Virigina Beach race cancelled due to COVID 19 refunds refused

lorettob wrote:

Virginia Beach Shamrock Races cancelled due to the COVID19. J& A Racing refusing refunds. Telling everybody they are offering a virtual race or for an additional fee they will let you run next year. They also said you should have gotten race insurance. What the hell? Each half marathon entrant paid $118. This is a SCAM

Race insurance usually only covers the individual if they get hurt, sick,get in a car accident on the way to the, etc. Most the time it doesnt cover weather/emergencies.

dark cloud wrote:

lorettob wrote:

The scam isn't that the race was cancelled. The scam is that the runners aren't being given their entry fees back.

This is happening EVERYWHERE. I had 3 races cancelled today. It honestly pales in significance when you realise we are entering very serious and trying times.

Unless you are referring to a bad economy as serious times, we are not. The coronavirus is not that bad for healthy people. Those who contract it will be sick for a few days, just like they would if they got the flu. Stop scare mongering. Now if the economy crashes, we could be in for bad times, but not for a minor virus that causes a week or so of sickness in healthy folks.

Shamrock should reschedule. There is no big fall race in Virginia Beach and its the biggest race in Hampton Roads all year. The race draws tons of out of towners and generates lots of money for the city and a permit for a fall date would be easily approved. I knew something was off about Jerry and Amy Frostwick when I saw them riding their ridiculous fat tire bikes. Do a charge back on your credit card since you've paid for a service which is not being rendered.

Any race organisation that disrespects their customers by not offer at a minimum a free deferral will destroy the public opinion of their event and likely kill the future of the race. People on mass won’t tolerate being ripped off and any losses should be up to the business to cover through their own insurance and not the customer for a service they never received.

There is a glut of half marathons in that region in the fall. There is Rocknroll va beach in September, crawling crab half in October, Norfolk harbor half in November, plus the Richmond marathon and 1/2 a short drive away. Plus, two of those races are already managed by J and A, so they would be competing with themselves forrunners if they rescheduled for fall. I’m not saying it isn’t a crappy situation, but rescheduling is not really a practical solution. What would be practical would be to offer transfers into one of the J and A fall 1/2s. Have they offered that as an option?

Kvothe wrote:

dark cloud wrote:

This is happening EVERYWHERE. I had 3 races cancelled today. It honestly pales in significance when you realise we are entering very serious and trying times.

Unless you are referring to a bad economy as serious times, we are not. The coronavirus is not that bad for healthy people. Those who contract it will be sick for a few days, just like they would if they got the flu. Stop scare mongering. Now if the economy crashes, we could be in for bad times, but not for a minor virus that causes a week or so of sickness in healthy folks.

Moran.

I wholeheartedly donate the fee of all canceled races I signed up for to the respective organizers. It's a tough time for them. It's a labor of love for most of them in this cottage industry and niche sport. My big thanks to them, keep up the spirit. Ignore the cheap idiots posting here.

The for profit company J & A Racing which runs the Virginia Beach Shamrock run will likely be eligible for both federal and local Small Business financial relief when all is said and done. But the individual runner will not receive a dime of their entrance fee back. How many runners X $115 a racer. I also can't believe J & A ins't going to recoup some of their up front costs. by the way they are offering a virtual race or for an additional fee rolling over registration to next year.

I know this COVID 19 is bringing alot of pain and suffering and for the race directors this i s a labor of love but it is a business and this business practice is shabby and the sport shouldn't tolerate it.

I don't know this particular company, but many reputable event organizers around the world (not just running, but other sports, art, science, tech trade show, etc) are doing the same thing now, and no, it's not shabby business practice. It's an emergency situation.

The legal contract of your registration (which you click 'ok') is likely to already say you don't deserve reimbursement. You don't pay to do buy the race itself as service, but to buy the planning and reservation. The security guy that already earmark his calendar to work that day will still have to be paid. The municipality already budgeted the road closure fee and spent it on whole bunch of other things that can't be undone without breaking many other contracts.

If you want security, buy insurance that cover pandemics. Or live in a country where the regulation mandated reimbursement, or maybe where races are free (but they come at other costs: high tax, or high sign-up fee). Uncertainty cost money. Somebody has to pay for it.

Uncertainty? Jerry and Amy Frostwick are certain they'll be laughing all the way to the bank. They just scammed you losers.

Imagine the windfall these guys caught:

https://ruggedraces.com/

Canceled all their upcoming events and "went virtual" to avoid offering refunds.

My conference was cancelled. I got a full refund. I cancelled my hotel full refund, I cancelled a discretionary purchase as my job is about to end due to COVID 19 full refund. The only business who isn't giving full refunds are for profit road race directors.

Come on.

Coronow or never wrote:

The legal contract of your registration (which you click 'ok') is likely to already say you don't deserve reimbursement. You don't pay to do buy the race itself as service, but to buy the planning and reservation. The security guy that already earmark his calendar to work that day will still have to be paid. The municipality already budgeted the road closure fee and spent it on whole bunch of other things that can't be undone without breaking many other contracts.

This is BS. You pay for the race. No race, broken contract.

They are not paying the security guy.

They are getting their money back from the city.

Just do a charge-back on your credit card and be done with it. No reason to argue with a bunch of people on here justifying this kind of behavior. Just get your money back and move on.

Correct on all accounts. Coronobraincells can enter some virtual races and pay race directors for the privilege of breathing to make up for the people with common sense.

Answer to road race fees:

Do the Park Run series if available in your area( on hold till at least the end of March like just about everything). There all 5k’s . They’re FREE. Measured, timed and age graded. All they ask is u volunteer once in a while. Like road racing used to be . All kinds of athletes. Elites, racers, walkers. Back to basics people!

I personally do not know about the situation with Shamrock but I am on the board of a major race in the area and have worked with J&A for years. I personally know the owners and they are good people who will do what is right and best for their event.

Much of the cost of the event has already been paid. Also, the race should have race insurance but does not cover everything. Also, race insurance will undoubtedly be much greater after this spring which is something all major road races will deal with and must plan for.

Again, I am sure J&A will do the right thing for their event and the running community as a whole. They understand you cannot make your customer upset and expect to have successful events in the future.

This is correct. People should not be grumbling about their stupid race fees. The economic impact is so far reaching. Stop whining and think of the economy as a whole.

I know we all love triathletes, but that is primarily about running events, from an RD. The only thing that isn't consistent with my experience as an RD is the timing side. We timed our own events, so we didn't incur that cost. That's basically where our margin was, and what would have been a timing fee or gone to a timing company instead went to a charity. We built our events to breakeven from entry fees, and used any sponsorship money and any profit to go to our charity partners.

We also did not charge our timing clients until after their events. We took a deposit that in most cases was about 20% of the expected charges and billed post-race. For the one event we had cancel, we refunded that.

One factor that is lightly mentioned in the article is the % of people that sign up in the last few weeks before a race, but the costs are incurred for the expected total people well ahead of time.

For example, for a May event planning 1,000 runners, we'd be sitting at maybe 50-60% of that number registered right now, 6-7 weeks out. However, we'd already have 1,000 medals, 1,000 shirts, 500 shirts for volunteers, on course nutrition, signage, awards, permit fees, insurance, course certification, marketing...And that insurance doesn't cover anything like this, and it's very possible/likely that an April or May event is actually in a hole at this point, in a normal year and the cash doesn't exist to give refunds. The registration fees have already been turned into medals that were ordered from China in November to make it onto a container ship before Chinese New Year (seriously, this is a factor. If you're a spring race, you need your medals to leave China before that because factories close).

We never had one of our races cancelled, but did have a client race cancel due to a flood. To try to help them out, we teamed up with another upcoming race and shared the burden on offering transfers to that race, and the cancelled race mailed shirts, medals, etc to the registrants. We had the advantage of being a connected retail, timing, and event operation, so we had our risk dispersed a bit on the event side. If we just had the events as stand alone, we'd have had a lot less options, and cash flow would have been a lot more painful.

I think it's reasonable to expect some type of discount or entry to another race if an alternate date isn't offered, and the race should make an effort to provide you with the items they've spent money on: shirt, medal, any swag, throw in some GU's, at least make the effort to show good faith if the cash has been spent.

For some clarification, I'm speaking in past tense as I've sold that business, but it is still operating successfully.