REFUND from Silver Service Singers

sheramber

If my son originally agreed to have the singers and has now changed his mind I would be asking him to  pay me the money.

Aylesbury_Duck

sheramber said:

Aylesbury_Duck said:

JRSunflower said:

Yes, its them and I was pushed to pay in full and not pay just the deposit and I didn't think it would not go ahead so did not take out cancellation insurance.  They certainly didn't offer any cancellation insurance.  I have also heard that the people I booked with are no longer the owners, this being due to some trading trouble and the singers not showing up at weddings booked and refusing to refund. But I have no way on knowing that for sure, unless someone knows how I can find that information out, and of course the guy I booked with is no longer with the company.  As I mentioned above I would be happy to pay them the deposit amount but I am now happy to be loosing the full amount of £1200.00.   

Most of that sounds like speculation, which is of no help to you.  

All you can do at this stage is check to see if they're able to replace your booking with another.  With three months' notice, that might be difficult in which case, as DullGreyGuy says, they're entitled to retain the whole sum less whatever expenses they save by not having to travel and perform.   

Interestingly, the terms of cancellation from their site say this:

Cancellation of this Contract shall be as follows;

• The deposit payment is non-refundable 14 days after the payment is made.
• All other payments made are non-refundable after 14 days of making them excluding within 30 days of your event.  That last part is strange.  If I'm reading it properly, it says that the non-refundable bit doesn't apply in the 30 days prior to the event.  So does that mean you could ask for a full refund in that period?  I'm sure that's not what they mean, but that's how it seems to be written.
• No refund shall be payable to the Client for any day upon which this engagement shall be suspended by reason of Royal Demise, National Mourning, Fire, Epidemic, War, Strikes, lockout or by reason of order of any Licensing or Public Authority.
• The Agent is bound to fulfil any contract, for any reason whatsoever the artiste does not perform on the event date, a full refund will be provided within 5 working days of the agreed date except for any of the reasons stated in cancellation terms 3 above.

The contract reflecting the terms and conditions as verbally agreed shall be deemed accepted only when either the contract is signed or returned.  Have you signed or returned the contract?

I read it  as payments before 30 days have a 14 day cooling off period , but from 30 days prior to the event there is no 14 day cooling off period.

Yes.  It seems obvious now you've pointed it out, but I couldn't get my head round it when I first read it 

It would have been clearer had they just said "Any payments made in the 30 days leading up the event are non-refundable".

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

Where the consumer breaches the contract the trader may generally retain costs or loss of profit but not both.

Loss of profit should mitigated, i.e they should attempt to find another customer to fill the spot. 

As noted, if it's been less than 14 days since the payment was made they have a cancellation period. 

Ergates

Also, loss of profit isn't the same as *all* the money - they'd have to refund any costs they would have incurred (petrol, dry cleaning, contracted wages, etc).  If you believe they are understating their normal costs, you could challenge them on it and ask for some kind of evidence.

TELLIT01

Aylesbury_Duck said:

JRSunflower said:

Yes, its them and I was pushed to pay in full and not pay just the deposit and I didn't think it would not go ahead so did not take out cancellation insurance.  They certainly didn't offer any cancellation insurance.  I have also heard that the people I booked with are no longer the owners, this being due to some trading trouble and the singers not showing up at weddings booked and refusing to refund. But I have no way on knowing that for sure, unless someone knows how I can find that information out, and of course the guy I booked with is no longer with the company.  As I mentioned above I would be happy to pay them the deposit amount but I am now happy to be loosing the full amount of £1200.00.   

Most of that sounds like speculation, which is of no help to you.  

All you can do at this stage is check to see if they're able to replace your booking with another.  With three months' notice, that might be difficult in which case, as DullGreyGuy says, they're entitled to retain the whole sum less whatever expenses they save by not having to travel and perform.   

Interestingly, the terms of cancellation from their site say this:

Cancellation of this Contract shall be as follows;

• The deposit payment is non-refundable 14 days after the payment is made.
• All other payments made are non-refundable after 14 days of making them excluding within 30 days of your event.  That last part is strange.  If I'm reading it properly, it says that the non-refundable bit doesn't apply in the 30 days prior to the event.  So does that mean you could ask for a full refund in that period?  I'm sure that's not what they mean, but that's how it seems to be written.
• No refund shall be payable to the Client for any day upon which this engagement shall be suspended by reason of Royal Demise, National Mourning, Fire, Epidemic, War, Strikes, lockout or by reason of order of any Licensing or Public Authority.
• The Agent is bound to fulfil any contract, for any reason whatsoever the artiste does not perform on the event date, a full refund will be provided within 5 working days of the agreed date except for any of the reasons stated in cancellation terms 3 above.

The contract reflecting the terms and conditions as verbally agreed shall be deemed accepted only when either the contract is signed or returned.  Have you signed or returned the contract?

I think the wording of the section in bold is poor, but assume it to actually be intended to mean than any payments made in the 30 day period prior to the event are not refundable - from the day they are paid.

pinkshoes

Well as you've paid in full and can't cancel you might as well use them.

Remind them the day before of the details and hopefully they'll show up. If they don't show up then you're entitled to a refund...

DullGreyGuy

Ergates said:

Also, loss of profit isn't the same as *all* the money - they'd have to refund any costs they would have incurred (petrol, dry cleaning, contracted wages, etc).  If you believe they are understating their normal costs, you could challenge them on it and ask for some kind of evidence.

less any costs they incurred trying to resell the slot

A_Geordie

pinkshoes said:

Well as you've paid in full and can't cancel you might as well use them.

Remind them the day before of the details and hopefully they'll show up. If they don't show up then you're entitled to a refund...

Doesn't work like that. You cannot tell them that you are cancelling and then when you've found out that you can't get a refund you now want to reinstate the contract you've just cancelled. It would be treated as a new contract and the company is not obliged to agree, and still keep the money. 

That said, their website has social media accounts. If I were the OP, I would look out on social media to see if they attend events on the dates in question, use that as evidence to get a refund (less costs incurred) since they would have suffered no loss as they were able to mitigate by taking one or more bookings to cover those dates cancelled by the OP, effectively a double recovery. 

Hoenir

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:

Loss of profit should mitigated, i.e they should attempt to find another customer to fill the spot. 

The onus isn't on the business to find alternative work. Not a problem of their own making. 

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

Hoenir said:

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:

Loss of profit should mitigated, i.e they should attempt to find another customer to fill the spot. 

The onus isn't on the business to find alternative work. Not a problem of their own making. 

Well it is, obligation to mitigate is always there, sometimes life sucks