Originally Posted by
Mitsu3000gt
It's more on the business IMO, especially if the class was booked a while ago and the plants were bought recently when everyone was expecting a lockdown. It boils down to the business not having an agreed upon cancellation policy prior to booking - that is just poor management. Most people these days are still booking things even though they might get cancelled, there really isn't any other option, they just agree to the cancellation policy beforehand. It's unusual for things to be cancelled without refund unless agreed upon at time of purchase.
Everything I have booked & had cancelled during the pandemic has resulted in an automatic full refund (including small companies), WestJet being the sole exception but still resulted in a full refund. Also if you looked at it from the point of view of a credit card company, they would probably approve a chargeback since the service was not rendered as described (not suggesting he do this). Like I said though, for $100 it's not going to make or break anyone either way so do what you are comfortable with. To me this would be like buying a small artist concert ticket, and instead being told to go watch the performance on YouTube and still pay full price. I get the impression part of the appeal of this class is to be there in person, interacting with the teacher & other participants - maybe I am wrong though. Also unless this person has a streaming setup, the online class will probably be done through a crappy laptop webcam or similar, which may take away from the experience.
Anyways, I feel like we're overanalyzing it lol. It's $100, not a huge deal either way, but the business owner should have had a cancellation policy. As a customer, the assumption would be a full refund if there was no cancellation policy detailing otherwise. If it were my business, I'd eat the cost and make sure to have a cancellation policy in place for future classes clearly stating a maximum 50% refund. Lesson learned.
I still don't understand why these plants can neither be kept alive or re-sold. If they are going to die right away, what is the point of the class?