Melbourne teens awaiting thousands in non-refunded World Challenge trip deposits
COVID-19 has left Melbourne students, who fundraised thousands of dollars over 18 months for overseas philanthropic trips, in limbo — and chasing the return of pricey deposits which may never be paid back.
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COVID-19 has left students, who fundraised thousands of dollars over 18 months for overseas philanthropic trips, in limbo and chasing the return of deposits up to $2700.
Students across government and non-government schools have raised and paid tens of thousands of dollars to fund the trips, largely to developing countries combining a holiday and a project to help the community.
One of the largest providers World Challenge is facing a backlash from some families who say they should release a $2700 deposit instead of offering credits.
Newhaven College, on Phillip Island, has 24 students trying to get all or part of the deposit, totalling close to $66,000, returned after paying up for planned trips to Swaziland and Mozambique now.
World Challenge has returned the balance of the money, which works out at $5000 per child.
It has offered a number of solutions including rescheduling the trip for later or allowing students to use credits for other trips or transfer credits to other students at the school.
Newhaven principal Gea Lovell said the school had been associated with World Challenge for 15 years. She said the directions by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade to ban overseas travel was out of the school’s hands.
“The school is extremely disappointed that following DFAT’s ban on overseas travel, that World Challenge have not refunded the students’ deposits for our 24 travellers. We have exhausted all our channels of inquiry with them, and support our parent advocates in trying to get their deposit refunded,” she said.
An insider at the school said they were disappointed given the school’s long association with World Challenge and the fact that students worked very hard to raise money to attend to trip.
“World Challenge are holding approximately $66,000, saying that they have incurred significant cost to date,” Ms Lovell said.
She said World Challenge has responded that the retention of the deposit was stated in their terms and conditions and the payment schedule was built to reflect the costs throughout the planning and actual trip.
“We acknowledge that some costs may have been incurred, thus asked for a summary of the expenditure to date, but we have not received this,” she said.
“World Challenge have said that they are disregarding their terms and conditions by making an offer to families to hold the full value of the moneys paid to World Challenge in credit for any future trip run up until September 2022. They could use this credit for any WC tour or pass the credit on to another student at the school.
“Our students have worked hard and made sacrifices to raise the funds for their trip and our school supports our parents in pursuing all avenues to secure a refund of their deposit.”
However, many students undertaking the trips do them before Year 12 so they would be unlikely to take up the trip next year.
World Challenge managing director Pete Fletcher said on Tuesday the trips were not cancelled but rescheduled, adding the trips were planned over 18 months.
He said there would be an opportunity for all students to go on the trip or if they could not pass the credit on to a sibling or another student at the school for a later trip.
“It’s a difficult time for so many people, and our genuine empathy goes out to all World Challenge families,” he said.
“The World Challenge expedition program is not like any other overseas school trip because it starts on average 18 months before departure, to enable time for training and preparation before the students head overseas. This of course means that certain costs have already been incurred, which makes it difficult to make a 100 per cent cash refund so close to departure.”
He said in the case of Newhaven College the trip will be deferred for 12 months, to July 2021.
“To ease the burden on families we’ve refunded individuals up to $4,750. The amount of money retained is $2,690 per student. Although this amount has been spent on the program to date, the full amount ($2690) will of course be credited towards their trip next year,” he said.
“For students that can’t participate next year, the full value of their credit can be transferred to any other student at the school, to be applied to the deferred trip next year or any other World Challenge trip that runs up to September 30 2022.”
He said World Challenge runs trips to 50 destinations so any student could apply the credit to another trip.
“It’s a very difficult time for many people and organisations and this very much includes those in international travel. Unfortunately there have already been many job cuts at World Challenge and all remaining staff have taken salary reductions to weather the COVID-19 storm. We’re genuinely doing the best we possibly can for schools, our team and all World Challenge families and we hope this comes across..”
Mr Fletcher said World Challenge was working with a number of schools to manage the issue.
In some cases, schools had taken the credit which would be used by another student later on.
It is understood there are a number of schools taking the same stance as Newhaven.
Mr Fletcher said World Challenge has offered to manage the transfer of credit between students.
A pinned post to the World Challenge Facebook page has been swamped with upset parents.
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