I have been locked in a back and forth exchange with Mitchell Kenigsberg, Customer Service Representative, of Tough Mudder Races and Active, Inc., for two weeks now. I reached out to inquire about a refund for the 2020 Seattle Mudder Classic 10k race I purchased. Tough Mudder canceled that race of their own accord due to Covid-19. I had no problem with that and assumed my tickets would transfer to the next available race date for Seattle. However, in January of this year I had a catastrophic injury and and I am not medically allowed or capable to run the September race now. I let Mitchell know this, and offered to provide medical documentation and doctor's note, instead of working with me, he cited the cancellation policy and told me that start times would be assigned to my wife and I and I have no reasonable expectation that those times would match up. He told me Tough Mudder sent out an email in January explaining how to register to pick a start time.
I looked for that email, and amongst the deluge of spam Tough Mudder has sent me over the year, there was no registration email. Maybe it went to junk, maybe they didn't send it. I don't know. What I do know is, if they're are going to set up a short deadline to get value out of your paid tickets, then they should make every attempt to ensure that the customer is notified of that deadline. One email that may or may not have ended up in the junk file is certainly not an effective attempt.
But then, Tough Mudder lost a lot of money on the 2020 race, maybe their hoping to overbook this year and the 2020 customers don't get to get a refund, transfer, selected race time, or maybe even will not know how to sign back up.
Either way, I tried to work within their ridiculously anti-customer and opportunist policy and at least get my wife and I the same start time and figure out a transfer or something as September approaches.
Mitchell, feeling so generous, sent me a code to use to pick a start time that expired the following day. He didn't tell me how or where to use it. When I fumbled my way through it I realized my wife's ticket wasn't there. I reached out again after his arbitrary deadline had already passed and told him this. I found my wife's account and he, after pressing him, gave me another code for her. That code expired a few hours after he sent it. I didn't get the email till the following morning. So after calling him on it, he gave me till that night at 8:59pm PST. I immediately attempted to lock in both our race times together but was given an invalid message for the codes. I notified him of my multiple attempts. That was Friday, he didn't return my email till Monday when he told me that I was supposed to disregard my already active account and buy two new tickets and use the code, not as a registration code, as he had told me it was, but as a coupon code at checkout. He also explained to me that it was too late now and that I would be assigned a start time and would not commit to allowing my wife and my start time to be guarantee to match up. Even after I relented and told him I'd take an assigned start time.
I explained to him over and over again my medical situation, that my wife and I are both disabled Veterans who really like the race because of its team building and goal achieving challenges. I told him we'd be racing again as soon as my foot was healed enough that I could put those stresses on it. I even asked him if I could just transfer my ticket to another person so they could race with my wife. I cited their own policy on it and he said I could not because the race hasn't been created yet!?! Really??
I've asked to speak to managers, he won't let me. I've asked to have a phone call. He won't do it. I've asked for a refund citing Covid and my injury. It seems like they are using their policy which doesn't include pandemic procedures to steal people's money. I've asked to defer to 2022, which is allowed in their own policy, but he denied that too. I've asked to transfer my ticket to another racer and he has denied that. I've asked him to let me choose matching start times for my wife and I and he gave me a vague code and no instructions on how to use it along with a short expiration timer that made it very unlikely that I, crippled, while at work, commuting, seeing the doctor, kids, cooking dinner, etc., had no opportunity to use in such a short amount of time.
Then when I'd given up on all other avenues and simply asked him to "assign" my wife and I the same start times so we could at least be made whole after THEY canceled our first race, he would not even acknowledge the request. He did however say we would be assigned start times, and no they may not be the same. read more