help! Advice needed.

gemlcoleman

I am a student on a postgraduate course. At the beginning of the course we were told there would be a field trip mid-march and anyone who wished to go would need to pay a £50 deposit. The maximum cost would be £350 we were told.

I paid the deposit. However we were only told the final price last week - near £350. As I haven't been able to find a job whilst on the cost I emailed the course leader to inform him I would be withdrawing from the field trip as I simply could not afford it. Apparantly there are 5-6 other students also in this position.

However the course leader is now saying that we will be chased for the outstounding costs (please see below email). However, me and my co-students have signed nothing to say we would definetly go on the trip and assumed that merely the deposit would be lost if we changed our minds. We also thought we would be informed of the final costs before we had to commit to anything.

Do anyone have advice on where we stand? Iv'e emailed our student union but no response as yet I dont want to be chased for money for a trip I missed out on!

MrsManda

You didn't paste the email (I presume that's what you meant by see email below).
Did you get a reciept with the deposit? Does that have any information saying you're eligible for the full cost? How about the original letter which informed you of the trip?

If neither of these say that you are eligible for the full cost I don't see how the tutor can expect it. Is there someone else in the department you can talk to?

gemlcoleman

Tutors email - Withdrawal from the Holland Field Visit
A few of you have written to indicate that you are considering withdrawing from the Holland Field Visit. I have contacted the Travel Company and they have confirmed that with Easyjet the money is not refundable. You might get something back off the hotel but there is no guarantee or even the amount recoverable.
In the meantime the University has committed itself financially to the arrangements and would seek to recover its costs from you.


The thing is he didnt even check we were OK with this price although I know he told us £350 would be maximum.

WE did get a receipt for the deposit, just a pieve of paper saying we had paid the uni £50. I expected to lose that money. But I just didn't expect to be chased for the rest of it!

We have no original letter or form, we were just told all this info in class at the beginning of term. The only form we signed was a health and safety check but this mentioned nothing of the trip on it.

A bunch of us are going to talk to him in person tomorrow, but I have a feeling he is not going to back down. It seems he left everything to the last minute which is perhaps why this has all happened.

Idiophreak

I wouldn't pay them a thing, personally - they can "seek" the recovery of costs if they want, I don't see they'll be successful if you've not signed any kinda confirmation of your going, though. If the uni were going to be shelling out money before you'd confirmed your attendance, they should have taken an adequate deposit to cover this - that's kinda the point.

gemlcoleman

I think possibly the tutor saw it as if we'd paid a deposit then it meant we were definitely going, whereas we saw it as a way of reserving our space, but taking the chance of losing the deposit if we changed our minds.

Just heard back from the Student Union saying they are looking into it...