Unethical travel practice? Advice

Sorry in advance but this post may be long.
Back in late May/Early June my daughter tried out and joined an 18u showcase team that had fairly high dues of $1250. She has played 3 tournaments with them.

First tournament (ASA State) even though the team had a roster of 14 and only 2 players were not coming brought in a guest player.

Second tournament (Rock Hill, Showcase) - 12 roster players in attendance, team brought in a known "freeloader" to also play, and allowed the rising eighth grade sibling of a player play. She got more at bats than my daughter and several other roster players.

Third tournament (Hot Times, Florence) - only 9 players on Thursday, but on Friday/Saturday they had 10 players. One player (not my daughter) did not play a single inning on Fri/Sat but they sure used her on Thursday when they had only 9.

This week the team basically pressured 3 members off their "large"roster by bascically letting them know they would now see limited time including the girl who sat last weekend, my daughter and one other girl who tried out with and joined as the same time as my daughter.

We have paid them $650 - never received the uniform (as supposedly it was "on order" or other equipment promised.

We were told that there would be no refund under the provisons of the team handbook - posted below

"Should your child decide to leave the organization or be released from the organization before the year ends the following procedures will be enforced.

· All uniforms, including helmets and bat bags become your sole property. You will not be refunded for uniforms, bat bags or helmets.
· You may offer to sell your uniform, helmet and bat bag back to the team for a prorated fee. This will be determined at the discretion of the Team Manager.
· All Sanction fees and Insurance fees are non refundable.
· All tournament fees that your child’s team participated in prior to you leaving the organization are non refundable regardless if your child participated in said tournaments.
· All tournaments budgeted but yet not played at the time of your leaving the organization will not be refunded as they are typically paid in advance.
· Any sponsorships, donations or fundraisers you collected while in the organization become the organizations. "


I have tried to contact the coach but to no avail. Is this common practice? Is this ethical to basically be able to "release" a player and they are responsible for tournament fees they will not play in and equipment/uniforms they did not recieve?

Any advice?

Thanks
RB

 

RB, this should be a very rewarding and exciting experience for you and your daughter. I'm sorry for what you are going through. Unfortunately, there are some people that will give a good sales pitch to take advantage of others for their own gains. You may be able to take action in small claims court. Do a little research.

In travel ball, all showcase teams/organizations are NOT created equal. Practically anyone can get a team together, pay their money, and play "showcase". Every parent should talk with a lot of different people in an attempt to do a "background check" before you join a team. Make sure that you know what you are getting yourself and daughter into. You can talk with other travel ball coaches, college coaches, and especially former players/parents of the team. Consider asking the coach to provide you a list of former players with phone numbers so you can contact their parents. Especially look for people who left the team to move to another team to find out why. If the coach is not willing to provide this, consider asking why. Also, beware of teams where the coach has a daughter on the team. In SOME cases, but not all, that may be a sign of problems on multiple fronts. Also, beware of signing one sided agreements. Normally, in order for a contract to be enforceable, there must be "consideration" provided by both parties.

Hopefully this post will assist others to have very positive travel ball experiences and I apologize if I offended anyone.

 

RUN As fast as you can..... cut your losses....

TELL THEM TO CONTACT YOUR LAWYER....

TELL EVERYBODY ELSE ABOUT YOUR WONDERFUL EXPERIENCE...
SO NO OTHER KID HAS TO GO THROUGH THAT.....

 

Sorry to hear of your bad experience, but not everyone involved in travel ball have good "morals". Too often, coaches and teams forget that the players on their teams are someone's kids. Everyone deserves to be treated with respect and deserves honesty.

Try to find an organization ( a true organization that helps build a player by moving girls up thru their teams, not one that is just interested in stacking the Daddy's ball team) and put time into researching them as suggested in the above posts. There are teams out there that do care about developing their players, I hope that you can find one and have a good experience.

 

Thanks for the responses.
The biggest problem is small claims court will cost $126 to file, and in my calculations I should be entitled to a little over $300 - I guess they are banking on that it doesn't pay for people to go after them.
Unfortunately - I should have done more homework as I am now speaking to people I know, I am finding out somethings I wish I knew earlier.
Let this serve as a warning to other's to really be careful and do your homework.

 

In small claims court, the losing side is responsible for the fee. If you prevail, you would be reimbursed that fee by the defendant. You just need to decide if it is worth your time.

 

I'm sorry you've had a bad experience. Unfortunately, the kids are the ones who pay the most. We had a somewhat similar experience. We thought we were ok because the team is a bigger name team around here. It was a joke and my kid got nothing out of it, softball speaking. Luckily, we saw the writing on the wall and left fairly quickly. THEN, it seems like everyone started telling us the bad things about that coach/team. If we had investigated better, we would never have gotten near them. Maybe your story can help others in the future.
On the good side, my kid learned a lot about how things work in the world, and that just because someone is a coach or even adult, they aren't necessarily good people. Hopefully your family can find the lesson in this. You will find a better, and happier, place. And things always have a way of balancing themselves out in the end