To not pay for gym classes cancelled by the instructor

[KindOfAwkward]

My DD goes to after-school gym classes (two hours on a weeknight and also two hours on the weekend) held at her school but run by an outside instructor.

We pay at the start of the term for the classes with the fees based directly on hours you attend i.e. one or two hours per session, and one or two sessions a week.

At the start of the pandemic, the instructor cancelled the remaining classes - about two weeks of the term were left up until Easter hols.

At the start of this term, we paid for the new term, and I deducted a sum equal to the cancelled classes, i.e. two weeks of two classes of two hours = 8 hours, and paid for the forthcoming hours in advance.

The teacher queried my bank payment and so I explained the maths, also explaining that since she has neither explained in the past six months whether she was planning on credit the cancelled fees, nor the opposite and said that she was not planning to do this, but in fact said nothing at all, that I had simply done the maths myself.

She has come back and said, that the letter she sends out stats that fees paid are non-refundable. I will almost certainly reply to say that IMHO the point about fees being non-refundable was surely about parents wanting refunds if, THEY choose not to attend if say, their child doesn't want to go, or they are away for a weekend, but it surely cannot cover the teacher cancelling the class. Otherwise, taken to its logical conclusion she could take bookings for a whole term and then immediately cancel the classes! Or cancel classes if she fancied a day off. And still be paid! This aside, this is probably not the issue to be querying, rather that even if fees are deemed and accepted by us as non-refundable, it doesn't mean that they shouldn't be transferrable and credited to future classes. It would be entirely fair to simply credit the money, as she normally does if e.g. she cannot do a class because of another commitment or illness. So, to sum up, I can agree with her term about no refunds, but think she is not being fair about crediting the fees for the classes she cancelled herself. Principle is surely the same as, say, a clothes shop saying,:"We can't refund your money, but you can have a credit note." Am I being unreasonable to at the very least point out the logic of my position and see if the teacher can accept that.

As an alternate service was offered in place of the regular classes then you will not be entitled to a refund under the law quoted above.

Thus payment was due for those classes held in March/April via zoom and you are not entitled to deduct payment from this term's fees due.

If you don't want your daughter to attend anymore do you have to give notice because if so you may still be liable for this term's fees even if you withdraw.

Since you had the option of taking Zoom classes i think yabu. Even if they were at a different time to normal what exactly was your daughter up to during lockdown that she couldn't do the class? She chose not to.

It was also a passive aggressive action on your part to hold back money without first discussing it with the instructor. Had you done so first you might have found her a bit more sympathetic.

If your daughter had wanted to do the zoom lessons would you have offered extra payment or would you have accepted them for free?

I can see where you're coming from, but given that you were offered zoom classes (even if DD wasn't interested or they weren't explicitly stated as replacement classes) I think you're being a bit tight and difficult. Deducting money for what you felt DD missed out on without first discussing with the teacher is imo the wrong approach to take.

I agree they offered an alternative service and have did their best in very difficult times op I would pay

We found different clubs took different approaches.

Dancing, we had paid up until Easter, between Easter and half term, classes restarted over Zoom, we were not asked for fees at all for Zoom. We have not received and refund, but the school is run on a not for profit basis so we will not look for a refund.

Spanish classes, transferred to Zoom, worked well, initial Zoom classes did not refund O/s lessons, but second group of lessons I was given reduction.

Karate is on pay as you go. So no refunds due.

Swimming. We were offered a choice. Suspend payments, or continue to pay, for which we will receive benefits. Free swimming for the kids, at all their national sites; gym passes for the kids, 7 day pass each month; Priority on restarting lessons. One month of free lessons (although I obviously paid for 5 months with no classes!)

As an alternate service was offered in place of the regular classes then you will not be entitled to a refund under the law quoted above.

It wasn't by any stretch equivalent to the normal classes, in timing, length of class or level/type of class.

It was also a passive aggressive action on your part to hold back money without first discussing it with the instructor.
It was passive-aggressive (actually I'd say quite fly) of the instructor not to specify that the Zoom classes were being run to replace the actual classes. I suspect she didn't do so precisely because it would have drawn attention to the fact that they weren't equivalent to the usual ones.

YANBU l would want my money back. It sounds like they need to sort their communication skills out, as they sound poor to me

I think you're being a bit tight.

I've lost similar amounts of money from clubs but haven't mentioned it. It was a shit time for them.

@seven201 - I am possibly being a bit tight. But the money matters to me. And the principle matters too. If you would like to send me £64 in return for not much (same as my family) then let me know. Don't really expect or want you to do that.
Also, I am not sure it was a "shit time" as you suggest. It seems no loss of income whatsoever since "no refunds" is her policy. If she has 150-200 kids a week paying hourly rate and I am the only one objecting, then really she is doing okay. And as others have pointed out, she may have claimed undet the SEISS (depending on profits) and also not had to pay for perhaps 20-30 hours a week of hall hire since the school would have realised that they were cancelling her hal hire and that she did not need to pay them for hall hire she would not be able to use. Obviously, the school would not have offered her use of their Zoom account and charged her for that and claimed it was the same as a huge hall and changing rooms.

You come across as someone who likes being right. I think your attitude is mean spirited, this is a person who you trust your child with, whose services you want to continue using. You begrudge paying for sessions that were forced to stop by a pandemic, and were even replaced by online versions. Nice.

If I were you I would send an apology and the rest of the money you owe her.

@KindOfAwkward
take my word for it, everyone in the children's activities industry is up shit creek right now. She could have communicated things better but overall YAB a bit U

Our dds dance instructor sent us an invoice with 2 totals. The terms fee and the terms fee minus credit for the missed lessons so a lesser fee.
We opted to pay the full terms fee as they were brilliant with communicating and putting classes over YouTube. However she left it for the parents to choose.

I would still like to know if you would have offered to pay for the zoom classes had your Dd wanted to do them

@partofyoupoursoutofme - yes, I like being right, but I don't mind being wrong. Actually, the very reason I came to this forum was not to complain but to sense check.

I asked AIBU to not want to pay for lessons (which had specific dates, times, and locations). All in all, I think people are saying YANBU.

BUT I can see that some people are very sympathetic to the notion that the business person might need the money (more than me?) and that she had provided some kind of alternative (even though it seems I did not have the right to reject that).

I can also see the pragmatic points, noted along the lines of she might choose to exclude my DD, reject our custom, and/or care for her less if I queried the bill. Funnily enough, I am still chasing British Airways for more than £2k on cancelled flights. And they are refusing to refund that too. Would you cut them some slack because in the air they have your life in their hands? I am more drawn to the idea of logic and what seems fair. And from that, I get a sense of what is right.
Unless anyone has anything further to add tonight, I may have to settle for the unhappy combination of being right, but giving in. I'll get over it, but I don't like the way it has been handled.

@nancy75

I would still like to know if you would have offered to pay for the zoom classes had your Dd wanted to do them

Yes, of course we would pay for any classes that we wanted and needed to be paid for. Just like any others. You pay your money and take your choice. Joe Wicks free, my Zumba teacher not free. But this was Zoom classes whether you like them or not will be your replacements. Only I won't even tell you that, until September.

@PyongyangKipperbang your ignorance is astounding. Many people who are self employed lost out when it came to the grant for many many reasons. I got nowhere near 80%of what I earn now, neither did my dp, and NOT because we were fiddling our books. So sick of people on here saying that!

[quote Iminaglasscaseofemotion]@PyongyangKipperbang your ignorance is astounding. Many people who are self employed lost out when it came to the grant for many many reasons. I got nowhere near 80%of what I earn now, neither did my dp, and NOT because we were fiddling our books. So sick of people on here saying that![/quote]
Yep, us too. We couldn’t get the £10k grant because our business premises is not ratable (because it’s withIn the boundary of a park) despite us spending £65k on new playing surface last year it’s classed as worthless when it comes to grant allocation.

Zoom isn't a good alternative for every activity. Unless you have lots of space and equipment, it doesn't work for a gymnastics class. If OP had used the zoom classes, then I'd agree that she should not push for a refund, but they weren't suitable for her situation, so weren't a viable alternative.
I bet the MNers who are owed refunds from airlines aren't going to totally write off that money because the airline industry has taken a hit.

@elephantnose

Since you had the option of taking Zoom classes i think yabu. Even if they were at a different time to normal what exactly was your daughter up to during lockdown that she couldn't do the class? She chose not to.

It was also a passive aggressive action on your part to hold back money without first discussing it with the instructor. Had you done so first you might have found her a bit more sympathetic.

Really do appreciate everyone's input, so to answer this question about what my DD was up to during lockdown.

She was on video calls to school all day long,
Then on her computer doing the homework they had set.
In her downtime she would be on Zoom calls with all the friends she couldn't see in the real world.
So when she was not on video calls / screen time all the time, she was quite happy to spend time doing other self-directed things including exercising outside.
The classes were all leading up to tournaments and displays. These were all cancelled. There was no point to the training. And I think others had told her that she wasn't missing anything special.

[quote Iminaglasscaseofemotion]@PyongyangKipperbang your ignorance is astounding. Many people who are self employed lost out when it came to the grant for many many reasons. I got nowhere near 80%of what I earn now, neither did my dp, and NOT because we were fiddling our books. So sick of people on here saying that![/quote]
agree 100%. Yes I was eligible but got a negligible amount for various reasons and definitely no fiddling of the books. Most self employed I know in a similar situation.

Suffice to say unless everyone supports activity providers as much as possible in the weeks ahead, there will be significantly less of us come the new year. I know loads who have given up already.

OP even from your first post i thought yabu. People don't seem to have any loyalty to the services they use. This pandemic has really shown the money grabbers, and they are usually the people who have been least (or not at all) affected financially.

Yanbu. She’s a cheeky fucker.

I think it is pretty mean minded to silently deduct two sessions 6 months later. You have both been poor at communicating.

At Feb half-term I paid £90 to pay for afterschool football for three half terms until the summer as it offers a discount. I viewed it as a sunk cost. The provider is still not able to return to school due to mixing year group bubbles and I don't know what recompense the provider has been able to access. In good news they are still trading as DS was able to do some summer holiday days with them. I'd rather they stayed afloat through continuing disruption than to penny pinch over money I afforded to spend in the first place.

With the restaurant analogy, if I paid upfront in a cafe then we had to evacuate due to a kitchen fire before was served,I wouldn't be standing by a till waiting for a refund when the fire brigade left. An airline is different as few people can afford to lose ££££ as a sunk cost.

We are not zoom lovers in this house and my DCs refuse to engage with it at all, but zoom is the best service and way of retaining some skills that was on offer.

@Iminaglasscaseofemotion

OP even from your first post i thought yabu. People don't seem to have any loyalty to the services they use. This pandemic has really shown the money grabbers, and they are usually the people who have been least (or not at all) affected financially.

Maybe I AMBU. I came here to find out. When people say that I am, then it makes me reconsider more than want to hold on to my position to date.

However, loyalty cuts both ways.

And your statement about money grabbers would seem to apply to the teacher more than me. I paid in Jan for lessons until Easter. She kept the money. She neither refunded it, nor credited it to future classes that we might take. If you're levelling that at me, you're wrong, as I have paid again up front for lessons, just not paid upfront yet for all the future lessons.

Also, what I choose to do with my money is down to me. I paid our cleaner during the lockdown even though she could not come to us. I'll admit I couldn't do it for the whole period, but I did for maybe three months, as many as I felt able to. She was extremely in need, and she remains very grateful. She was here today, and I told her I felt bad I did not pay her throughout the period, And she told me she was so very grateful for our kindness and generosity, and that of her 15 clients she has, only 4 of them paid her. I just don't like being so badly treated. I would think I was definitely BU if tried to deduct fees from this term for classes I had booked for and decided not to attend, but this was not the case in any way in this situation.