Escape Room and acquiring a refund

jamint

Without wanting to get embroiled into a debate about whether requested a refund in the current environment is right and wrong - with companies struggling financially - but would anyone possibly to be able to help me with regards to what legal references to consumer law I should make when arguing this out with said company? 
I have requested a refund from an Escape Room after they cancelled our booking this weekend. This same weekend my girlfriend found out she has entirely lost her job and I've had a pleasant email this evening to let me know I'll be losing 3 full days / week work from early April. So whilst £120 isn't a huge amount, it blumming well feels it right now!  
The escape room in question has said they too are only issuing vouchers, and stated "unfortunately we are not able to issue a refund for your booking" when I specifically asked for one. Can anyone assist with a suitable response to try and legally force their hand? I don't feel wholly comfortable doing so but I really do think paying my mortgage comes above a feeling of semi-guilt/semi-regret at this moment in time... 

elsien

What do their specific terms and conditions say about cancellation by them? 

pelirocco

It could  be argued that as you have already spent the  money ,you have lost  an experience not the money

Thats the  view I am taken

unholyangel

A contract needs to be legally binding on both parties and allowing them to suspend provision of the services without giving a refund would make the contract binding on you but not on them. 

The fact its outwith their control just means they wouldn't necessarily be liable for additional costs (such as hotel or travel costs). It doesn't mean they can breach the contract but retain sums already paid. 

JReacher1

You can get a three month mortgage break if affected by the coronavirus. I would suggest you apply for that if you’re worried about paying your mortgage. 

You could claim through your credit card company if you paid that way?

Otherwise you don’t have many options really to force them to pay you the money. Legally you’re in the right but this wouldn’t go to a court for months as a result I can’t see you getting anything back. 

KatrinaWaves

£120? Quite a spendy escape room! I’ve done quite a lot and never paid more than £60. You could go and see Derren Brown for that! 😂

How many people are going? Can they share the burden financially temporarily? 

powerful_Rogue

KatrinaWaves said:

£120? Quite a spendy escape room! I’ve done quite a lot and never paid more than £60. You could go and see Derren Brown for that! 😂

How many people are going? Can they share the burden financially temporarily? 

Or not! 

KatrinaWaves

That’s true 😂

jamint

Hi all, cheers for your replies. The £120 would be a lot for an escape room! 
Alas it was a 3-day escape-a-thon for both of us to try three different ones, hence the price. We were planning on doing them for consecutive nights.

Yes, the T&Cs clearly state "In certain circumstances, we may need to cancel your Escape Hunt Experience. If we do so we will use reasonable endeavours to contact you as soon as possible. You shall be entitled to a full refund of the price you paid at the time of booking. Alternatively, you may reschedule your booking for another date, within 30 days of the original booking".

This is what I have quoted in my email, but they replied back with "Unfortunately we are not able to provide a refund for your booking as requested, but we will be converting all customer's bookings for the next few weeks into a voucher code that will be emailed out and can be redeemed at any point, in any branch, until the end of the year".

Fosterdog

You are in the right however enforcing it will be difficult. You could take them to court for it but it will be several months before anything would happen with that, firstly due to everywhere being shut down and secondly from the backlog as many people would have already issued claims over the last week as things have closed. By then many small companies would have have ceased trading altogether so there may not be any money or assets to actually claim back and you'll just be throwing more money at it.

davidmcn

Fosterdog said:

there may not be any money or assets to actually claim back

Which may of course be what they currently mean by "we are not able to issue a refund".