ComplaintsforSomatic Experiencing International

• Initial Complaint

  02/02/2023

  Complaint Type:

  Product Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  I registered for one of their trainings in 2022. This organization postponed the in-person training without telling me. Thankfully, I emailed them to confirm the training since I hadn't seen it in an email advertising their trainings. If I had not emailed them, I would have driven hours to to this training. This postponed training was changed from in-person to virtual without notice. Again, I only found this out because of an email that invited me to a different training later on and I was confused about the training I already registered for. I felt jerked around and was unhappy with how they were handling things, so I requested a refund. Their form indicates that the refund would happen within 1-3 business days. It took 3 weeks for me to receive a check in the mail. I also emailed about not yet having a refund and was not given a response. They also took $100 out of the refund for a cancellation fee even though they kept changing the terms of my training. I requested for the fee to be waived because of their mismanagement, but they took it anyway.

  Business response

  03/13/2023

  I am writing in response to the complaint filed by ****************************************** on 2/1/2023.
  
  First, please accept my apologies again for the delayed response.  We are at the tail end of an outgoing Executive Director, a new Interim ** starting just 3/8/2023, and the loss of 3 members of our staff at the end of January.  I greatly appreciate the time that was taken by your department to offer to reopen the complaint so that we could gather information from various individuals on our staff.  We have been able to determine what happened.  I offer our response below.
  
  In June of 2022, ********* registered for our ********, ******** training that was scheduled to be an in-person training.  On August 31st we sent e-mail communication to those invited or registered for this training that we were postponing the training from October to February due to low student enrollment. In December of ************************************************************ person to online.  This change was communicated to students who were registered or invited via e-mail.
  On August 3, 2022 ********* requested to be moved from the ********* ******** training to the *******, ************** Online training.  The reason for the transfer request was that the ******* training was not listed at the time of her original registration.  The transfer was processed on August 4th.  The ******* training was always Online and not In-Person and was advertised as *******, ** Online. ********* was not notified about the ********* ** training moving dates or moving online because she transferred out of that training cohort before either of those changed happened.
  In December of 2022, ********* requested a refund.  This refund occurred on 1/17/2023 in the amount of $784.
  
  When *********'s card was charged, we were in the midst of a sale.  So, while the registration form she submitted was for $1005, she received the sale price of $784 which was charged on 6/10/2022. Therefore, when we processed the refund on 1/17/2022 we did refund the full $784.   We did not charge the refund fee of $100.
  
  In October of 2022, we moved all of our data out of our event management software, CVENT, to Salesforce. In this process, many pieces of our system were not functioning properly, one of which being the refund process.  Fortunately, we don't do many of those, but unfortunately, this did cause a delay in refunding ********* that was much longer than our stated and normal turnaround time.  We deeply regret the delay and understand how frustrating this must have been and still seems to be for *******************  We hope to be able to connect with her to repair the broken relationship if she is open to that discussion.

  Customer response

  03/13/2023

   
  Complaint: 18968307
  
  I am rejecting this response because:

  This response seems to be incorrect. I was never emailed about the changes in the trainings. This is the main reason I requested a refund. I felt jerked around repeatedly. There seemed to be a miscommunication at least once because I always wanted in-person trainings; therefore even though I requested the ******* training initially (because it wasn't listed as online in their mass advertising emails), I did request to go back to the ************ training before it was also made online. The changes in their technology seemed to affect their email system as well, or at least the employees stress levels so that they could not do their job effectively.

  Also, I was charged $809 for this training and received $784 in a check.  I won't be registering with SEI for quite some time until they get these difficulties ironed out.

  
  Sincerely,
  
  ******************************************

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