He wants refund, advice please

Savvy_Sue

I accept that schools are incredibly busy places, especially before Christmas, but I still say that if you are SO unhappy about something that you want a full refund, you don't wait 13 weeks before asking for it. You don't even wait 10 weeks, allowing for the fact that they would have been closed for 2+ weeks at Christmas.

I'm incredibly busy in my job, and if something like that happened to us and it took me so long to get round to asking for my money back, I'd go to my boss and say "Look, I know we weren't happy about this but I really don't think we can ask for our money back after all this time. Mea culpa, I know I should have been chasing this before, but you know what it's been like. Shall we just let it rest and not use this company again?"

However, BossyBoots knows far more law than I do, and other people have far more business experience than I do. I'm just indignant on your behalf! Which isn't necessarily helpful.

Was Jane there for part of the day then? If she was, that reduces what the school might be entitled to. If she just turned up, got them started and left for the dentist then that is possibly grounds for complaint.

Maybe some stroppy teacher feels she had to do more work on the day than she was expecting (and apologies to all teachers for that, because if I was one I'd probably be stroppy a lot of the time, which is why I'm not!) but personally I think they're trying it on.

But you have to weigh up how much you want the chance of working with this school again (not a lot, if it was me), and the chance of them bad-mouthing you to other local schools you might want to work with in future, ie your reputation.

You might also want to add something to your contract or agreement or booking form about this situation, although I don't know how you'd word it so as not to put the thought into other people's heads! Do you have a feedback form? I would say that would be very useful in future: if it comes back with glowing comments you can use it a) to generate business and b) to ward off complaints!

I bet you're glad you got payment in advance!

Justin_Credit

Playing devil's advocate here, I think I would be a little aggrieved if I had paid good money for a particular artiste or person to appear and carry out this type of thing and all I got was an apprentice lacking in experience.

Perhaps they are trying it on but perhaps you should offer a small rebate and make sure that in future you tighten up the contract/t&c's.

It all depends on how much damage may result to your business by not settling this amicably.

It also seems a little strange to me that you pay staff/helpers in advance of work being carried out, perhaps you should rethink this stategy.

Regards

JC

Bossyboots

Justin_Credit wrote:

Playing devil's advocate here, I think I would be a little aggrieved if I had paid good money for a particular artiste or person to appear and carry out this type of thing and all I got was an apprentice lacking in experience.

Perhaps they are trying it on but perhaps you should offer a small rebate and make sure that in future you tighten up the contract/t&c's.

It all depends on how much damage may result to your business by not settling this amicably.

It also seems a little strange to me that you pay staff/helpers in advance of work being carried out, perhaps you should rethink this stategy.

Regards

JC

Thats an excellent summing up.