During a follow up conference call and emails with Mr. Melia regarding the result from the lawyer appointment to regulate Mr. Melia visa status. I told him that my investment efforts could launch our business partnership by the end of the year and offer him the visa sponsorship he needed to allow him to travel back and forward from the United States with a clear conscience. He was very excited about our new venture and thats how Haute Experiences was born, the name with which I opened a LLC and bought the domain name for the website. In June 25, 2012, I received an email from Mr. Melia telling me that he believed that he had found the solution to his visa status. His very own words: Luigi, I was thinking and I just want you to know something - It would be a temporary solution until I have enough money to match our partnership investment in here in the United States and have our company sponsor my visa. There is a travel agency here in the US which I do contract work with that has always offered me to sponsor my visa, even more, I had meetings with their lawyers and they have told me that my case was very simple. The cost is $5000 USD. What do you think if we do this visa thru this travel agency, as a temporary solution. When the time comes for our business to be up and running with the necessary funds, I will do the transfer my visa to our business which will sponsor me as an employee of Haute Experiences LLC The payment for the visa would have to be included as an expense for the company. What do you think? At that time, I was very exited with Haute Experiences and I said Yes. On July I hired a web designer for the website, but before the site for Haute Experiences, Mr. Melia want to redesign his blog site to attract potential customers, something that took months and delate de site. I was paying for the redesign of Mr. Melia Blog site, where he post his inspections and made money with that, advertise Hotels, promote his weeding services with a obvious huge profit BEFORE he was aloud to work in this country. I had never received any type of retribution of any type from Mr. Melia. After several emails where Mr. Melia asked for me to send him the monies for the lawyers retainer to start the process of his visa, he refused on several occasions to receive the money through the bank. He propose via email that I can deposit the money in an account in Spain or Italy, or he can flight to Atlanta. However, I send him a certified check with the first payment of USD 2,835 # 8834251248 because I needed to record the expense with my company and was for Coaching - Advising Haute Experiences. The remaining amount was done via a second payment that was handed to him in person during our business launch in Lima, Peru on November 14, 2012. In less than two months, January, 2013 and after his Working Visa was approved, I received an e-mail from Mr. Melia saying that he didnt want to continue with our business partnership venture and that at the extent his possibilities he would return the money I granted for his visa. By then, I had already invested more than 6 months of my time and between my business trips, plane tickets for Mr. Carlos Melia to visit Atlanta, hotel stays, dinners, web designer, website, business cards, etc. my investment exceeded the amount of $20,000 USD. I told him that Haute Experiences without him could not exist since we where selling his experiences . With that said, we agreed to go ahead with the business and I was asked by him not to intervene since, he was handling all the business operations for our future clients. Under those new terms we moved ahead, now the idea was to launch the destinations during the month of March 2013 and then March got postponed to June 2013 to receive a last email from Mr. Melia saying that he still needed an additional $10,000 to launch our company. At the same time, as was pure coincidence that I came to find out that Mr. Melia was launching its own company call Coups de Coeur, offering similar destination that we cant launch with Haute Experiences. How incredible, no? Coups de CoeurCoups de Coeur Mr. Melia, who was in charge of the web site design and access shall explain how did got deleted all the pages that linked him in Hauteexperiences. The host of the site, godaddy is still trying to investigate who deleted the pages through the IP address listed on the registry of entries. And as if this wasnt enough, I have received a demand from Getty Images because one of the photos that he used in Haute Experiences web site sent by Carlos Melia to the designer is protected by copyright. Another amount loss given the lack of professionalism of this character. It is so incredible for me to believe a person who claims to be curator of Luxury travel fails to comply with business ethics as well as having worked and remained illegally in the country until I paid for his visa. I am sorry to break the news to you with this story... I do believe in honesty, principles and business ethics. I will leave the wrongdoing, the embezzlement and accounting fraud from this individual. I want to offer my sincere and deepest apologies to you all for having promised to do business with you and have abused your trust with the false pretense and bad practices from this despicable character whose main objective was to achieve his own personal interest. Thru Outland Cuisine LLC on which I have built with impeccable reputation, this internal change will in no way effect our company policy or manner of conducting business. I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for the courtesies you have shown my in the past, and hope that you will continue do business in a way that is mutually beneficial and profitable to us both. Sincerely, Luigi Perez Travelpreneur Founder & Host tel. +1 770-401-2915 luigiperez@outlandcuisine Outland Cuisine outlandcuisine facebook/outlandcuisine.travelexperiences
Posted on: Thu, 28 Nov 2013 02:12:18 +0000
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