About being charged for missed appointment?

[Buttercupdaisies]

For several months I’ve had a weekly appointment somewhere. This week, I had to go into hospital as am 33 weeks pregnant and had an injury (all was fine.) I rang up and explained and apologised.

They have just charged my card the full amount. I suspect a lot or people will say I am BU but I don’t feel great about it, tbh. Just wondered what the consensus was.

So sorry about your miscarriage

Thanks. I am happily (or in the current hot weather mostly grumpily) 28 weeks pregnant with a rainbow baby. Also, trying to wrangle a 4 year old (though I have mostly handed this off to DH).

I agree with you BTW, whether it is reasonable/ technically ok to charge for a missed appointment because of a medical emergency is neither here nor there. If somewhere did that to me, I would take my future business elsewhere. No point wasting money somewhere that doesn't see you as a person.

That's the lovely thing about being self-employed. The people that don't value your time tend to weed themselves out, and you are left with lovely clients that understand that you, too, have bills to pay.

OP is a repeat customer, who has never just 'no showed' but she has been treated as if she has because she had an emergency medical appointment.

That isn't a bad customer weeding themselves out - that is poor customer service from the business leading to the loss of a loyal and regular customer.

I have been self-employed at various points in yn career -- I totally understand charges and penalties for flakey clients or people who mess you about.

I do not understand being a dick to an otherwise solid customer because of a one-off event out of their control.

If you are self-employed and you genuinely think a regular customer who has no former track record of being tricky/ flaky is a 'bad customer weeding themselves out' because you charged them in the event of a medical emergency, your customer service and retention tactics need urgent review.

You are right, there is one way that it's not comparable.

Employed people are very unlikely to lose money if they don't get paid. Their position would be zero.

A self employed person may well have costs to pay - like rent. I rent an office on an ad-hoc basis. If a client was to not turn up, and not pay, I would still have to pay for the room hire.

I didn't say op was a bad customer. I said she doesn't value the therapists time or appreciate that the therapist relies on the income to pay bills.

@MistyRuins I think that's a really harsh assessment of the OP, and your seems to be suggesting that there should be no sympathy or understanding to anyone other than the person providing the service.

@MistyRuins where on earth did you get that from? That's crazily harsh assessment based on the information given in the thread. Have you read the thread?

OP has been quite open, that she understands the charge but is disappointed as she has been a good and reliable customer and had no choice. She is also not impressed that they have, without her knowledge, kept her card details on file and just charged her. Especially as that was not her planned payment method. They have been able to charge her and email her, but not bothered replying to her calls and messages and even checking of she is ok.

I think the only people not valuing anyone here are the massage spa where she booked.

Did they have sufficient time to rebook your place? If no then yes you should pay. Otherwise that person is losing out financially

It's not an 'assessment of the op' - I'm sure she's very lovely in many ways. It's purely an assessment of one aspect of this specific situation.

And nowhere have I said that sympathy and understanding should only go one way - I'm merely trying to provide some balance. I don't need to put the other viewpoint - it's here in spades already.

I’m unsure what you feel I should have done differently to be honest, @MistyRuins . I really don’t think I have done anything wrong here.

I'm pretty sure that when she booked, the booking software would have included the terms of booking - including the fact that the card would be charged in the event of a last minute cancellation. That's pretty standard in most online booking software.

The people themselves are unlikely to have access to the card details, but op voluntarily input them into a system that has this facility. And probably clearly stated that.

Where have I said that you should have done anything differently?

I don’t understand why it’s so heinous for a business to lose out financially but perfectly OK for their erstwhile customer to pay for a service they haven’t received.

You have stated I don’t value the massage therapists time, so I can only assume that I should have done something differently to show that I do. I am unsure what this might be though.

I haven't said you're odd. I haven't made any personal attacks at all but I can see you feel that I have so I will leave you to it.

You clearly don't. You resent paying for the time that you booked, and she kept free for you in good faith.

But they have the money for the appointment, and you've chosen not to go back, so I would say you have done exactly the right thing.

@Clymene - Your first post on this thread was the rather snide So the consensus is overwhelmingly that you’re unreasonable but you disagree when I have accepted I may be BU, but regardless, won’t be making a repeat appointment. I mean, of all the stupid reasons to book something ‘so MN won’t think I’m unreasonable’ is pretty daft.

Then we had:

Is there anything else you think you shouldn't have to pay for if you don't use it? If you order lunch in a restaurant and don't eat it, do you think you shouldn't pay? Or you should get your money back if you buy a theatre ticket and don't go?

It's a business. You gave them not enough notice to use the slot for someone else so they're £30 down. And now you're going to spite them for charging you by not going anymore despite presumably being happy with the service up until now. Cutting off your nose to spite your face!

the fact is that I have paid. I am not ‘cutting off my nose to spite my face’, I don’t want to use a service any more. If an ambulance was called when eating lunch and I was rushed off to hospital, I don’t think them shouting excuse me, excuse me, your bill please, would be a great look, although technically they’d be within their rights.

Then we had:

So you didn't speak to anyone and have no idea if anyone even listened to your message? Or if they did, if they passed it on.

It really sounds like a lot of poor communication.

Anyway I'm glad your baby and you are ok.

So according to you my priority should not have been going into hospital and being checked out, I should have sat in the car park where I had signal repeatedly phoning. Perhaps this is not what you do mean but given you have said I have ‘poor communication’ this presumably does imply I did something wrong. What, I don’t know.

And finally

I do think it's really odd that you haven't rung them to speak to them about being charged though. That's what I would have done.

I have repeatedly explained. I don’t want to dwell on it, argue about it, because I don’t want to go back. I’ve paid, they have their money, no arguments there. As others have repeatedly said it is the Ts and Cs, they have I am sure acted lawfully. I just don’t personally feel that they have acted particularly pleasantly.

She didn’t book time. She booked a service she hasn’t received.

In which case I could surely argue my money is not valued, my repeat custom is not valued, my loyalty is not valued.

Do you think the person who turned up for work to do your appointment should still be paid ? Or if your payment is refunded, should they be unpaid for that hour?

I'm guessing you've never been anywhere close to running any kind of business otherwise you wouldn't write nonsense like this.

And the biggest cost of that service is the therapists time. Which isn't something that can be reused and deserves to be paid for. And will very likely be in the terms and conditions that op signed up for when she booked online.

If it was goods that hasn't been received, your argument would be valid. But the time that was needed is no longer available, down to ops situation.

You're not loyal though, you just expect special treatment because reasons. That's not loyalty.

It goes both ways. If you don't value their time then there's every chance they won't value your repeat custom.