Hello Doug, I don’t know if this falls under the same business laws as retail transactions. If it does, it is still complicated because it depends on which state has jurisdiction. Most states, such as Nevada, give the purchaser no right to a refund. It is up to the retailer to set a refund policy and follow it. If the seller has no published policy, no refund is required. California allows a retailer to follow a clearly published refund policy. If they have no policy, they must refund customers within 30 days of purchase. Beyond 30 days, no refund is required.
I am not a lawyer and I am not offering legal advice. I can’t tell you if you follow the law where you live, where the seminar is held or where the customers were when they paid for the seminar. I don’t even know if your situation falls under the same laws as for a retail transaction at a store. I wish you luck in resolving this issue and I hope the lawyers don’t need to get involved. Regards, Ted Eckert The opinions expressed are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of my employer, the American Bar Association or RILA<https://www.rila.org/>. From: Doug Smith <[email protected]> Sent: Friday, September 14, 2018 3:17 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [PSES] need some advice on cancellation policy for a seminar John, If they were a customer I would just refund the amount. I would normally just let them come to the next or any event (even though it would cost me two of six registrations for the future event). But they do not want to do that. I have classrooms available to me at no cost of 6, 20, and 100 people but I choose to do small seminars. Large ones are not nearly as useful to the attendees as small ones. If this were a group of 20, I would just refund. So, I will just start marketing the next few weeks and see what happens. If two more sign up I will just refund. I will probably not allow the company that cancelled to come to my events in the future without special arrangements compared to others. Doug [https://hostingemail.xo.com/api/storage/[email protected]/signatures/images/2476c205-f457-4395-87cc-7aa199c734f2] On Fri, 14 Sep 2018 22:50:03 +0100, John Woodgate wrote: I guess you don't have a cancellation policy in your T&Cs. No doubt you will fix that, as a result of this experience. If you don't want to lose the customer, and maybe get bad music on social media, let them come to a future event at no extra charge. John Woodgate OOO-Own Opinions Only J M Woodgate and Associates www.woodjohn.uk<https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.woodjohn.uk&data=02%7C01%7Cted.eckert%40microsoft.com%7Cad2c2b87192845c70a0908d61a8fe695%7C72f988bf86f141af91ab2d7cd011db47%7C1%7C0%7C636725602691262192&sdata=RUikJgNUyF99stdCYjwRm3rBwiyVZpE1xKhw%2BlO38Y4%3D&reserved=0> Rayleigh, Essex UK On 2018-09-14 21:51, Doug Smith wrote: Hi Everyone, I need some advice on a pair of cancelled registrations for a class I am holding next month. Two people from the same company registered and the company paid the registration fees. At that point the seminar was full (I limit it six people for a good experience) so I stopped marketing activities for the last week and a half. Then a manager higher up decided there will be no travel and now they want a refund. At this point, it is not likely, although possible, that two people additional people will register as time is short to get the required approvals. I have about an hour of work on each registration invested at this point for a total of two hours plus that much time to register and arrange for two different people if the register. Part of my time is making hotel reservations as the hotel and most meals are covered in the registration fee. Issuing a refund is a fair amount paperwork and record keeping, probably about an hour total for both. Basically, to save a few hundred dollars this company wants to cost me almost 10X that if I cannot fill the two seats (of six). The problem is the no travel policy. I use Las Vegas McCarrann airport which must be the cheapest airport in the world because of being a vacation destination. I can fly to California for less than the cost of gas to drive there in a car ($49 ticket on SouthWest). The cost of their tickets should be about $300 or less per person round trip from their location compared to about $2000 per person already paid. What do others do for a cancellation policy? In the past, I let someone come to a future delivery for no extra charge. In that case, the person had a personal reason for not being able to come. I try to be good to people as with the person just described plus I let unemployed engineers come at about to my cost if I have empty seats. What would you do? I could use some advice. Doug [https://hostingemail.xo.com/api/storage/[email protected]/signatures/images/2476c205-f457-4395-87cc-7aa199c734f2] - ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message is from the IEEE Product Safety Engineering Society emc-pstc discussion list. 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