Hello everyone,

Hope you are well. A couple months ago I talked a friend out of going to the forum. Thankfully, he sees he did the right thing since the friend that referred him to the seminar is starting to lose it. She has made radical and very risky changes in her relationships and almost seems to be having an emotional breakdown.

Fortunately he did not attend the forum, but now they will not refund his money. Any suggestions?

Thanks

I hope your friend can get their money back, but it is hard to say who could help. Maybe it makes a difference where you are, US or Canada etc. Or someone you can report them to. Maybe Better Business Bureau would be a place to start.

I have a pamphlet here for Choices and in it, it says-

If we seem a bit over confident about the benefits of Choices, just consider our no-risk money-back guarantee: WE GUARANTEE THAT IF YOU FULLY PARTICIPATE IN ALL THE SESSIONS AND SUCCESSFULLY COMPLETE CHOICES YOU’LL SEE MEASURABLE RESULTS IN YOUR LIFE----OR ELSE YOUR TUITION WILL BE CHEERFULLY REFUNDED.

_____________________________________


Personally that guarantee sounds hokey to me. like "fully participate" in "all the sessions"

and

"successfully complete Choices"

My warning bells are alerted. A [b:2cbfb164ee]successful completion[/b:2cbfb164ee] implies satisfaction doesn't it?!

So then one would not want money back would they?

:(

helped me get a full refund from Landmark.

Make some noises in that letter about reporting them to the local Better Business Bureau and chamber of commerce in your area. And tell em that if you dont get a satisfactory response you will go on all your favorite listserves and computer bulletin boards and warn people about their shabby behavior.

(Craigslist.org is a terrific bulletin board. )

Good luck!

Go to the center when they are having an "Introduction to the Forum" and be very loud and demanding about getting your money back. If the Center Manager is there (usually), they will get wind of the ruckus and look for a way to quiet you. If they are smart, they will find the finance manager and get a check issued to you.
If they are not so smart, and they try to "handle" you, say in a very loud voice " do not use your mind control techniques on me, I want my money back and I want it now."
Make sure it's loud enough that "guests" can hear you. Do not let them usher you into another room until you get the finance manager running like crazy to get a check or cash. They will give you all kinds of run around, but they can pay you off pretty quick if it looks like you will impact their recruitment.

as recruitment goes, so says a psychologist who is also a volunteer for LE. Many people had dropped out of the Seminar Series after the first sessions, too. It seems the Seminar Series is the training camp for prospective Forum leaders.

After sending a letter to voice my dissatisfaction with the Forum and subsequent Seminar Series, I waited and waited for a response. In the meantime, the volunteers who call constantly to keep the interest going did their job 1-2 x week, but were unable to help at all with my complaint. One said that I had to call the Forum leader, since my complaint was specifically with him, but they couldn't give me his phone number.

When I called the office a few weeks after sending the letter, the reason given that no one called back was the recipient of the letter, Ann, no longer worked there, so they didn't even open it (imagine that happening in a business). (Ann was the one who called me every few days for more than a month leading up to my Forum, guaranteeing me a breakthrough in the issues in my life.) They promised another rep would call me. That didn't happen. After a few more phone calls, I did contact a supervisor, who made an appointment for a phone schedule. I sat at my phone and waited - nothing - called LE and told them she blew me off. The supervisor was "on the road" and was expected to call in, so they told me to wait. Nothing. Later that evening - like 11:30 p.m. - she called, but didn't have time to talk (but had time to wake me up). The next day we arranged another appointment and this time I called. She was off that day. I got another manager and told her about the lack of integrity. The supervisor called me within 15 minutes and just snapped - "so is it a refund you want?" I really wanted to let them know my concerns, but saw that would be futile. Within a week, I had a FULL refund, including the nonrefundable part.

One-on-one, it seems, the employees and volunteers do not take confrontation well. It is easier to pay and be done with it. I'm sure since the recruitment rate was low for my Forum that they didn't want anyone else bringing them bad publicity.

Guy,

Iz dat you, darlin'?



Ellen

:D

the one...the only

A similar thing happened to me. I was "enrolled" in the first weekend that they make people do (forgot whether it's called "Introduction to the Forum" or whether that's the thing where you are asked to try to indoctrinate all your family and friends... anyway) but I was only able to sign up for one that was a couple of months in the future, so thankfully my buyer's remorse had time to set in. But they would only refund some of my money - they kept $50 as some kind of "enrollment deposit" or some other such nonsense. I was just glad to get at least some of it back, but I'm wondering now if I could get the $50 back too. I know that they were just doing this in order to try to keep me enrolled. Who knows where that $50 actually went.

~Y

Just tell them that you will never ever do "the forum" and you will sue their as if they don't give you the 50 dollars back. If they refuse - tell them that nisseberka is going to come and haunt them in their dreams. Then they will see that their racket and winning formula is going to consume their heart and the 50 dollars will come your way in no time.

written in a state of "why the fuck are they allowed to exist"-mode.

nettie
pretty tired of landmark by now...but I will fight them to the end...the mother-f-kers!