5 year old invoiced £15.95 for no-show ~ remember 'Hari Sadhu' Advt ?

People enjoy outside food and book their table for a pleasant dinner – may be poolside, relaxing.  Remember that famous commercial, where the Manager calls to book a table and his assistant in trying to assist, blurs – H for Hitlor, A for Arrogant, R – Rascal and I – Idiot ….  Would we be similarly portrayed by our assistants ? – once booked, what happens, if you are unable to make it ? 

No Show :  According to Business dictionary :  

1.Person who fails to attend a meeting he was supposed to, or who buys a ticket to a public performance (a concert, for example) but does not use it.

2.Passenger who neither cancels his or her reservation nor shows up for the flight. The airline will cancel his or her all other reservations (such as for connecting flights, if any) if not otherwise notified, and usually will not refund any portion of the ticket price.

3.Shipper who fails to deliver a booked shipment to the carrier. He or she may still have to pay the full freight.

4.Traveler who fails to show up for a reserved room without notifying the hotel of the cancellation. He or she is usually charged for one night's room charges.

With some Airlines, ‘no-show’ is a clause that means that a user not showing up for the outbound flight will be considered a no-show, and all the connecting flights associated with this one, even a return flight, will be cancelled and no refund will apply. While it is not clear if carriers should refund users regarding navigation taxes (related to the airline operation and to the governments, which do not appear on a ticket), other expenses, like security, air passenger duty, and noise/environmental can all be refunded, as all these incurred only when a person turns-up.  This clause has raised much concern among users, and court rulings have converged  to the conclusion that "carriers cannot force passengers to fly".

People organise birthday parties for their kids and do call – classmates, those in the apartment, relatives, friends and more.  After you read this article in Daily Mail of what happened at Decon, you may tend to become nervous.

Five year old Alex Nash missed ski slope party and went to see grandparents instead. Weeks later his shocked father Derek found 'no show fee' in school bag.  It had been put there after being handed to a teacher by the boy's mother.  The initial reaction of Mr Nash, 45, from Torpoint, Cornwall,  was that it was a joke.  But when he did not pay, he has been threatened with small claims court'

In a strange incident posted, a  five-year-old boy who missed a friend's birthday party has been invoiced £15.95 - by the host's mother. Derek Nash took his son Alex to see his grandparents instead of turning up to a friend's birthday party - and was handed an invoice for £15.95. The bill was given to the five-year-old via a teacher;  the ski slope involved said it was nothing to do with them. 'We don't have any such things as no-show fees', said the manager.  But the birthday boy's mother - former police employee Julie Lawrence, who organised the party with her partner Colin, believed to be a stage rigger - said she had no regrets.

'All details were on the party invite,' she said in a short statement. 'They had every detail needed to contact me.'  Mr Nash had confirmed Alex would attend the 'slide and ride' party before Christmas at the Plymouth Ski Slope and Snowboard Centre. Costing £15.95 a head, it would have included half an hour on a snow tubing run, three toboggan rides, a hot meal, ice cream, jelly and balloons. But he then realised he had already arranged for their daughter to go on a day trip with her grandparents. Without a contact number or e-mail address for the friend's mother, he claimed, he had no choice but to withdraw Alex from the party and apologise when school resumed on January 6.

Without warning, the bill was found in Alex's bag a week later.  Mr Nash, a delivery driver is quoted as saying that he talked to quite a people on that and they were all incredulous of such a thing happening.   The School’s Headteacher was apologetic that such a cover had been passed on by a teacher and said that it was a breach of protocol. Mr Nash confronted the host's mother, who he said has threatened to take the case to a small claims court.  The report concludes stating that the  host's mother could have little luck getting back the £15.95 in court - where the administration fee to make a claim is £25.

With regards – S. Sampathkumar.

20^th Jan 2015.