In this situation, you contact your credit card company and get it refunded. You're still out the couch, but you'll get the money back (unless you paid cash, which probably isn't a great idea, and most furniture isn't a 100% up front proposition - closer to 1/3). Not sure if you could contact the bank in the OP's situation though.

I'm not sure how the email was written, but my initial impression from your response is that the RD could have written the email in a more 'sensitive' matter. At least give the impression that you respect the money the athlete has invested in the race. Again, I don't know how the notice was written, that's just the feeling I get from the tone of some of your comments. I've had two triathlons cancelled due to storms and I knew the money was gone. Granted it was only $100 each and the race is run 100% by volunteers (with any profit going to charity). Since I didn't receive anything for my race entry, my CPA used it as a tax deduction (again, this was a volunteer run race with proceeds going to charity, obviously yours is a for profit organization).

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The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.

Do you have this confirmed? Very much a 'straw man' debate tactic.

I stand by my statement that Big Blue Adventures should give those who were affected by the cancellation a credit to race in a future event.

They did give you a race credit...25% off is a credit.

You just don't like the amount of the credit. Why it cannot be 100% has already been explained.

The only way it would be somewhat feasible to offer 100% credit is if they have additional races scheduled this year with open capacity. In that case they could offer a free entry into an exisiting race or 25% off for a race next year.

It hasn't been explained and you're welcome to elaborate more on why a full credit can't be issued.

If the race was cancelled due to safety reasons - then I'm ok with the no refund.

The only time I start screaming "fraud" is when a race gets cancelled due to "lack of participation" like that one race here did which was scheduled too close to OSide 70.3 and no one signed up. Those guys killed the race and offered no refunds and people were having to resort to filing claims with their cc company (my buddy got his money refunded through Amex).

I'd agree that lack of participation would be an issue.

I also agree that there should be a significant discount to future events. 25% is not much of a discount.

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The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.

They might do that. However the bankruptcy process is long and involved and is designed specifically for such situations - to do the best to protect all parties who are fighting over a limited pot of money.

If the race wants to go through the bankruptcy process, I would have no problem with that. In this case though, people are using the simple argument that "the money has been spent" as justification for no refunds.

In most areas of commercial contract, simply saying the money has been spent, does not give one a free pass to avoid providing a product.

I will agree that parties have freedom to contract. So, if the acceptance of the no refunds clause is deemed to be binding acceptance of an enforcable clause, then yes, no refunds is a fair result.

However, query whether a fine print exclusion, on a standard form contract provided by the RD, and executed online, will be deemed to be binding.

If not, we are back to "the money has been spent" - which, as noted, is not really a legal justification for not providing the contracted for service.

I've been a volunteer for a lot of races, and gotten minimal money for some (as in, making as much as $4-$5 / hour for my efforts; needless to say, I don't do it to put food on the table.) Although I've never worked with this race director, I have seen significant numbers of 3rd party vendors supplying materials and/or labor to help the race director put on a race. And they end up getting paid for what they do, whether it ends up getting used by the race or the volunteers or not. I stand by my statement that if a typical race director gave everyone a credit for a future race, then they could not afford to put on next year's race.

Isnt there an insurance aspect here? Do races not carry insurance against something like this happening? If not, why not? If the race director wants repeat business for his future races, I would think making customers happy is a high priority. I dont see why the couch analogy is that bad. Either way the customer is out money, and never received a product. Doesnt matter if you "signed away" the right to a refund if the product is never delivered. You are still out money you paid for and never recieved what you paid for.

In the couch situation, the company is going to have insurance. The insurance company will pay for all the damages. The company providing the couch would offer the refund.

If a race director does NOT have insurance against an unforseen issue that might cancel a race, I would say thats his fault. Not the customers.

As a race director, I think it is a bunch of crap that they aren't offering a free entry to a future race.

There have been 2 local races canceled in the past few ones. One was a triathlon in it's early stages. We had some bad fires in early summer followed by monsoons a month later. This brought a lot of sludge and crap into the water, and the race was shut down by the forest service. All those that paid automatically got rolled over into next year. I believe refunds were given to those who couldn't attend.

The second was just a few months ago and was strictly a running race. Bad monsoons and thunderstorms rolled in and the race directors shut it down. Participants had already received shirts, chips, and everything. Cones were out. But they rolled everyone into the next race that they direct. Those that couldn't participate were asked to contact the race director to receive refunds.

Sure, they could have both said, "Sorry. You waive your rights away when the event is canceled." But these two companies did the right thing for participants and themselves. I'm guessing the Lake Tahoe Tri will have a small fraction of the participants next year, simply because of this move. And rightfully so.

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speedySTATES

I fully understand what the fine print says. What I don't undersand is why so many of you feel the the company that puts on the tri should be whole and not loose money; but the customer should loose money? That is not generally considered fair business practices or how it works in the real world.

Really dude, fraud bc Mother Nature burned your parade down?

Like I've said before, I really wonder where you get some of the crap you write.

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Brian Stover USAT LII
Accelerate3 Coaching
Insta

I never said to sue them. I said to inform them of your intent to write a letter to the attorney general. He can work it out.

The cancellation policy does not cover unilateral decisions of the promoters.

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As for money being spent up front. Too bad. The promoters are not guaranteed a profit. They are entitled to lose money like any other business.

For this to be analogous you'd have to include that prior to paying for the couch, you willingly agreed to sign a waiver acknowledging upfront that should the couch not be delivered for any reason (including burning down) that you fully understand no refund will be provided. Would you still order and pay for the couch?

This does not make any sense. Look at the NYC marathon last year. It's a race with massive costs and infrastructure. They did not officially cancel until JUST before the race so all the money really was spent. All competitors got to choose whether they got refunded in full, or got guaranteed qualification and free entry to the next event. It may have even been more generous than that, I cannot remember exactly, but they handled it right. And NYRR doesn't have a ton of cash in the bank to just pay for all of that out of their own pocket. If a race does not have insurance to cover race cancellation due to force majeure, then the race director is being irresponsible.

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Ed O'Malley
www.VeloVetta.com
Founder of VeloVetta Cycling Shoes
Instagram • Facebook

Sure, let's see if you can understand this concept.

You and your best buddy are at the airport, waiting for the plane to take you to Kona when you realize that you have forgotten to pack your helmet. The plane is leaving in 1 hour, but you remember that there is a bike shop, just 20 minutes away. Since you are worried you can't find the helmet you want in Kona, you tell your buddy you plan to quickly get to the bike shop, buy a new helmet and make it back in time for the flight. Just as you walk off he presses $20 in your hand and asks you to pick him up a multi tool, since he isn't sure if he packed his.

You do your shopping, buy a new, very aero, helmet and pick up the multi tool for your buddy. Standing in line waiting to go through security you gloat about how well this is working out. As you hear the final boarding call for your flight, you are about to pick your bag off the x-ray belt. Just then, the friendly TSA agent tells you that multi-tool isn't going to be allowed any further. Now scrambling to make your flight and believing your friend to be reasonable, you decide to leave the multi tool behind and make a dash for the gate.

When you settle in beside your buddy on the plane, you find out maybe he isn't that reasonable after all. You thought he would understand the force majeur, but clearly he isn't understanding at all. Or maybe he is understanding, but just not caring...

He wants a multi-tool or $20 and if he doesn't get either real soon, he is going to tell the friendly flight attendant you keep muttering about a bomb.

You have $5 in your pocket, the choice is yours......

Because this is America. It's what people do now. SUE SUE SUE!!!

Fartleker....I have noticed that you often take positions that are pro-athlete and that you understand business. I commend you for that.

It is the business, not the athlete, that takes the risk. If the venture succeeds, the business makes money; if it fails they loose money.

You pay your entry in advance so they can pay in advance for things like port a johns, permits, admin costs of processing entries etc. They offered a 25% credit.


I swear some of you yahoo's should man up and put on an event instead of bitching and whining. Then I bet you change your arm chair quarterbacking rather quickly.

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Brian Stover USAT LII
Accelerate3 Coaching
Insta

Thank you for this post.

I appreciate that race directors work hard to put on races. Without them, there would be no triathlons to participate in.

To just say 'Aw, dude, sorry, uh, it's cancelled, you're out $225...how about you pay for another one of our races?! I'll give you $20 off!' not cool.

I really wanted to like Big Blue Adventures...but they've lost my business :(

That's a larger % compared to WTC at $700 per entry and only $125 back.

I've got crocodile tears for those of you whining about it. Seriously. Well not really, actually not at all. But I will have a beer for you during my lunch time meeting.

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Brian Stover USAT LII
Accelerate3 Coaching
Insta

I believe the choice was:

a) refund

b) guranteed PAID entry into next year. You had a guaranteed spot, but you still had to pay for it.

This.

The way I see it, I am paying for a service and I expect that service to be delivered. If I become injured in training, or I am sick the morning of the race, and I cant actually participate, thats on me. The event was held, therefore I am out. The reason I am unable to participate is my own fault (assuming you consider getting sick your own fault, but whatever).

If the event isnt held then its simply a matter of someone taking your money in exchange for a service that was never provided. In any other industry there is insurance that a company takes out to protect them against a situation like this where they cannot provide a service a customer has paid for.

Even airlines, as sleezy an industry as that is, doesnt do this to people. If your flight is cancelled due to a snowstorm do they just say "too bad, so sad, better luck next time"? No. Do they offer refunds? No... But they do put you on the next available flight.

Im sorry but I wont ever buy the line that the RD cant offer refunds if he doesnt put on the race.

What if the RD just decided on the morning of the race (or even the week before) "Ya know, I dont feel like doing this today. I am cancelling". Would you expect a refund as a particpant? If so, why is that different than Mother Nature forcing cancellation?

Thank you for taking the time to write this up, but I'm failing to see how this story remotely compares to this cancelled triathlon.