Popular Bay Area Summer Camps Canceled Due to COVID-19, No Refunds Offered
SAN FRANCISCO (KPIX) -- One of the Bay Area's most popular summer camps, Galileo Learning, alerted parents on Thursday that it had canceled all programs due to COVID-19 and no refunds would be given. Instead, parents will get a credit for future summer camps.
"I have sympathy for small businesses and everything that's going on right now but I don't think that this is the way to withhold hundreds if not thousands of dollars from parents," said Duke Lee of Lafayette.
Lee paid $1,500 in February for a 3-week summer camp for his 5-year-old son.
"We were paying for in-person child care and the amount we're paying should be connected to that. However, they didn't even offer any kind of rebate or percentage back," Lee said.
Galileo Learning serves 20,000 kids at multiple locations across the Bay Area.
"I definitely understand that and I wish it was possible for us to give refunds to everybody but it's just not," said Galileo Learning founder and CEO, Glen Tripp. "Like so many different small businesses, we're just hugely impacted by this pandemic situation and we have stripped away quite a bit of our year-round headquarters staff, we've reduced salaries, we've had to go through layoffs."
Tripp said it is simply impossible for the Oakland-based company to issue refunds. He says the majority of the money collected from parents has already been spent on previous investments made in the fall. Disbursing even partial refunds would force the organization to shut down.
In the meantime, Galileo has rolled out a free virtual camp.
"What I would say to parents is that I care deeply about serving your kids and we're doing the best that we can under this very hard situation and I'm committed to making you whole over time ... give us a chance," said Tripp.
Palo Alto-based Digital Media Academy also told parents that there would be no refunds -- only credits -- for tech camps in 2021 and access to an online lab.
"Very frustrated, in this time of so much uncertainty, with so many families who need to just be able to pay mortgage, that sort of response seems very cold and heartless," said Karen Ho, a parent in Mountain View.
Ho paid more than $3,300 to enroll her son and daughter in weeklong digital photography and 3-D printing camps. The payment included pre-paid lunches and fees for using the Stanford campus.
Many parents have taken to Yelp to share similar stories. Their reviews stated repeated calls and emails to Digital Media Academy have gone unanswered.
The company told KPIX it will offer credits and sent the following response to an inquiry about parents who don't want those credits:
Regarding the "refunds in full", although we are aware of a few outlying accounts, the majority of our clients have been pleased with the honoring of full account credits. As we have a responsibility to uphold our agreed upon policies with all clients, in general, the refund back to the client request would be denied. Please know, each account is treated as its own case and cannot be discussed in detail with anyone aside from the main Account Holder. - Digital Media Academy
Meanwhile, some parents have taken to contesting the charges with their credit card companies and contacting the Better Business Bureau and the state attorney general's office.
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