So the Tokyo marathon is stealing people money ?

Next up, will BAA go ahead as planned? I thought about entering the NY Marathon lottery but decided that I am not yet motivated to run another marathon. I was happy to focus on shorter length road races in 2019 where I could wait until a week or two before the race to register. Now with the chance of cancellation with no refund is possibility I know have another reason to pass on signing up for races many months in advance without knowing whether or not I will be able to run due to due personal running injury or now pandemic.

https://www.bostonherald.com/2020/02/17/boston-marathon-officials-carefully-monitoring-coronavirus/?fbclid=IwAR0-xOVS5_5XSOB6fPeRrqV0Hb_ZApoRXlfz86N_LLbfCoFDDwQI_irHIYA

Abeneziel wrote:

Is the London Marathon cancelled? Nope.

Whoah there. Time will tell. It's a month away and exponential growth can surprise. A month ago, no one thought Tokyo would be cancelled. They have at least one confirmed case in London.

35,000 people are participating in this event though so i can understand, think about how fast coronavirus has been spreading recently and think about the risk that could present.

"cancellation order from the authorities concerned"

it will be refunded. just heard.

Fees will be refunded.

Call your hotel and airline, and if necessary, your credit card. It’s all good.

AT THESWOOSH wrote:

"cancellation order from the authorities concerned"

it will be refunded. just heard.

Links??? I haven't seen any reports that the organizers have changed their minds over refunds.

The cancellation order from the authorities concerned clause would apply if the city of Tokyo ordered the race cancelled. But if the city did issue such an order it would be for the entire race, elites and all. I would expect the organizers had insurance for enforced cancellation and so the insurer would pick up the tab. However, the organizers went down a middle path, keep the elite race but cancel the mass participation race. The insurance company is not going to pick up the tab on that.

Meanwhile, in Canada:

everybody who registered just needs to charge-back through their credit card company.

You will win the dispute. It's not different from Amazon cancelling your order and then trying to keep the money.

These races keep cancelling their own events and keeping the fees. It is simple theft. Stop letting them get away with it.

Abeneziel wrote:

I think that I will always be amazed by the corporate shills who bring up "contracts" each time. They don't know that a contract is worth nothing if it is against the law and the regulations. You can write anything in a contract, but any stipulation which is found against the law is void, completely nullified and abrogated on the spot without any effect of prejudice.

Courts routinely destroy abusive contracts who do not respect the law. You can try to deny any liability or deny any refund by contract, but the law is there and can be enforced.

Do you really think a big organization that runs a premier event made up a shoddy contract? Not gonna happen.

Moo Goo wrote:

Abeneziel wrote:

I think that I will always be amazed by the corporate shills who bring up "contracts" each time. They don't know that a contract is worth nothing if it is against the law and the regulations. You can write anything in a contract, but any stipulation which is found against the law is void, completely nullified and abrogated on the spot without any effect of prejudice.

Courts routinely destroy abusive contracts who do not respect the law. You can try to deny any liability or deny any refund by contract, but the law is there and can be enforced.

Do you really think a big organization that runs a premier event made up a shoddy contract? Not gonna happen.

yes a lot of big companies do that. even such as activision blizzard and others. They exactly write anything into the contract because they know there are enough idiots and corporate chills who will accept anything. there have been many cases where companies lost court cases for example regarding their user license agreements.

tired of theft wrote:

everybody who registered just needs to charge-back through their credit card company.

You will win the dispute. It's not different from Amazon cancelling your order and then trying to keep the money.

You will not win the dispute. The credit card company will ask Tokyo what's going on, Tokyo will show them the contract, and the credit card company will say, "very good, thanks."

800 dude wrote:

tired of theft wrote:

everybody who registered just needs to charge-back through their credit card company.

You will win the dispute. It's not different from Amazon cancelling your order and then trying to keep the money.

You will not win the dispute. The credit card company will ask Tokyo what's going on, Tokyo will show them the contract, and the credit card company will say, "very good, thanks."

You don’t know what you are talking about. I have charged back several times when races were cancelled. I have been refunded every single time.

The vendor is exchanging goods (shirts and medals) services (expo and race) for money. If the vendor doesn’t provide those things then that is fraudulent. The vendor has a contract with the credit card company to provide the goods and services. In exchange the credit card company has contracted with credit card holders to ensure that they will pay the credit card company. If the vendor defaults then the credit card company can’t force payment. If enough customers complain then the credit card company will stop doing business with the vendor.

The Tokyo Marathon has also chosen to discriminate against a specific class of customers. They are stating that the race is cancelled but it isn’t entirely cancelled since they are allowing several hundred people to participate.

800 dude wrote:

tired of theft wrote:

everybody who registered just needs to charge-back through their credit card company.

You will win the dispute. It's not different from Amazon cancelling your order and then trying to keep the money.

You will not win the dispute. The credit card company will ask Tokyo what's going on, Tokyo will show them the contract, and the credit card company will say, "very good, thanks."

You are wrong. I have done it.

I wonder if the race cancellation is a ploy by the Wanda group (own world marathon majors) who is $900m in debt to recuperate some of that

tired of theft wrote:

800 dude wrote:

You will not win the dispute. The credit card company will ask Tokyo what's going on, Tokyo will show them the contract, and the credit card company will say, "very good, thanks."

You are wrong. I have done it.

You could just say you don't know what this charge is and you didn't do it. Happens all the time.

Facts are worthless wrote:

You could just say you don't know what this charge is and you didn't do it. Happens all the time.

You could do anything, but this isn't what I did.

I merely reported that the company did not provide the service they sold me.

A lot of ignorance in this thread.

The contract is probably not enforceable. I don't know anything about Japan, but if your an American and you denied the charges on your card, the race would have very little recourse. It wouldn't be worth it for them to pursue a shaky legal case on another continent for a couple hundred dollars. That being said, if your American, the race fee is a pittance compared to all the other costs.

Large corporations with lots of lawyers put unenforceable clauses in contracts all the time. They are there to discourage people who don't know any better from pursuing legal action.

Thanks you for confirming that it isn't legal and that there are actions that can be taken to get a refund from this shameless decision taken by the organisers.

Abeneziel wrote:

Thanks you for confirming that it isn't legal and that there are actions that can be taken to get a refund from this shameless decision taken by the organisers.

Last post on this, since you're just gonna believe whatever you believe:

I am a lawyer who used to represent banks, credit card companies, and insurers. I have also drafted consumer contracts (the kind that nobody reads).

A contract that says, "you pay me and I may or may not put on an event, but I keep the money either way" is not enforceable because the promise to perform is illusory.

But a contract that says, "you pay me, but if the event can't go on because of natural disasters, government orders, acts of god, etc., I keep the money" is generally enforceable. That's how most of these contracts are written. It makes sense because most of the money is spent before the event. Contracts like this with force majeure or act of god clauses are extremely common and are almost always respected by the courts. True, the race organizer can buy insurance to cover certain cancellation causes, but the individual can also buy insurance, so nobody is in a better position here to avoid the loss. Something that isn't anyone's fault happened, which means that a huge pile of money has now been wasted. There's no fair way to determine who should bear the loss other than looking at what the parties agreed to in advance.

Now, in some cases, if a lot of the money hasn't been spent yet and because of the cancellation won't be spent, then you might have an equitable claim for restitution because the cancellation isn't supposed to create a windfall. But where your pro-rata share of the savings from not putting on the race would be minimal and hard to calculate, courts will not deviate from the plain terms of the contract.

pierre_paris_206 wrote:

Will race shirts and medals be distributed?

If they send everyone their t shirt and medal, that'll make most of them happy.