Are we being unreasonable?

This is a little random for a cat forum but I kinda just wanted to gauge othee peoples opinions...

My cousin and I went to a circuit training exercise class for about 8 months. It was held by an instructor who was just starting up and we heard about it cos we know his brother. We used to go about 2 times a week and rarely missed a class. At the end of October we paid £40 for 10 sessions, to redeem whenever we wanted. We used 3 but then at the beginning of November had a major family emergency and didn't go for a few weeks. We booked a few sessions during that time but told him that we would probably have to cancel them, possibly at late notice, which he was fine with. Mid-November we got a messagr saying he was stopping classes as he'd got another job. He sent the message around midday and said the class he was holding that evening was his last ever one.

I'm sure you can all see where this is going... He has since refused to give us a refund for the classes we didn't use up, saying that we had cancelled a few sessions and therefore he shouldn't owe us anything. They weren't private classes, he had up to 20 people attending. He is also fully aware of the emergency situation we had.

After discussing it back and forth via facebook messages, he is now refusing to answer or acknowledge our messages. He owes us around £28 each which is not much (though it would feed the cats for a while!) but I'm stubborn and its more the principle of the matter which bothers me [emoji]128512[/emoji] Any thoughts?

No, I don't think you're being unreasonable. It's not your fault he got another job. Maybe take it to small claims court?

I don't think you are being unreasonable at all... and in fact are owed that money.  Not sure about how pounds translates to dollars, but the big question is if you continue to fight this, will it take more out of you than you are getting back?  Satisfaction often doesn't take as good as forgiveness.  Can you afford to cut your losses?  Sometimes we drive ourselves crazy over the little things.  It was wrong of him to do this to you, but it doesn't sound like he was being very successful at his trade and has moved on, not so much to get one over on you, but more to be able to eat and keep a roof over his head.  That doesn't excuse his behavior, and to be honest, I doubt he is proud of what he has done.  But, I think your life will be better if you let this one go. 

I worked at a local gym for a few years. From the inside perspective ....

Honestly, it kinda depends and I can see where he is coming from. 

When you are taking a class where you pay be session and there are a limited number of spots it can be tricky. When you make the reservation and the class fills up they turn away additional students. If you then cancel your reservation and they can't fill your spot they loose out on the money because you had said you were going to attend. It sounds like you were expecting him to allow you to reschedule/cancel with little or no notice over several weeks for two people. In a class of 20 people you are asking him to take a huge cut to his profit to accommodate you not just once or twice but potentially 7 times? Sometimes those classes run at barely break even unless they are full depending on how they structure the fees.

Our standard policy was 48 hours before class cancels weren't a charge regardless of why. If you cancelled less than 48 hours before the class it would have depended on the situation. Standard procedure was that we still charged for the class because that was a spot we held for the person and we may have turned other people away thinking they were coming. Even if that class wasn't full there might have been people who didn't sign up because they specifically want smaller classes or whatever (plus its a lot of work to figure out if the spot got filled or apply exceptions randomly).

If we could fill the spot before the class AND the person was in communication with us about it we wouldn't charge. If it was an emergency situation we wouldn't charge (emergency was a case by case basis but generally we would say no if there was something every month or it felt like they were not really having emergencies but just trying to get a replacement class for free) even if they came to us after the fact because we recognized that in emergencies your first thought isn't you workout class. But your situation wouldn't have been an emergency. It was an ongoing situation and while we would try to work with you. But if you booked over several weeks and just didn't show up (and didn't notify us that you wouldn't be coming to that specific class) it becomes more poor planning on you than an emergency situation. Life happens and we all have to work around things. While we would have been sympathetic there is a point where some responsibility falls on you to plan accordingly. Honestly, there is also that question of if the person is really telling the truth or using an excuse (not that I am saying you are, but how does he know that?). All of that was part of the reason that we eventually went to a flat monthly fee regardless of the number of visits with a few special individual priced classes, less complicated. 

In your situation I understand you told him what was happening but you still reserved sessions. How could he have known that you weren't attending that specific class and try to get someone else in there? How could he know it was still included with the original situation when it happened weeks before? Some people recover from situations quickly or they resolve quickly. Other things drag out. How much time is reasonable for you to cancel and him not count it against you? He should have said at the time that you needed to cancel the sessions within a certain time period or it would have counted as one of your sessions. But there may be a written policy in place for that too; in which case it would be on you to read it even if he didn't specifically say it. 

I understand life happens. I understand you were dealing with problems. But he was trying to run a business. While he was willing to be understanding of the situation that doesn't mean he has to lose money over a span of weeks to accommodate your situation.

Really what I would have done is the opposite direction of calling him before a class when I COULD go and asking if there was room to drop in instead of reserving a spot and then canceling. That way he could have taken additional reservations and I would go if there was room when I could. I wouldn't be surprised if he had tried to squeeze you in even a full class if you had explained what was happening and asked if you could call before and drop in instead of taking a spot and giving too short notice. Or just tell him at that time you wouldn't be going for a few weeks due to situation and ask for a refund or to hold those sessions until you could go back.

Now, his place closed down and he is issuing refunds for unused sessions. If you figure your class was £4 per session (which is really too low from my experience, so I think he was operating at too low of a cost and couldn't cover expenses without full classes all the time) and you went to 3 classes each which is where you are getting the £28. If you had booked 7 classes and had them all be no shows during the time prior to him closing, and didn't call him each time with some notice, then I agree with him. If you gave him reasonable notice that you weren't coming each time, I would split the difference and give you a partial refund of £14 because you took up space that he may have had people in. If you normally went twice a week but booked 7 times within that space of 2-3 weeks then some of spots were place holders in case things worked out from your side and that's not fair to him to eat it when you prevented him from getting someone else in there. 

​Ultimately, depending on specific factors you don't mention like if you told him before each if you cancelled and how many you had booked in that time period, I think you and him are both in the wrong and need to find the middle ground. With him going out of business though it really isn't enough money to go after him through your legal system (considering costs and time to recover it). The court would probably side with him anyways if he has a written policy about cancelled sessions and you don't have something in writing from him to counter it. Morally, he may be wrong but he is the one who has to live with that and letting yourself get upset over it doesn't accomplish much. I'd honestly write it off as a loss and boycott him if he stays in the industry. 

So I tried to keep my original post short and sweet but I probably should have included a few more details! So hereit goes..

We asked him at the time whether he wanted us to book in advance as there was a good chance we would have to cancel and he said yes and that he was okay with us cancelling short notice. I booked and cancelled 3 times during Nov, my cousin booked and cancelled twice. Over the 8ish months we were going I think we cancelled about 5-6 times each (including those last few in Nov) (I do shift work and sometimes had to swap shifts to sickness).
There were no policies, he was just starting out it was fairly informal.
I'm not going to go into details of the emergency situation but he knew what it was and it was definitely about as serious an emergency as you can get. It was ongoing and I would even cancel things for it now if I needed to. We never once cancelled without a good, unavoidable reason. Until this point we actually really liked the guy and got on pretty well with him, we went as much as we could.
I don't think we were stopping other people from attending, his numbers were getting a little lower towards november and he always had a good number of slots available (he used to post the lists of who is attending and how many gaps he had). I can't know that for sure though.
We did try to come to a middle ground with him, said we would take £20 each and we waited till after Christmas as we knew it was an expensive time and he may have a few people to refund. He has flat out ignored every message since then and has even refused to read them.

I am totally not going to take the situation further as its not worth my time or the hassle, I just wanted other peoples opinions really, when you get stuck into these things it sometimes helps to see other peoples perspectives [emoji]128512[/emoji]

Thank you for your responses! Kieka, thank you for taking the time to write your epically long response [emoji]128558[/emoji] I do totally see your point and I gotta admit I didn't really think about it like that before. I do kinda get his perspective a little more. Having said that, all things considered, I still think he's a douchebag haha [emoji]128513[/emoji]

Yeah, I can get long and wordy when explaining something. Especially since I have experience with customer service and dealing with off the wall situations. One of my jobs was Disneyland and handling problems with tickets at the gates. My fall back is over explaining so people know I am not being an ass for kicks and giggles and so they would know if/what could be done to fix it. I often found that people didn't even think of the factors on the other side of things and were more willing to come to a compromise when they did.

Anywho, with the additional details then it does fall more on him. You guys didn't register for all your sessions during the time period and he didn't have a policy in place.

Morally and practically speaking he should owe you something. What would have to be agreed upon but at the very least the £16 and most £28. If it was me? I would probably just split it and say £22 but I tend to come to the middle ground where we both give a little. He might be one of those who shut down when he fails. So he is trying to pretend it never happened which means not acknowledging you. The other could be that he is so covered in debt that yours is nothing in comparison so it isn't something he is even touching. Its a bad move if he ever plans on teaching agaim because those types of teachers live off reputation.

You could write him a letter saying that you will be pursuing legal action to see if it scares him into refunding. Outline the details, explain the breakdown of cost and that he owes you the £28 but you'd settle at £?? To prvent further action. Try to make it legalize sounding. Not to follow through with but some people freak with that and will just pay to stop you. Others shut down and wait for the legal summons. But it sounds like he won't respond to anything else.