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Payment made to a non-profit, nothing received, they refuse to refund. **SOLVED**

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slugg said:
Yea, that's what I was afraid of. Can they actually hide under the cover of "well it was a donation?" I mean the money isn't even being used for what it was intended to be used for.
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No, that is not how contract law works. You specifically paid for a plane ticket, then cancelled. They cannot retroactively change what your payment was for.

slugg said:
But this is what I don't understand... they never gave her a receipt or any kind of acknowledgement that they accepted the payment. Also, someone else who also paid was transferred the airplane ticket that was already paid for.
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Doesn't matter, verbal contracts are still valid. The court would probably see that there was nothing beforehand that said it was non-refundable, and the fact that the plane ticket WAS transferred means there is no reason why they couldn't refund the price if they wanted to.

Unless there was specific written or verbal statement that your money down was a non-refundable deposit you should get your money back.
 
Tell your girlfriend to stop volunteering in that institution. I'm sure they will miss a qualified instructor more than 500$.
 
slugg said:
.... - The band director said that the non-profit organization wanted to sue my girlfriend for canceling, but that they changed their minds out of the goodness of their hearts.
.....
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Saying they wanted to sue is spiteful.

I'd go a step furthur to recover the $500 less the transfer/cancellation fee for the flight.
 
I can understand them keeping the deposit. sorry she had to cancel but she learned a lesson.

i do not understand why they would threaten to sue someone who is a volunter instructor. I would recommend that perhaps if they think of her that way it would be in her best interest to not do it anymore. Perhaps she should talk to the top guy and discuss her options on if she wants to continue.
 
I wonder what their response would be if you told them she either

A. Needs the deposit back
or
B. She has changed her mind again and WILL be going on the trip (She has already paid the deposit right?!).

Since they transferred the ticket, either way they have to come up with $500 and might be more apt to just give her the dough.
 
Andres3605 said:
Tell your girlfriend to stop volunteering in that institution. I'm sure they will miss a qualified instructor more than 500$.
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This. Any non-profit who would sue a volunteer/contributor over anything so frivolous is not to be trusted.

She should talk to the band director about how to continue her volunteering without any affiliation to the non-profit organization.
 
Sounds to me that she legally she should be able to get her money back. The key however is getting some documentation (written or audio) that proves the organization received the 500 from her. (Did you guys send an email requesting the 500 back and the organization replied via email?)

It does'nt matter if most places expect the deposit to be non-refundable, what matters is if they stated that policy up front.

I would strongly suggest small claims court if the they don't refund her money. There is no excuse for treating a volunteer in such a way. They sound like real jerks, I'm sure a judge would see it the same way.
 
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Deposits are non-refundable.. That's what a deposit is for... to ensure they don't cancel. Or else they tell people $1500 and then everyone does what your g/f did and cancels on them.


WTF this is ridiculous how many people support trying to sue them to recover a DEPOSIT. Even if she can legally somehow wrestle the money back this is morally on her 100%.

You two are acting like THEY cancelled on HER. She stupidly paid a deposit before deciding she can't afford it, so she lost the deposit. I mean WTF.. It would *maybe* be a little different if she got sick or had some other issue that prevented her from going, but it's amazing to me that she had the gall to even bring this up to you or them.


Please welcome her to the real world, as this appears to be her first taste of it.
 
Arkitech said:
Sounds to me that she legally she should be able to get her money back. The key however is getting some documentation (written or audio) that proves the organization received the 500 from her. (Did you guys send an email requesting the 500 back and the organization replied via email?)

It does'nt matter if most places expect the deposit to be non-refundable, what matters is if they stated that policy up front.

I would strongly suggest small claims court if the they don't refund her money. There is no excuse for treating a volunteer in such a way. They sound like real jerks, I'm sure a judge would see it the same way.
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This isn't a broken leg, or some extenuating circumstance.




Edit: After some thought, I believe the best course of action is to submit this to judge judy. OP, please be in attendance as it would make for a great case.
 
Don't waste any effort trying to get "proof" that she paid the $500. They aren't going to deny she paid it. They just aren't going to give it back.
 
waggy said:
I can understand them keeping the deposit. sorry she had to cancel but she learned a lesson.

i do not understand why they would threaten to sue someone who is a volunter instructor. I would recommend that perhaps if they think of her that way it would be in her best interest to not do it anymore. Perhaps she should talk to the top guy and discuss her options on if she wants to continue.
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My guess is that she flipped out on them when they told her they can't refund a DEPOSIT (caps for emphasis towards OP, not you waggy)

I don't blame them.. She put a deposit down, so they went forward and bought tickets and everything else. Most likely this went above the $500. I wouldn't be surprised if someone had to spend a few hours minimum changing names on tickets and all that jazz. Someone had to go through a bunch of BS at the school to deal with this, and losing your deposit as a result is VERY fair.
 
SpatiallyAware said:
My guess is that she flipped out on them when they told her they can't refund a DEPOSIT (caps for emphasis towards OP, not you waggy)

I don't blame them.. She put a deposit down, so they went forward and bought tickets and everything else. Most likely this went above the $500. I wouldn't be surprised if someone had to spend a few hours minimum changing names on tickets and all that jazz. Someone had to go through a bunch of BS at the school to deal with this, and losing your deposit as a result is VERY fair.
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That sounds fair, except for the part where he says "the plane ticket was transferred to someone else that paid."

That seems to me that the other person's $500 was not spent on tickets. In that case, I think deducting any transfer fees and even a small fee from the non-profit for having to do administrative legwork and returning the rest seems fair. I'm not saying the non-profit should take a hit, but they shouldn't get to profit off of her mistake either.
 
SpatiallyAware said:
Deposits are non-refundable..
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The OP never said the payment was actually a deposit nor did he say the organization stated it was non-refundable. Just because you make an informal partial payment up front does not make it automatically a non-refundable deposit, especially if the organization was able to and did transfer the ticket.
 
Bazake said:
That sounds fair, except for the part where he says "the plane ticket was transferred to someone else that paid."

That seems to me that the other person's $500 was not spent on tickets. In that case, I think deducting any transfer fees and even a small fee from the non-profit for having to do administrative legwork and returning the rest seems fair. I'm not saying the non-profit should take a hit, but they shouldn't get to profit off of her mistake either.
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This is not how a deposit works.


If you are selling a car, and someone gives you a deposit and then decides they can't afford the car... They can't come back in a month and demand their deposit back once the car is sold.



And they aren't looking to "profit" off of deposits. They probably didn't want ANY of this to happen (which is why they had a deposit in the first place.) This is nothing of their doing, and it's not like it was out of her control.

I would morally agree that they should return it out of the kindness of their non-profit hearts IF she had some issue preventing her from going. But just because she decided all the sudden that it's not affordable???


I could very easily imagine how this could being a huge mess for them.

..They have someone cancel with no one to immediately fill the spot.. Band director is flipping out because he spent $800 on tickets when she only gave them $500. A week or so later someone else decides to go (after tickets are purchased which means this wasn't a "convenient" thing for the band group to fix) so they have to go through and have names etc changed. Between the stress of this girl cancelling, and the 1-2hrs MINIMUM it took to change the itineraries, I think $500 is pretty fair considering she cancelled ONLY because she decided she couldn't afford it which is incredibly obnoxious, rude, and inconsiderate of her.


Affordability is something you figure out the details of before writing a $500 check.
 
Since she volunteers, if they did the right thing they'd refund what they could. I'm sure that it didn't cost them 500 in admin fees.
 
QuantumPion said:
The OP never said the payment was actually a deposit nor did he say the organization stated it was non-refundable. Just because you make an informal partial payment up front does not make it automatically a non-refundable deposit, especially if the organization was able to and did transfer the ticket.
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Please.... Welcome to the society where if you give a buddy $20 for lunch you'd better make him sign a contract first.


It sounds like a small group that doesn't have contracts written up for this crap, because MOST people in society understand how a deposit works and this should be a non-issue.


"Informal partial payment" WTF this isn't wal-mart layaway. They clearly already used the money to buy tickets, this was absolutely a deposit. I have no doubt that in certain legal situations you could define this 5 different ways, but we all know that this was a deposit for the trip.

She can continue acting stupid and as if she just didn't know, but if you give someone $500 for a $1500 trip it is a DEPOSIT. If you show up to buy a $1500 car and give them $500 it is a DEPOSIT.

She made a dumb decision to write them a deposit check for the trip before figuring out her finances. They used the money to buy a ticket. She cancelled, and lost her deposit.


This thread is a good indicator of what's wrong with society today. How about grow the fsck up and accept responsibility for your choices and actions. (not directed at the person I quoted, but more for the OP and others trying to help him weasel this non-profit out of $500 over his idiot g/f's mistakes)
 
QuantumPion said:
The OP never said the payment was actually a deposit nor did he say the organization stated it was non-refundable. Just because you make an informal partial payment up front does not make it automatically a non-refundable deposit, especially if the organization was able to and did transfer the ticket.
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True. I recommend the OP to check his state's transaction/contract/deposit laws. You might also find an advocacy group that may answer legal questions for free.
 
SpatiallyAware said:
Please.... Welcome to the society where if you give a buddy $20 for lunch you'd better make him sign a contract first.


It sounds like a small group that doesn't have contracts written up for this crap, because MOST people in society understand how a deposit works and this should be a non-issue.


"Informal partial payment" WTF this isn't wal-mart layaway. They clearly already used the money to buy tickets, this was absolutely a deposit. I have no doubt that in certain legal situations you could define this 5 different ways, but we all know that this was a deposit for the trip.

She can continue acting stupid and as if she just didn't know, but if you give someone $500 for a $1500 trip it is a DEPOSIT. If you show up to buy a $1500 car and give them $500 it is a DEPOSIT.

She made a dumb decision to write them a deposit check for the trip before figuring out her finances. They used the money to buy a ticket. She cancelled, and lost her deposit.


This thread is a good indicator of what's wrong with society today. How about grow the fsck up and accept responsibility for your choices and actions. (not directed at the person I quoted, but more for the OP and others trying to help him weasel this non-profit out of $500 over his idiot g/f's mistakes)
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And it just may be a money grubbing organization that weasels people for every cent. :whiste:
 
SpatiallyAware said:
This is not how a deposit works.


If you are selling a car, and someone gives you a deposit and then decides they can't afford the car... They can't come back in a month and demand their deposit back once the car is sold.



And they aren't looking to "profit" off of deposits. They probably didn't want ANY of this to happen (which is why they had a deposit in the first place.) This is nothing of their doing, and it's not like it was out of her control.

I would morally agree that they should return it out of the kindness of their non-profit hearts IF she had some issue preventing her from going. But just because she decided all the sudden that it's not affordable???


I could very easily imagine how this could being a huge mess for them.

..They have someone cancel with no one to immediately fill the spot.. Band director is flipping out because he spent $800 on tickets when she only gave them $500. A week or so later someone else decides to go (after tickets are purchased which means this wasn't a "convenient" thing for the band group to fix) so they have to go through and have names etc changed. Between the stress of this girl cancelling, and the 1-2hrs MINIMUM it took to change the itineraries, I think $500 is pretty fair considering she cancelled ONLY because she decided she couldn't afford it which is incredibly obnoxious, rude, and inconsiderate of her.


Affordability is something you figure out the details of before writing a $500 check.
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There IS such a thing as a refundable deposit, but I will not argue that point because I think the average person wouldn't expect to get that money back. The non-profit could've easily been out up to $1000 dollars if they had been required to follow through on her ticket and she didn't fork over the rest.

But, they were able to transfer it to another person so $500 less transfer/admin fees, even if those fees are substantial - $300, $400, etc., should go back to her in my opinion.
 
Hey guys, a little update:

- The Band Boosters (name of the organization) didn't use a travel agency; they did it all themselves.
- The band director told my girlfriend it cost $150 to transfer the ticket.
- I called the airline (South West) and they confirmed that it is indeed FREE to transfer the an individual ticket if bought as a group.

Even if in normal circumstances the deposit would be non-refundable, why would they lie to her? And why would they threaten to sue her? Sorry, but refund aside, something doesn't add up.
 
slugg said:
Hey guys, a little update:

- The Band Boosters (name of the organization) didn't use a travel agency; they did it all themselves.
- The band director told my girlfriend it cost $150 to transfer the ticket.
- I called the airline (South West) and they confirmed that it is indeed FREE to transfer the an individual ticket if bought as a group.

Even if in normal circumstances the deposit would be non-refundable, why would they lie to her? And why would they threaten to sue her? Sorry, but refund aside, something doesn't add up.
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They may not have purchased as a group if they did it themselves, who knows. Worst case they are clearly on the line for $350.
 
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