71Corvette
Junior Member
What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Maine
My Fiance and I will be getting married next summer. Long story short we found a venue we liked, met with a representative, discussed various questions and contract terms, and ultimately reserved the location by placing a deposit on the reservation. At the time we made the deposit we also signed a contact recognizing that, amongst other things, the deposit was non-refundable.
Over the past several months we've been becoming increasing less impressed with how this paticular business operates. In fact we're finding that they provided us with plenty of inaccurate information while they were 'wooing' us as potential clients. As an example, they told us that booking a vendor (i.e. DJ, florist, caterer, etc) from their 'exclusive network of vendors' would save us money because they have great relationships with those vendors which allowed them to negotiate better prices. We have since learned (with documented proof) that this venue marks UP their in-network vendor prices by as much as 30% to 50%! In some cases we are required to use certain vendors from their network. The Contact makes no mention of anything to do with markups or vendor management fees. Additionally, we've talked to several vendors outside of their 'exclusive network' and they refuse to do our wedding because of this facilities poor treatment of them in the past, and because of their 'unfair' business practices.
This recent discovery, combined with a host of other minor issues, has left us pretty unhappy. We're now eager to terminate our business relationship with this company and take our business elsewhere. I realize we were duped (shame on us) and that we signed a contract indicating the deposit we made is non-refundable. However, our primary motivation for leaving is that we were misled by representatives of this company; we have no intention of paying rediculous markups that were never 'part of the deal'. Could this somehow be considered breach of contract or false advertising?
We plan to meet with the owner of the company in order to ask that we be released from the contract without penalty. We want to keep this as cordial of a conversation as possible, but any 'ammunition' you folks could provide would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks!
Tim
My Fiance and I will be getting married next summer. Long story short we found a venue we liked, met with a representative, discussed various questions and contract terms, and ultimately reserved the location by placing a deposit on the reservation. At the time we made the deposit we also signed a contact recognizing that, amongst other things, the deposit was non-refundable.
Over the past several months we've been becoming increasing less impressed with how this paticular business operates. In fact we're finding that they provided us with plenty of inaccurate information while they were 'wooing' us as potential clients. As an example, they told us that booking a vendor (i.e. DJ, florist, caterer, etc) from their 'exclusive network of vendors' would save us money because they have great relationships with those vendors which allowed them to negotiate better prices. We have since learned (with documented proof) that this venue marks UP their in-network vendor prices by as much as 30% to 50%! In some cases we are required to use certain vendors from their network. The Contact makes no mention of anything to do with markups or vendor management fees. Additionally, we've talked to several vendors outside of their 'exclusive network' and they refuse to do our wedding because of this facilities poor treatment of them in the past, and because of their 'unfair' business practices.
This recent discovery, combined with a host of other minor issues, has left us pretty unhappy. We're now eager to terminate our business relationship with this company and take our business elsewhere. I realize we were duped (shame on us) and that we signed a contract indicating the deposit we made is non-refundable. However, our primary motivation for leaving is that we were misled by representatives of this company; we have no intention of paying rediculous markups that were never 'part of the deal'. Could this somehow be considered breach of contract or false advertising?
We plan to meet with the owner of the company in order to ask that we be released from the contract without penalty. We want to keep this as cordial of a conversation as possible, but any 'ammunition' you folks could provide would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks!
Tim