refundable.me

Forced to provide death certificate

In January, I purchased a ticket for the Big Half half marathon via Let’s Do This, which takes place in September. As it was so far in advance, I paid extra for a refundable registration, as I didn’t know if I would get injured or have something else come up stopping me from participating. The Big Half is sold out and London Marathon Events no longer use refundable.me for their refunds (presumably because of such poor feedback) so I can no longer see exactly how this was framed, but looking at their other events, the headline is that you can “Upgrade your registration and receive a full refund rapidly.”Then, closer to the event, my grandmother passed away. Given that I had paid for a refundable place, I expected this to be easily arranged; her memorial service is on the day of the half marathon, so I obviously can no longer compete. However, it transpires that I must provide her death certificate and proof of our relationship in order to obtain a refund. Providing proof of relationship to a grandmother seems unnecessarily complicated and to require sharing excessive personal data, but it is the sharing of the death certificate which I am especially angry about. My grandmother took her own life, so her death is with the coroner, which is expected to take months, and I therefore cannot provide a death certificate at this point. This is obviously a distressing time, and I hoped it would be easy to understand why an exception was needed here. Yet when I reached out to refundable.me to explain that I could not provide a death certificate, I was told that “in accordance with the terms agreed upon at the time of purchase, we are required to request the same documentation from all customers in order to process a refund, regardless of the circumstances.” It is obviously true that I did not read the Terms and Conditions in full, but I believe that purchasing a refundable add-on implies that it would be possible to obtain a refund easily, when this is not the case. The ASA requires that any significant limitations or qualifications to claims like “refundable” need to be clear, prominent, and upfront in the booking flow, with the CAP Code 3.3 stating that “Marketing communications must not mislead by omitting significant limitations and qualifications. Qualifications may clarify but must not mislead by contradicting the claims that they qualify.” It is my belief that I have been misled in agreeing to these Terms. This combination of deliberate ambiguity and a refusal to understand my distressing circumstances leaves me extremely unhappy with my experience of refundable.me. I will certainly never be purchasing cover via them again.

Date of experience: Aug 07, 2025