Concertgoers are furious they still haven't been refunded their money after a Coromandel music event didn't go ahead as planned.
'Rockin Horse' was meant to take place at the Coroglen Tavern on January 5 this year but was postponed until April because of the bad weather due to Cyclone Hale.
Attendees, who had purchased tickets through ticketing agent 'Flicket', received an email from the event organisers saying: "All ticket holders, your ticket remains valid and will be automatically transferred over to the new date. If you are unable to attend you can request a refund.
"Please note that the refund will be a face-value refund of the ticket excluding all booking and card processing fees as per the terms and conditions."
Ticket holder Jade Harnden and six of her friends were among those who opted to get their money back, after initially paying more than $100 to attend.
"In the email, it stated that we would get a face-value refund excluding booking fee, so we decided we might as well get our money back," she said.
Kendall Farmer also chose to request a refund instead of holding onto her ticket.
"I was like cool, I'll take my refund," she said.
It's now been more than a month, and both women are still out of pocket.
They said communication from the organisers has been poor, and they were disappointed when they received a further email saying the refund would only be 50 percent.
In February, Rockin Horse organisers told refund seekers: "Due to recent and ongoing cyclone activity, our business has been hit incredibly hard, resulting in large unrecoverable losses.
"Unfortunately we are unable to provide full refunds for Rockin Horse.
"At this stage, we would like to offer you a 50 percent refund of your tickets and add 50 percent credit of your tickets to your account that you can use for any future events with Rockin Horse."
Both Farmer and Harnden, as well as their friends, are yet to receive any money back and they haven't seen a 50 percent credit on their account either.
"Everybody's time, money, and energy is just as valuable as the people running this event, it's not less than," Farmer said.
Consumer New Zealand said Rockin Horse organisers should refund the full ticket amount to their customers.
"I would encourage them to refund their customers in full," Consumer's chief executive Jon Duffy said.
"It's not for this company to arbitrarily say they'll only refund people 50 percent of what they're owed."
He said those who haven't received their money back can also seek help from their bank.
"If they've paid by credit card, people can seek a refund through the chargeback process, and get that through their bank."
On Friday, after making enquiries, Rockin Horse told Newshub refund requests have been, or are being processed, and the last of them will be dealt with over the weekend.
"Once again we would like to apologize for the lack of communication and for the delays which are out of our control," a Rockin Horse spokesperson said.
"There is already a show planned April 8 as a cyclone flood relief in an effort to help get the Coromandel back and raise money for the Red Cross," they added.
In a statement, the Coroglen Tavern said it was equally disappointed that the event didn't go ahead at its venue, and that the refund process appears inadequate.
"Our role was merely to provide a venue for the concert and we had no control over advertising, marketing, selling tickets and, as it turned out the subsequent postponement and refund process."
The Commerce Commission said it has received four enquiries relating to the event.
