college course refund issue

borgax

Hello,
Hopefully this is the right place for this question, and if not apologies.

ok, i have recently contacted a college i paid to do a course with saying i no longer wish to take the course and asking for a refund.

Their response was "Unfortunately there will be no refund of your course fees as all course fees are non-refundable which is a requirement of the college’s financial regulations." I have asked for proof of this from them.

Does anyone know if this is indeed true of colleges or does it sound suspect?

Thanks for any help.

Taiko

All depends on the contract you signed. I think you could be onto a loser here, as it's you who chose to sign up, not the college cancelling.

McKneff

It's very probably in the T&Cs in the contract that you signed so your are probably flogging a dead horse, unless of course you do the course you signed for in the first place.

KiKi

I agree, it's prob down to contract.

However, the OP says they quoted 'financial regulations', implying they don't have any statutory rights on this, and I'd certainly be interested to know if that's true.

KiKi

Taiko

What statutory rights would apply here though? Changing your mind on something does not equal an entitlement to a refund.

Andy_L

KiKi wrote: »

I agree, it's prob down to contract.

However, the OP says they quoted 'financial regulations', implying they don't have any statutory rights on this, and I'd certainly be interested to know if that's true.

KiKi

its the "college's financial regulations" rather than "financial regulations" from, eg, the FSA. ie an internal policy that fees are non-refundable

Sambucus_Nigra

If you don't attend a course, they may well lose funding, and certainly could have turned other people away if the course was fully booked.

Which college is it?

KiKi

Andy_L wrote: »

its the "college's financial regulations" rather than "financial regulations" from, eg, the FSA. ie an internal policy that fees are non-refundable

Ah, okay. Thanks.

KiKi

dizzyrascal

It might be worth looking at their terms and conditions. As you are not able to influence the contract then it is possibly an unfair term.
In many cases, if you haven't started the course and have to pull out for reasons like, say a long term illness that you were unaware of, you might get all or a percentage of you fees back.
If the course is fully booked as Sambucus Nigra suggests then they must surely have a waiting list. Therefore they can fill the place without suffering any financial loss.
I would speak to trading standards if you think it might be an unfair term.
This basically means that companies cannot put anything they like in contracts and say tough luck. The contract has to be fair and reasonable (like gyms are not allowed to have rolling contracts but they all try and put it in as a condition - no Court will uphold these terms if they see them as unfair)

Sambucus_Nigra

dizzyrascal wrote: »

It might be worth looking at their terms and conditions. As you are not able to influence the contract then it is possibly an unfair term.
In many cases, if you haven't started the course and have to pull out for reasons like, say a long term illness that you were unaware of, you might get all or a percentage of you fees back.
If the course is fully booked as Sambucus Nigra suggests then they must surely have a waiting list. Therefore they can fill the place without suffering any financial loss.
I would speak to trading standards if you think it might be an unfair term.
This basically means that companies cannot put anything they like in contracts and say tough luck. The contract has to be fair and reasonable (like gyms are not allowed to have rolling contracts but they all try and put it in as a condition - no Court will uphold these terms if they see them as unfair)

Waiting list maybe - but if they pulled out halfway through a course then they can't infil as they have missed half of the Course. And if they have X places funded, the college loses the final funding for anyone who leaves without achieving a qualification and hence that money goes to pay the tutor that has delivered sessions already.

One one college course I went on, they charged you the full course fee with no funding taken into consideration if you did not sit the final exam, as if you didn't, you basically had to pay full price for the tutoring as they could not fund someone who didn't sit the exam. If you did sit the exam, they could put your funding towards your course fees and hence the price came down.

dizzyrascal

It very much depends on the institution.
I do know of courses where if you leave after the first week or two you can get a full refund or if you withdraw before the course starts you can get a full refund too.
Often it is the case that once you have started you cannot get any money back but you could potentially have credit to do another course.

All I was pointing out was that if the course has not started, and there is a waiting list, then there is no financial loss, so paying tutors etc is not an issue.