The Consumers’ Foundation yesterday said a survey of 16 road-running events showed that nine events did not have a refund policy and the other seven allowed only conditional refunds.
The foundation said road running has become popular in Taiwan with 740 events held in 2015 — about 14.2 events each week — an increase of 42 percent compared with the previous year.
The trend continued last year, with more than 187 events held each season, it said, adding that the Chinese Taipei Road Running Association estimated that more than 400,000 people in Taiwan run regularly and more than 2 million people have participated in an event.
The foundation said admission fees for many of these events increased drastically in the past few years, such as the Taipei International Marathon, which increased from NT$1,000 in 2014 to NT$1,500 last year and the 5km Hello Kitty Run which increased from NT$1,280 in 2014 to NT$1,680 last year.
Foundation chairman Yu Kai-hsiung (游開雄) said that many organizations do not have a clear refund policy — nine events do not allow refunds while seven allow refunds with strict requirements.
An announcement by the Ministry of Education’s Sports Administration last year stipulated that road-running events fees, withdraw and refund policies should be publicly available, Yu said.
“Many road-running events accept admissions about three to four months beforehand, but due to work or health issues, participants may be unable to attend,” Yu added.
“Organizers should not set refund policies that are unfair to the consumers,” he said.
The seven events with conditional refund policies require participants to apply at least 30 to 60 days before the event takes place, and one event allows refunds only within 15 days after registration, Yu said.
To protect consumers’ rights, the foundation urged the Sports Administration to address the organizers with unfair refund policies and ask them to set policies within a given period of time, as well as set provisions in the standard contract that organizers must follow.
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