New member wanting their money back
 

Hi there ladies,
What is your sororities policy on reimbursing new members their dues, initiation fees etc. if they change their minds?A lovely girl I know said she wanted to join my sorority and we bid her and she accepted and she paid the new member fee and initiation fee up front. Now she says she can not join right now because she is ultra swamped with work and her dad is having some health problems so she has to be with him and just can't do it right now. I feel we should give her the money back. Others think its too late. What is your policy?

You say she paid in advance.
 

I won't ask how much... but I will ask: how long has it been since she paid? And has she received the regular benefits of that or are they not due to begin yet?

I would say that dues are not reimbursable-- If you're paying monthly. If you've paid the entire semester in advance, I'd say that the unused months could be reimbursed.

Any new member fees are not reimbursable. And the initiation fee is not reimbursable. (unless you haven't sent in the initation fee to your Inter/nationals yet nor initiated your new members ... in which case, yes I would say you could reimburse.)

Contact your exec office for clarification.

If she hasn't been initiated yet then we would reimburse her for the initiation fee.

As chapter president I know it is ALWAYS a good idea to ask nationals first before you make ANY financial decision you're unsure of! They can tell you in a snap and save you any worry.

My guess is that she cannot get her payments refunded.

Just out of curiosity, if a pledge decides not to join, but decides to at a later point in time, do you let them? Or what if they want to join another group, is that okay in the land of greeks?

I'm confused...

Yes, you may join a GLO and cancel your membership at any time. If you were not initiated, you may join another GLO, or you may re-join the original GLO, if you have been offered a bid.

Just because you dropped out of one an uninitiated member doesn't mean you can't rejoin it, nor does it mean you can't join another.

And yes, there have been women who dropped ABC sorority as new members, and later came back and were offered a bid to ABC. Or were given a bid to XYZ.

And I know plenty of fraternity men who started off at one fraternity, dropped out, and joined another, or were given another shot at joining the one they dropped from. AND I know of fraternity new members who joined one fraternity, were blackballed and were given bids by other fraternities at the next recruitment.

However, if you dropped out of one/were blackballed from a fraternity, there may be some gossip, or another group might shun you. Ignore it and do what is right for you.

What is being initiated? Is that signing the bid, or is that completing your pledgeship?

After this, I will stop taking over y'alls thread

Initiation marks the end of the new member period (some groups refer to this new member period as pledging). Initiation is a ceremony where you learn the group's secrets.

It is when you become a full fledged member, with all the rights & privileges of membership. The organization's secrets and symbols are fully explained. You are then permitted to wear the Greek letters of your organization.

I would call your HQ. I know we don't do refunds. It is mandated by National.

Why give her money back?

As I understand the way sororities generally work, she's taking up the place of another girl if you all hit quota. So by depledging, she's actually taking money out of your pockets.

Any money she's paid is rightfully yours.

We had a similar situation last semester. Our nationals would not let us refund the dues.

I would definitly contact your HQ about this. They will be able to give you all the information you need. As I am assuming every organization will have a different policy regarding this matter.

Also, once you find out your policy, during your recruitment period when you discuss dues and the like, you should also make mention of this policy to PNM's.

SMUbear, the others hit the initiation thing on the head. Once you intiate, you can't join another national fraternity or sorority. You can drop out your junior year, but you can't go join another org. That's why the pledge peroid exists, to give the new members a time to see what greek likfe is like, without all the responsibility.

Our international organization spells out in the NM manual that all NM and initiation fees are non-refundable, therefore if someone pays them, they're not getting them back.

as a local we have a contract the new members have to sign. if the new member decided to depledge before initiation, money will not be refunded. (That money goes toward their gifts on bid day, pins, etc so we kinda need it.) If they throw a fit, we show them the contract they signed. the end. :D

Our new member fees are non-refundable

Assuming she's telling the truth which there's probably no reason to doubt, her reasons are not 'I just don't feel it right now' or vague comments about 'stuff getting in the way' rather they are issues which were she an active in some sororities might lead to her petitioning the exec. committee or even nationals to go early alumna status for a period anyway?

The following comments are in the absence of any national rules you may have which say otherwise.

You stipulated she paid upfront a new member fee and initiation fee. I am guessing she has not been initiated yet, I would therefore refund that (poss. minus costs spent for her by sorority) since her present difficulties may be beyond her control. On the new member fee, it depends whether she has taken part in any new member activities which the new member fee was to cover or not - if she has a deduction could be made to cover those and balance refunded if not the balance minus an administration fee to cover all costs incurred could be refunded. All of this would in any event be discretionary.
I guess ultimately your sorority (I'm guessing from your posts which one it is) has waited over 70 years for her and if it needs to wait a little more until she can give it the attention and commitment she and you want to, then maybe that should be allowed and she not be disadvanted because her enthusiasm was there but other practical considerations got in the way.

But like I say a) echoing other comments check for existing policies or b) discretionary.

Our policy is that if you paid them, you paid them, non refundable. One thing that you could think about is that if she would like to join at a different time say within the next year maybe, then explain that her money wouldn't be wasted and she wouldn't have to pay again. Nationals will always clear the problem up though, they know all the answers!

It looks like the consensus is:

CALL NATIONALS! :)

Actually, I think a guy in a fraternity may join another national fraternity only if he petitions and gets released from the other. Correct me if I'm wrong, but thats what I've been told by some of the guys on my campus.

Though we are local we have a rule that the plege fee is non-refundable.