Complaint Review: The Paris Kitchen

On June 5, 2015, I paid for my wife and I to participate in a food tour with Wendy Lyn on Friday November 6, 2015, in Paris, France.  We were to be the only two attendees for the tour.  I purchased the tour with my PayPal account for 320 euros (160 euros each).  

The US dollar amount for the two of us was $364.82.  On Thursday November 5, 2015, the day before the previously-purchased tour date, my wife and I received an email message from Wendy Lyn at 8:51 am (local Paris time where we were staying) in which she stated that she had been in the hospital with severe bronchitis and she could not "do any food tours through the weekend" because she had no voice.  

(We were scheduled to return to the United States early on the morning of Monday November 9, 2015.)  In a follow-up email on November 5 in response to our question about a refund, she stated, in part, "accounting does refunds 30 days after a canceled tour" and that we would be notified the refund transaction had been completed.  

Since mid-December 2015 (30 days after she cancelled our food tour) we have emailed Wendy Lyn a number of times requesting that she issue our refund.  It is now mid January 2016 over 60 days since she cancelled our food tour with no resolution in sight.  The few times we have reached her by email (she seems to be selective when she responds) her responses are always similar--she would get back to us with an update.  

No update as of this writing.  She has now enjoyed our $364 for over 7 months.  In fairness, I will add that my wife and I (and a friend) took a Wendy Lyn tour in Paris November 2009 and it was a delightful experience. There is no justification for her to withhold our refund in this instance.