Angry and demanding a refund !

[LolaRosieBoo]

I am a self-employed PT, very well known in my area, have been doing so for 10 years and as such I am expensive (£60 per session). A few years ago, I had to change my T&Cs so that sessions were paid for monthly in advance and sessions cancelled on the day would still be charged.

Before I implemented this policy, people would cancel their sessions with extremely short notice - on the day of - and sometimes only an hour beforehand. I’d also had people just not turn up! This was costing me both time and money, and this income supports my family.

Last month a new client started, she paid upfront and I sent the T&Cs. She cancelled her session yesterday (6 hours before it was due to start), saying her child was sick so she couldn’t make it. I wished her child to feel better and said I would see her next week. This morning, I’ve had a message saying ‘please deduct yesterdays session from next months invoice’. I replied saying that as per the T&Cs, I cannot give her a refund as she cancelled with less than a days notice, making it very difficult for me to recoup that money by finding someone else to fill her space.

She has now sent me a very angry text message demanding a refund or she will post about me on our local Facebook community board. She has accused me of being unethical, as people (especially those with children) will sometimes need to cancel at short notice and she cannot afford to spend £60 for nothing. I replied that this is my income and how I support my family, and I equally cannot afford to not be paid when it’s very short notice with no possibility of me finding someone else.

AIBU?

As if anyone takes unpaid leave from work for a regular personal training slot 😂

To you, it's a wildly expensive fee. If the fee was too high the business wouldn't have any clients.
It's interesting how some people interact with businesses. DP occasionally removes demanding customers from his database, especially penny pinchers. He also tells them why he's not interested in working with them.

Nope, doesn't work like that.

You buy a ticket to a gig. The show is cancelled due to illness of the performer. What happens next? You get a new date for a rescheduled show, later on, or you can choose a refund of your ticket cost. Nothing else. You may have booked train tickets to London, and a hotel. Sadly, those costs are yours.

You buy a ticket to a gig. You're sick and can't go. You either accept the loss, or you sell your tickets, or pass them onto a friend or family member. What you don't do is expect the Royal Albert Hall to refund you. Or do you? I'd like to see you try.....

In a PTs case, you CAN'T pass your time onto a friend. What you can do is give the PT time to offer your session to someone else, and the timescale the PT requests for this is 24 hours. If its not 24 hours, they likely cannot fill that space and therefore lose income.

It's really not difficult to understand.

It's not wildly expensive, but if it were, then the user has accepted the cost.

It makes no difference if it's £5 or £60.

Stand firm, OP.

This is no different than the dentist (which has a massive waiting list) who will boot you off the NHS list if you fail to show up twice.

It's not different from the local hair salon who now take a deposit off clients that will be lost if customers cancel with less than 24 hours' notice or just don't show up. Shame it's come to that, but I completely understand their position. It's their livelihood, and a no show means no expected income for a space they can't fill at such short notice.

This is no different than any of the local driving instructors who have closed their waiting lists as they are so full up. A short notice cancellation will cost you the cost of the time slot or you'll be out of a driving instructor. Good luck finding another one round here.

People need to be more respectful of other people's time and income. If you book it and don't show without the agreed upon notice, you pay for the slot.

It really isn't difficult to understand.

Any update OP? Did she make the social media posts about you?

I think is unreasonable to charge a full session when there is a cancellation, at least 50% off. When we book on airbnb or any holiday letting company and cancel with very short notice, they still issue a partial refund. I think you have to find a balance, and why not change the session for another day instead of cancelling it? You have not been very wise because you lost a client and possibly a few more. I am also self employed, and I prefer to keep the customer than lose it. I have many people come back to me because they know that if everything happens they are safe and know I will take care of it. Is also good to have some boundaries, as I know people can take advantage of our good will. Maybe offer one free cancellation and change the session for another date. If they cancel again you can charge the full session. Without clients there is no income support.

I once had someone threaten to leave a bad review when I cancelled them as a client due to continual late payment.
I said that's your choice. She didn't. But it would have stood out a mile against all the good reviews.

I think it's something a lot of people do when they're angry - they think threats will get them what they want. I've had people threaten it a few times with me but it's never turned into anything!

@Paloma333 plenty of AirBnb hosts have strict cancellation terms, like no refund if you cancel 48 hours after booking. That’s why it’s sensible to read the T&Cs before booking something.

I don't think £60 an hour is an expensive fee for PT. With travel and prep the PT would be, I guess, seeing a maximum of 4-5 clients a day so about £300 per day gross (from which equipment, memberships, travel costs, venue hire etc has to be deducted).

Most gyms charge PTs to train clients in tne gym. Then there’s insurance, pension contributions and those kinds of fixed costs.

@LolaRosieBoo ‘s time is a limited commodity. If a client cancels at short notice she can’t make up the costs she’s incurred. And this is a new client who might get into the habit of behaving badly.

The OP says she has a waiting list so I’d say, bin this client and work with someone less entitled.

Those PPs who say she’s unreasonable haven’t thought it through.

Screaming at the people who say £60.00 is extortionate. What world are you living in!? 2005? OP, you did nothing wrong and please don't listen to the naysayers.

If OP were male you would think a PT charging £60 per hour is fine.

Yeah, how dare a woman charge the going rate 🙄

Of course you are right. When I was a childminder people had to pay for missed days. Because they pay for the space and at short notice the space can not be filled. Why should you lose your income.

If you have a full client list and wait list I'd let her crack on.

@NowYouTellMe

The £60 per hour is the rate for a face to face session, not every hour of her working time. Incorporated in the cost of every face to face hour is also session preparation time (including planning activities, checking progress, checking equipment, etc) - maybe an hour? Travel time to and from the session - maybe 45 minutes? Administration related to the session - maybe 15 minutes? So that face to face hour (at £60) actually hides something like 3 hours worth of work. So she is actually probably taking around £20 per hour.

And that £20 per hour won't be all profit. She will have expenses - insurance, memberships, travel costs, equipment costs, admin costs, etc

Then after expenses have have been taken off, she still has tax to pay.

Assuming the OP works 36 hours a week, that means she take £720 per week. Let's assume a third of that goes on expenses (I bet its more!) That leaves her with £480 a week.

Let's assume she works 48 weeks a year - 4 weeks unpaid annual leave a year. That's an income of £23k a year. After tax she earns £378 a week.

Suddenly it doesn't seem so expensive does it?

And that £60 is one sixth of her take home pay for the week.

There will be extra costs involved but this is a bit extreme. Travel time 45 minutes for a one hour session? Each session?
You make it sound like she's probably working for nothing.
While I fully agree that she should have charged, let's not pretend that £60 is anything other than a decent hourly rate. It's almost double what I pay my PT.

What 'expensive' means is completely subjective, unless it's talking about the cost of basic food, council tax, gas bills or other unavoidable costs for which there is very little cheaper alternative.

I think that Lamborghinis are very expensive, but that doesn't mean that they are TOO expensive, just because I neither want nor could afford one. There are enough people who can afford them (Elon Musk could buy 20 without even noticing the cost, should he ever want to go down the non-electric route); and I can buy a used Ford or VW, so how 'expensive' they are is neither here nor there.

Nobody who can't afford £60 for a session with a PT (or could, but doesn't think it's worth it to them) is going to die or come to any harm without it; it's a premium service that those who can afford it can freely choose to buy, should they wish to.

Yes, this is my point exactly. Glad I am not the only one to notice the mismatch here.

As long as the ops terms and conditions are clear from the offset, then people are free to take their business elsewhere if they don’t like it.
Some thing is only worth what someone else is prepared to pay for it. Presumably plenty of people feel the op is worth the fee if they have a waiting list and a successful business.

Ordered Christmas vegan Roasties from V-bites on 11 December. Booked last remaining delivery date Friday 22. Found out yesterday that V-bites entered administration on 11 December. Emailed administrators' address on V-bites website to request order status update. Response was that order will not be delivered. Requested refund. Response was to suggest downloading and filling in a form to submit with proof of purchase for a chance of possible reimbursement at some unspecified future date. Asked why order was taken on the same day that administrators had taken over V-bites. Response was that takeover had happened 'later' that day. Phoned V-bites. Customer services lady very distressed - staff will be losing their jobs. AIBU to feel that this could have been handled better, and that orders for Christmas should not have been taken?

You no you haven’t started your own thread right? You’ve posted on the bottom of someone else’s…

I would:-

1. take screen shots of her messages, helpful if you need to defend yourself
2. reply that you have terminated her contract (refund any future booked and not taken) and stick firm on your rationale ie its in your T&Cs as you are running a business and short notice means you cannot fill the slot and recoup the lost income. You explain that being blackmailed and threatened is not in line with your values and better to terminate the arrangement.

to be honest, it’s standard practice with any type of business charging for someone’s time ie beauty treatments, physio etc to have a policy of no refunds or partial refunds when cancelled at short notice. It’s not as if you are out of line.

to be honest, it’s standard practice with any type of business charging for someone’s time ie beauty treatments, physio etc to have a policy of no refunds or partial refunds when cancelled at short notice. It’s not as if you are out of line

It is standard practice, but it doesn't mean it's not very one-sided, with all the risk on the consumer.