Beginning February 24th, 2020, registration and service fees
will no longer be refunded by CourseStorm.
We realize you likely have questions and have provided answers to some of the most common questions surrounding this change.
If you have any questions or concerns about this change, please do not hesitate to reach out.
Information can be found on our help site or by contacting our Customer Success Team.
There are two parts to our fees. One, when a student registers using CourseStorm, the registrant (or program) pays a student fee per registration (typically $1.99). Two, CourseStorm charges a small percentage of each transaction plus the standard credit card payment processing fee. (Fees vary by transaction volume.)
This change affects the fees described above – student registration and transaction fees associated with the class registration.
Your program has complete control of the amount you refund to your registrants.
The payment processing industry has been moving away from refunding fees on refunded transactions for quite some time. Historically, we’ve been able to negotiate deals with our payment processor, so that fees were able to be refunded to our clients. However, industry standards have changed, and this is no longer an option.
By changing our policy, we’ll not only comply with changes from our payment processors, but be able to more deeply invest in building new features for the CourseStorm software you use to every day, making it even better for your program.
When you go to cancel or refund a registration, you’ll be given a new option that asks if you’d like to refund the registration fees back to the student (and pull them out of a future payout) or if you’d prefer to refund the student excluding those fees (thus, passing the fee onto the student). We even allow you to tweak the default behavior to make sure you’re always following your refund policy.
We will not send any invoices for any of these fees. Instead, the appropriate amount will be deducted automatically from your future payouts.
Any refund issued on or after Monday, February 24th, 2020 will apply, regardless of the date the registration was made.
You don’t need to do anything. The system will automatically start the new cancelation process on Monday, February 24th, 2020.
If you plan not to refund registration fees, we strongly suggest including in your refund policy that registrants will not receive a full refund for a canceled registration. If this information is not presented to them, registrants may feel they are owed a full refund and may file a chargeback with their bank. Without a formal refund policy in place, it is hard for us to win these disputes on your behalf. (Management of credit card chargeback disputes is one of CourseStorm’s quiet, but key, user benefits.)
If you do not have a refund policy, we recommend that you create one. Our article, “Clear Expectations: The Importance of a Good Refund Policy” may help you as you consider writing or updating your own policy.