Payment Policies
This page is linked on every page in the site, to make sure this policy is readily available to you, and that its contents do not come as a surprise.
We wish we could afford to refund you in every case, because we don't want to take your money for nothing, and we want you to have a pleasant experience with NYSB. However, we regret that we cannot.
We do allow refunds, but not on short notice of less than 3 days.
Our payment policy is linked in the sidebar on every page of the site, and on the webpage for each class. We accept that you may choose not to register for the class because you do not like our refund policy. However, registering implies that you understand and have agreed to our payment policy.
Please note, if you are a first-time registrant and you read our policies and still request an unfair transfer or refund, we may give it to you, but we will probably blacklist you and not allow you to register for another class through us, because it is so very financially hard on this small independent business.
If you need to cancel and give us sufficient notice, we will refund you immediately. You may then stay on our email list to be notified when the class is offered again. We cannot transfer the credit to the next offering of that class or to another class because then you are occupying two classes for the price of one.
We keep our classes small in order to preserve the quality of experience for the students. Therefore, all class that sell out have waitlists of people who want to get in. It takes time to contact them and see if they can fill that slot.
If on short notice you request to transfer your credit to another class, you are then occupying two classes for the price of one, because we were unable, given the time frame you provided us, to refill your slot in the first class.
Unfortunately, if we allowed refunds for short notice (fewer than five days before the class)cancellations, it would destroy our business. We know this because we used to allow it. We did some research on what other businesses and dance schools do in such cases, and followed their lead. Because our policies are common practice, we believe them to be reasonable.
The link to this page is featured on the sidebar of every class listing page. We WANT you to read it before you register and try to ensure that you do.
Below, we continue to reiterate our policies. We have had people be very rude to us when we have been operating entirely ethically and with full disclosure.
We would love to not have a payment policy, but the longer we are in business the more we have realized it is essential to keep NYSB alive. To cancel on the same day as a class and request a refund is like stealing from us. If we had to cancel, whether due to illness or a death in the family, we would refund you without question. Can you be that respectful to us?
We require five days because that is how long it is likely to take for us to send out emails to replace you in a sold out class and refill your slot.
YOU MAY TRANSFER YOUR CLASS SLOT TO ANOTHER STUDENT; TO DO SO, SIMPLY SEND US AN EMAIL (nysbinstructors@gmail.com) WITH THEIR NAME AND CONTACT INFORMATION.
OUR PAYMENT, REFUND, TRANSFER AND CANCELLATION POLICIES ARE BASED ON POLICIES OF SIMILAR BUSINESSES AND SCHOOLS AND ARE POLICIES WE WOULD EXPECT TO EXPERIENCE IF WE WERE STUDENTS REGISTERED ELSEWHERE.
All classes require registration, to prevent overcrowding. If you prepay and we have to cancel the class for ANY reason (weather, illness, death in the family) you will receive a full refund, no matter what the cost to us. We respect your time, effort, and money.\
We do not permit short notice cancellations. Read this entire page before you consider asking us for an exception.
We do not do class credit transfers. If you let us know you can't make a class a week before the class, we will refund you and you can register yourself for another class, but we do not transfer credits. Again, on short notice (less than five days), we can't afford to do even the refunds. Before you consider asking for an exception, please read below to understand how short notice cancellations can hurt a small business such as ours.
If you cancel for a class that is sold out it requires us about quite a lot of work to repost the class.
If you don't make a class, we can't refund it, unless there is a refund policy stated in the class listing. A postponement or date switch costs us the same as if you don't show up at all. We are a small business, a collective of teachers, not a corporation, and it is difficult for us to refund a slot and ten repost a sold out class. We may have already paid the teacher. We also have to pay for the studio rental space even if we don't use it.
We are not like the airlines who will overbook a flight. When you purchase a slot in one of our classes, you really own it, and no one else can have it whether you show up or not. If you were to transfer that credit to another class it would cost us the price of your attendance to let you make that transfer and fill a slot someone else might have paid for (most of our classes sell out and have waiting lists), so we can't do it. It's as if you'd rented a hotel room--no one else can stay in it whether or not you sleep there. If you cancel right before a class or series, we can't give you a refund or credit because it would cost us every penny of what you paid, since there isn't time for us to offer someone else the slot. Even if we keep your deposit we still lose out on the balance someone would have paid (for this reason we can also NOT offer partial series attendance). If you can't make a class during a series, we can't offer you a substitute class, because we can't refill a slot in a series. It's as if you rented a car and didn't drive it--it's still the case that no one else could drive it during the day you had it rented. You may, however, offer it to a friend and have them pay you, as long as you let us know someone else will be attending in your place. But we will not be responsible for collecting from them--they must pay YOU.
Short notice cancellations and class substitutions cost us money and harm this small independent business. Our refund policies are lenient compared to standard university policies, but we do not offer refunds casually. We can't afford to.
If several people have the same problem with a class (for instance, if three or four people say they thought the class was at a different time), we will assume that it is our fault. Otherwise, however, we will assume that we have made all the appropriate effort to present the information you need and have provided the class as we said we would.
If you have a gift certificate someone bought for you, you can use it in any class which is not held as a charity or benefit, but you must still register ahead of time and are still subject to class space availability and refund and payment policies. The size of a scheduled class is based on sightlines, space, number of props available, etc., and is not arbitrary or negotiable.
If your class (that is any scheduled class or series) or event (such as a bachelorette, birthday, or other private party) allows a deposit (not all classes do), that deposit is fully refundable up to ten days before the event, and 50% refundable up to a week before the event. After that it is nonrefundable and nontransferable.
Parties or private lessons or events booked less than a week in advance must be paid in full in advance. If you have to cancel we will refund all but your $100 deposit. Change of date is the same for us as a cancellation because we still had to reserve your time slot and turn down other people who might have been interested.
For parties, you may not consider your reservation confirmed until we have received a deposit. If we don't hear from you for awhile and don't receive a deposit, we will assume you have changed your plans.
We repeat, if we cancel for ANY reason--bad weather, accident, sudden death--we will refund your payment as quickly as we can, even if it is difficult for us to repay you, even if it costs us additional money. Keeping in mind that we respect you so much, and want your respect so much, that we consider it our duty and our responsibility to do so, now understand how you may respect us. We are not a chain or franchise but an independently owned and operated neighborhood business with decent but limited means.
We are not like the airlines who will overbook a flight. When you purchase a slot in one of our classes, you really own it, and no one else can have it whether you show up or not. If you were to transfer that credit to another class it would cost us the price of your attendance to let you make that transfer and fill a slot someone else might have paid for (most of our classes sell out and have waiting lists), so we can't do it. It's as if you'd rented a hotel room--not one else can stay in it whether or not you sleep there. If you cancel right before a class or series, we can't give you a refund or credit because it would cost us every penny of what you paid, since there isn't time for us to offer someone else the slot. Even if we keep your deposit we still lose out on the balance someone who really wanted to attend would have paid (for this reason we can also NOT offer partial series attendance). If you can't make a class during a series, we can't offer you a substitute class, because we can't refill a slot in a series. It's as if you rented a car and didn't drive it--it's still the case that no one else could drive it during the day you had it rented. You may, however, offer it to a friend and have them pay you, as long as you let us know someone else will be attending in your place. But we will not be responsible for collecting from them--they must pay YOU.
Repeat, if you pay a deposit, your deposit is fully refundable up till 10 days before the class. From 10-7 days, it is 50% refundable. From 7-1 days, it is not refundable. Sorry for the tough love, it's the only way we can survive!
If you have paid a deposit on a series, you will be invoiced for the balance 10-7 days before the class series begins, and must pay it within three days or you will lose both your slot in the class and your deposit. We won't have time to fill your slot with a paying student!
We've had to start requiring deposits because we were believing that classes were full due to the number of reservations made, turning away people who wanted to make reservations because the classes were full, then having a 50% no-show in some classes. If this were to continue, it would put us out of business. If you look at the refund policies of other schools, you'll find ours is quite lenient.
If you cancel without sufficient notice you cost the school money. All classes are limited re number of students in order to ensure the quality of the class experience. If the class is sold out, there is usually a waiting list. If you cancel with too short of notice we do not have time to contact any of those on the list. The School is an independent, local business, not a corporation that can absorb unreasonable costs.
Be very clear about which email address you want to use to communicate with you if it is not the same as your paypal email address.
If these policies change, the policy that will be in place will be the one that was stated at the time you made your reservation.
