Lucy W.

(The full force of my frustration at the end)
Initially, I had booked to attend a yoga teacher training in May in Barcelona and paid a deposit of 570 euro which is just under $1000 New Zealand dollars.
It stated on the website and in the email communication that it was fully refundable up until 1 month before. I work as a nurse in NZ and with the whole COVID situation, it became obvious early in the year that I would not be taking this holiday. So I contacted the people running the course and informed them that I will no longer be able to attend before the 1 month cut off, and they confirmed that they will be refunding me and that Booking yoga retreats are processing this request and there will be a longer waiting period due to a lot of cancellations. Understandable.
What I deeply concerned about is the integrity of this company, especially given the market is yoga retreats which have certain values attached to it.
I was sent an email about 2 months after my confirmed refund indicating that they will be giving me a voucher and when I replied with my surprise they claimed that my deposit was non-refundable and that they were doing me a favour by giving me the voucher and that I needed to check my facts. They sent me this response within 24hrs.
I replied with a timeline of events and attached the previous email correspondence for them with the facts and stated I would be making a complaint so that other people won't be subjected to the frustrations I had experienced.
That was 5 days ago now so I feel like they have had their chance to make amends and do the right thing so here is my scathing review as promised.

Extremely poor customer service, to the point where I visualise the whole office barricading their doors with hoarded toilet paper and using N95's masks as a way to hide from all the yogis wanting their money back.
Makes me wonder what else Dutch companies get away with, this one definitely is a stain on their economy. To think that such a revolutionary company as the Dutch East India Trading was seeded by them just shows that with great innovation comes its equal share of incompetence.