Cancelled English Camp, where's my refund?

[Wilbur]

One of my children were supposed to attend a English Camp with two of their friends back in August 2024. We prepaid the roughly 30000 yen for our child. The camp was cancelled because of a typhoon. We were sent a letter awhile later asking if we wanted to rebook or get all our money refunded. We picked the refund. Another 2 months later the same letter was sent to us. This kinda got us worried but again filled out a form to have our money refunded. The same thing happened to our child's friends families.

In December of 2024, this same English Camp sent out forms to every child in our towns elementary school. At that time, we and the other children parents still haven't received our refund My wife was upset and tried to contact the English Camp by phone. Once she was able to contact a person and request our refund. Than after that the line was no longer in use.

One family had an emergency number for this camp and tried that number. The mother was told we would all get our money by February 10th, 2025. As of today, none of us have received our refunds and can't contact the English Camp.

This English Camp states in its advertising forms that our handed out by the public school system that they are some way affiliated with a specific prefecture other than the prefecture we live in. My wife called this prefectures office and they know about this company and it's doings but nicely said we can't help you.

My wife has also contacted our towns Commerce's department which is in charge of handing out the forms of this English Camp. We stated that they should take responsibility for who they advertise for. They didn't really have any idea this would happen.

We have also contacted the police but they sent us to our towns Town office section which deals with these types of issues. There we spoke to a former police officer who advised us to send a written letter asking once again for our money. And if this doesn't work to then decide to take legal action or not.

So, my questions we are asking ourselves is it worth it to take legal action?

Has anyone been through a similar situation? If so was it worth it?

Should we try and find similar families in the same situation? We do have 3 right now.

[RetireJapan]

My experience with lawyers is that it will cost about 100,000 yen to get them to write a letter for you.

So for this amount of money it might not be worth it, even if you manage to find more victims.



Personally I would make sure your public school system knows about these issues so they don't continue helping to publicise the camps.

[Tsumitate Wrestler]

My experience with lawyers is that it will cost about 100,000 yen to get them to write a letter for you.

So for this amount of money it might not be worth it, even if you manage to find more victims.



Personally I would make sure your public school system knows about these issues so they don't continue helping to publicise the camps.

Get those 4+families together and move jointly. Go through the rounds again, but this time have multiple copies of the complaint and refund request letter in hand, signed and stamped by by all the families, mentioning each of the groups above and explaining their role in the situation. You could also include their failures to accept responsibility to the degree that you think it might motivate some action on their part.

It is much harder to ignore a group of people. Also, someone among you may just may have a lawyer friend that would be happy to draft a letter if this proves unsuccessful.

The wheel needs to get squeakier. They probably have a public meeting coming up? This might be PTA item to table?

[Deep Blue]

I’d suggest the time and angst spending fighting this wouldn’t be worth it even if you did receive a refund in the end. Sometimes it’s good for health just to let things go rather spend even more hours of your life getting angry.

[adamu]

My guess is they already spent the money, and are trying to buy time until they can cover the refund with new sales.

If you paid by credit card, you might be able to charge it back.

But what Deep Blue said. I'm guilty of getting hung up on things like that myself. But if the prefecture is still advertising them, I don't think I could drop it...

[Gareth]

I’d get a journalist involved. Impending bad publicity could definitely speed up the refund.

Is there a Japanese equivalent of BBC’s Watchdog or the Guardian’s Anna Tims? Journalists covering consumer issues.

[RetireJapan]

I’d suggest the time and angst spending fighting this wouldn’t be worth it even if you did receive a refund in the end. Sometimes it’s good for health just to let things go rather spend even more hours of your life getting angry.

So much this.

When faced with situations like this, I ask myself three questions:

1. what do I want?
2. what do I need to get it?
3. how likely am I to get it?

A lot of the time, it isn't worth the time, stress, and effort. Sometimes it is. But usually not.

[adamu]

1. what do I want?
2. what do I need to get it?
3. how likely am I to get it?

Those are pretty good questions when abstracted to the general, too. Maybe add 4. Will I be happy if I get it?

[Wilbur]

Thanks everyone for all the replies and advice. I feel less angry because of the great advice. We will all probably just write the letter ourselves and leave it at that. We are pretty confident that the schools won't be advertising for them until we get our money back.