AITAH For telling my childs teacher I may charge back/cancel orders.?
A father shares his frustration after his 12-year-old son worked tirelessly for two months selling over 200 items for a school fundraiser, aiming to win an Oculus VR headset as advertised in the reward tiers. Instead, his son was given a $15 Dairy Queen gift card, leaving the boy devastated. The father told the teacher he expects proper compensation or will cancel the order, which he paid for upfront. Read the full story below.
‘ AITAH For telling my childs teacher I may charge back/cancel orders.?’
My son who is in 5th grade had a booklet from school to sell things for them. Chocolates, flowers, and the typical boosters a lot of us got to do growing up. Anyways there were tiers of rewards for selling items. From 10 items all the way up to 200 items. 210 items prize was an Occulus VR headset. My child worked his ass off.
Over the span of 2 months selling this stuff. The cheapest thing in this book was a 17$ box of chocolates. He sold 217 items. Few thousand dollars in value. Not only all the hours he put in to achieve his goal, now all the time “we” have to spend delivering the goods. He comes home from school today with a 15$ gift card to dairy queen.
There are no occulus to be handed out. I paid for the entire order off of my card and will collect the money when we deliver. AITAH for telling the teacher he should be compensated or I will cancel the order. He is 12 and put in well over 40+ hours in the few months. To be shafted.
This has nothing to do with the value of the item. I just seen my child learn some work ethic, and be highly motivated for his goal. 2 months its all that has been talked about is “dad I can’t wait for my occulus vr”. To be handed a 15$ ice cream gift card.
See what others had to share with OP:
Head-Emotion-4598 − Was this via a fundraising company? I was in charge of fundraising at our elementary school for 2 years, and nothing like ever happened to my knowledge.
Or was it the school promising things? If it was a company (Like Big Kahuna, Boosterthon, World’s finest Chocolate or Apex, for example) email them, along with the principal and teacher to get it worked out. If it was via just the school or PTA/PTO, add them to the email. I hope your kid gets his prize!
SaltywithaTwist − You need to contact the company behind the goods and see what they say. They should be the ones providing the prizes.
mynameisnotsparta − OP please detail exactly what the contest for sales was please. Was it **all kids who sold 210 items have a chance to win the Oculus VR?** or was it **every kid who sells 210 gets an Oculus VR**
do2g − More info? If the tier was 210 items and he sold 217, what was the reason given for your son not getting the Oculus? Were there conditions or criteria that were not met?
lo0psie − Skip talking to the teacher who has no control or say in the matter–that’s an administrator question as they approved & implemented the fundraising program.
Maleficent_Theory818 − I wouldn’t talk to the teacher. They are the person that has to put the order forms in the kids backpacks. I would see who is running the fundraiser, like the Parent’s Club, and contact them directly. Or contact the school office to see who you can contact.
-Istvan-5- − I’m from Europe, and moved to the US. Had a kid. Where in from, schools are provided for by the nations taxes. Here, I pay our my ass via property taxes for school. Now, when my kid goes to school they ask me to buy like $100+ worth if paper, pencils, etc. For him.
I’m like ok…. Wtf… But ok, I’ll buy my kid some paper, pencils etc. Turns out all this s**t isn’t even for him, the school takes it all and stocks up the communal stocks for all pupils.. Wtf? Then he starts coming home with these catalogs trying to sell me s**t so his school can ‘fundraise’. Literally turning my boy into a f**king Avon salesman, or a pyramid scheme hustler.. Wtf are my taxes for?. It’s so f**king stupid.
Agoraphobe961 − NTA. I had a Girl Scout leader who always did that, she’d re-route the numbers to her daughter for the big prizes. Talk to not just the teacher, but the principal or school board as well.
Denovo17 − Did you get the items yet? I know most of the time the prizes come in with the ordered items.
leftytrash161 − I strongly suggest you read the fine print of whatever he brought home. Those things are usually “go in the draw to win”, not “every child who exceeds x amount of sales is guaranteed to get one”. Doing that would absolutely bankrupt whoever is running the fund-raiser.
Do you think the father is justified in demanding compensation or threatening to cancel the order, given the circumstances? How should schools handle situations where promised rewards cannot be delivered? Share your thoughts below!