Unfair penalty charge?

Hintza

somethingcorporate wrote: »

Wouldn't stand up in court.

Why wouldn't it stand up in court?

If for example they are hiring a venue and are a student short then if they didn't use part of the deposit to cover it then every other student would need to pay more as with paying the teaching staff etc.

The people who run these courses will know exactly how much the fixed costs are.

So I will repeat what I said earlier £250 could be cheap.

somethingcorporate

Have you read the FAQ post?

Only genuine costs can be retained (no loss of profit etc).

bris

somethingcorporate wrote: »

Have you read the FAQ post?

Only genuine costs can be retained (no loss of profit etc).

Where do you get that from, loss of profit on a broken contract is a sellers right, you do know sellers have rights in contracts too, don't you?

unholyangel

bris wrote: »

Where do you get that from, loss of profit on a broken contract sellers right, you do know sellers have rights in contracts too, don't you?

They can sue for costs or loss of profit - not both as that leads to them being compensated twice over.

shaun_from_Africa

Hintza wrote: »

Why wouldn't it stand up in court?

If for example they are hiring a venue and are a student short then if they didn't use part of the deposit to cover it then every other student would need to pay more as with paying the teaching staff etc.

The people who run these courses will know exactly how much the fixed costs are.

So I will repeat what I said earlier £250 could be cheap.

It probably wouldn't stand up in court because the OP was neither advised of, nor agreed to having to compensate the company concerned for things such as venue hire or loss of profits.
They cancelled the course in accordance with their contract, and this contract stated that the only deductions that could be made were to cover administration costs and materials already supplied.

Why do you think a judge would allow other deductions on top of those agreed by both parties to a contract?

fatality88

quick update...
after asking them to breakdown the administration cost they have stated in an email -

Although no materials have been sent there has been considerable adminstration time, phone conversations and various emails sent to you.

i have since asked for a breakdown in the cost of this and how it justifies the charge of £250...

also, the extra £50 that they deducted from my refund (which made it a £300 cancellation fee) was VAT(!?!)
This was not stated in their T&C (quoted verbatim in my original post)... don't know where I stand with that... anyone?

Hintza

shaun_from_Africa wrote: »

.....nor agreed to having to compensate the company concerned for things such as venue hire ....

That then comes down the definition of admin costs.

wealdroam

OP, can you please provide a link to those T&Cs you have quoted from?

(if not a link, perhaps the name of the company will help).

fatality88

Wow! Just so happens they updated their T&C today....

can't post proper links here yet but here is a screen-grab from their website..
you can obviously see the changes they have made...

postimg.org/image/wyqxhz103/

new T&C on the left - looks like i got away lightly!
i have the original T&C in PDF format that they emailed me a couple of weeks ago also...

Hintza

http://postimg.org/image/wyqxhz103/