Consumer Protection Act - race entries

[Shebeen]

This might have been covered before, I did do a search* and came up with nothing. Is anyone else surprised by the very rigid refund/subs policies some races enforce these days?

Does the consumer protection act (2009) cover racing/events? OF course it does. 

 

I'm really surprised that this has not wildly changed the cancellation/substitution policy of races.

*You buy a product/service (and pay up front, sometimes months in advance).

*You are injured(or life happens) and can find someone else to take over this purchase for you, or want your money back (minus reasonable admin charge).

There is one instance where a race is sold out, and demand is high enough that a sub could easily be found. Surely the simplest response to this is allowing an automated subs process, which most ticketing vendors offer. Obviously there needs to be a cut-off date, seeding and entry numbers need to be printed, 4(b) covers this but 10 days/week is definitely enough. A sold out race that is bound by permitting numbers/venue capacity can actually make MORE money through subs that is an additional service they charge.

The second instance is a smaller race field, when you are required to give a refund and not replace the entrant then you run the risk of over catering for a smaller field. The organiser should be protected by a reasonable enough time period for this, in an extreme case imagine a big storm is coming and everyone cancels two days prior - no way should an organiser need to refund entries on this.

I stand to be corrected on this, but pretty sure Cape Epic, the biggest mtb race in the world you can even bring in a sub rider/team at registration. They charge for this, but it's not an insane fleecing. But let's bring in another example, there are many others but I like to look at a specific one, and it is running.

Cape Town marathon - https://capetownmarathon.com/faq/

Race date: 20 October

Entries/subs: close 30 August

Refund policy: none.

I'm pretty sure this is in violation of the CPA. 51 days is plenty of time for CT marathon to handle a change. It has become industry practice, which is a weird way to treat people that are ultimately your customer.

 

 

Am i talking codswallop?

 

 

*maybe my search skills were a little basic, found this in the archives actually which is more about quality of the race offering