Hula Groove Wedding Band - Threatened court action!

Takoda

Equaliser123 wrote: »

Hear what you say but this isn't a traditional internet business.

I think there are arguments both ways as to whether a contract was formed. I agree with others that it probably hasn't.

Absolutely!

I've had another thought.

So there's this bloke Danny Richman who books acts. He gets an email from a customer who is interested in booking some of his artistes (why do I get this picture in my head of that Dennis Waterman stylee sketch from the hey days of Little Britain - Write the theme tune, sing the theme tune!)
Now this woman sounds interested, in her emails anyway, and fills in the booking form.

Now, a reasonable person - who is experienced and sensible - would wait until the deposit was paid before booking the jobbing musicians. He would do this because in the past - people will have got cold feet, had a row with their other halves about the cost, called off the wedding, been made redundant just after booking, had the venue burn down etc etc and all the other things which occur in the lives of human beings.

So the million dollar question is - are we dealing with...

1) A chap who jumped the gun and booked the musicians for the event BEFORE he got the deposit from the customer. (bad business practice IMHO)

or

2) A greedy chap who didn't actually book the artistes (because he was waiting for the deposit) but thinks he might be able to screw some money out of a couple who will be so frightened and intimidated by his threats of court that they will cough up money they can ill afford to pay him off.

or

3) A bunch of stroppy Hula Groove artistes who deeply resent their work being cancelled after 3 days of being excited about it and who are either clamouring for compensation from their manager (which is the ONLY reason he is asking for it ) or who are desperate for their 75% from the customer to make up for their disappointment.

Good people of MSE - you decide...

GEEGEE8

I really don't see how a contract has been formed? Therefore I can't see them taking it any further.

Zandoni

Takoda wrote: »

Absolutely!

I've had another thought.

So there's this bloke Danny Richman who books acts. He gets an email from a customer who is interested in booking some of his artistes (why do I get this picture in my head of that Dennis Waterman stylee sketch from the hey days of Little Britain - Write the theme tune, sing the theme tune!)
Now this woman sounds interested, in her emails anyway, and fills in the booking form.

Now, a reasonable person - who is experienced and sensible - would wait until the deposit was paid before booking the jobbing musicians. He would do this because in the past - people will have got cold feet, had a row with their other halves about the cost, called off the wedding, been made redundant just after booking, had the venue burn down etc etc and all the other things which occur in the lives of human beings.

So the million dollar question is - are we dealing with...

1) A chap who jumped the gun and booked the musicians for the event BEFORE he got the deposit from the customer. (bad business practice IMHO)

or

2) A greedy chap who didn't actually book the artistes (because he was waiting for the deposit) but thinks he might be able to screw some money out of a couple who will be so frightened and intimidated by his threats of court that they will cough up money they can ill afford to pay him off.

or

3) A bunch of stroppy Hula Groove artistes who deeply resent their work being cancelled after 3 days of being excited about it and who are either clamouring for compensation from their manager (which is the ONLY reason he is asking for it ) or who are desperate for their 75% from the customer to make up for their disappointment.

Good people of MSE - you decide...

I'd go with No2 myself, if it was No1 then I'm sure these artistes wouldn't still want paying, it wouldn't make business sense to bite the hand that feeds you.

Hula Groove are doing themselves incredible harm here, if you type their name in Google this thread comes up near the top of the third page.

Trying to screw the OP will cost them a lot of other business I'm sure, they'd be better off letting it go. It would make more sense to do that than lose in court anyway, wonder how much 75% actually is.

Takoda

Zandoni wrote: »

I'd go with No2 myself, if it was No1 then I'm sure these artistes wouldn't still want paying, it wouldn't make business sense to bite the hand that feeds you.

Hula Groove are doing themselves incredible harm here, if you type their name in Google this thread comes up near the top of the third page.

Trying to screw the OP will cost them a lot of other business I'm sure, they'd be better off letting it go. It would make more sense to do that than lose in court anyway, wonder how much 75% actually is.

Funnily enough that was my thought too. That No.2 was most likely the closest to the truth. Of course we are solely basing our opinions on what the OP has told us so we could be wrong.

I think the lack of further information means that the OP has been warned off by the Hula Groove manager. We may not get much more information about it. They've probably decided to pay up.

Might be worth posting a link to this thread on a couple of wedding forums - wouldn't like this situation to happen to any other couples.

agmoore

Takoda wrote: »

Funnily enough that was my thought too. That No.2 was most likely the closest to the truth. Of course we are solely basing our opinions on what the OP has told us so we could be wrong.

I think the lack of further information means that the OP has been warned off by the Hula Groove manager. We may not get much more information about it. They've probably decided to pay up.

Might be worth posting a link to this thread on a couple of wedding forums - wouldn't like this situation to happen to any other couples.

Takoda,
Nothing has been paid. The band are suspending legal action until the actual date of our wedding 28/12/10. To quote from said email..

"If the band do not receive another booking for the same date then the full cancellation fee will be due and legal action will be pursued if payment is not forthcoming.

If the band do in the meantime receive another booking for 28/12/2010 the cancellation fee will be reduced to the level of any actual loss incurred by the band."


Ultimately we want an instant end to this, but it is clear this is something that will not be dropped by the band.

Whoever posted that it's cast a negative vibe is absolutely right. Again, it is a shame that we will remember this for all the WRONG reasons.

dacouch

Sounds like they have been reading this thread and realise they had only a small chance of winning a court case on the deposit issue so have followed the excellent advice on the posts on here.

Hopefully one of the legal eagles can post and advise you on the chances of them winning a court case should they not receive a booking

Zandoni

agmore, can you copy and paste their email on here so we can see it.

They are obviously reading this thread and are prepared to lose their reputation, so I'd follow Takoda's advice and spread the word through as many other forums that you can.

Your local paper might be interested along wih BBC's watchdog.

Takoda

agmoore wrote: »

Takoda,
Nothing has been paid. The band are suspending legal action until the actual date of our wedding 28/12/10. To quote from said email..

"If the band do not receive another booking for the same date then the full cancellation fee will be due and legal action will be pursued if payment is not forthcoming.

If the band do in the meantime receive another booking for 28/12/2010 the cancellation fee will be reduced to the level of any actual loss incurred by the band."


Ultimately we want an instant end to this, but it is clear this is something that will not be dropped by the band.

Whoever posted that it's cast a negative vibe is absolutely right. Again, it is a shame that we will remember this for all the WRONG reasons.

Thanks for the update. It was just that you hadn't posted anything about it for a while so I assumed that you'd probably paid it.

However, I don't think you're right about the matter not being dropped by the band.

What this Danny chap has done to save face is to change his threat.

Knowing that you would presumably post the result of any legal action he took (or didn't take) on here he's changed his mind again like he did with the terms and conditions. :rotfl:

Either that or his brief (or a friend with legal training ) has told him that his case doesn't have a leg to stand on unless he can prove actual loss. :rotfl:

My 2p is that he will miraculously forget all about it. He won't admit to that of course but I'm 100% sure that's what he will do.

The downside is that we've got to keep this thread going until the matter is resolved. That's another 5 months!

Which band number were you going to have? - apparently there are several different combinations.

neilmcl

agmoore wrote: »

Takoda,
Nothing has been paid. The band are suspending legal action until the actual date of our wedding 28/12/10. To quote from said email..

"If the band do not receive another booking for the same date then the full cancellation fee will be due and legal action will be pursued if payment is not forthcoming.

If the band do in the meantime receive another booking for 28/12/2010 the cancellation fee will be reduced to the level of any actual loss incurred by the band."


Ultimately we want an instant end to this, but it is clear this is something that will not be dropped by the band.

Whoever posted that it's cast a negative vibe is absolutely right. Again, it is a shame that we will remember this for all the WRONG reasons.

The band has a legal obligation to mitigate their losses, if any. Simply sitting back and waiting for 5 months to see if a booking is made or not isn't good enough and I'd very much doubt any court would find in their favour given the time period. I personally don't think you've got anything to worry about.

Takoda

dacouch wrote: »

Sounds like they have been reading this thread and realise they had only a small chance of winning a court case on the deposit issue so have followed the excellent advice on the posts on here.

Hopefully one of the legal eagles can post and advise you on the chances of them winning a court case should they not receive a booking

It is more complicated than that though dacouch. There isn't just one band - the customers of Hula Groove Band can choose from a range. This is from their website

"We offer a several band configurations to suit every event from a 4-piece to an 11-piece band consisting of drums, guitar, bass guitar, keyboards, percussion, horns section and 4 female singers. Each of the singers shares the role of lead vocals providing you and your guests with a unique and varied evening of entertainment."

So that complicates things somewhat in terms of proving loss. I've asked agmoore what size band his fiance booked to help clarify this.

Let's say that for the sake of argument they booked a band with 7 people. It might be that Danny manages to book a quartet for the 28th. That would presumably mean that agmoore will still owe Mr Richman for the wages/expenses etc of 3 musicians!

But what if those 3 musicians are actually employed elsewhere on that night? Remember, they are jobbing musicians and presumably play for other bands as well as at private functions. Danny boy is just their booking agent ( sorry edited to add... he plays a bit of percussion as well as handling bookings) Anyway, they are then not available to play/sing for Hula Groove and haven't lost a night's work and so shouldn't be counted when calculating loss.

If I were agmoore I'd be asking Danny Richman how he plans to actually PROVE that each band member who would've played in the original booked band, were not employed on that night.

I'd sort of lost interest in this yesterday but Danny's volte face and its implications have piqued my curiosity again.