Why Can’t Teen Mania Give Refunds?

(2024: This is one of ~80 posts located in the drafts folder and not archived by the Wayback Machine. The post was started by the original Recovering Alumni. I believe that this post was originally spurred by a conference call that happened about a month prior to this post. Here are some of the posts surrounding that call:

It may seem weird to hash up the sketchy business practices of a now defunct organization, but I think it would benefit other organizations to learn what not to do as well help paint a more complete picture of the dysfunction and insanity that was TM.)

During the conference call this year, the issue of refunds was brought up. If an intern quits or is dismissed, they are not allowed to have a refund. Teen Mania says that is because they are a non-profit and the money goes into the “general fund.”

I worked in the finance dept my intern year. That dept is made up of 3 areas: accounting, accounts receivable, and accounts payable. I worked in accounts receivable. Our job was to process all money that was donated to the ministry. All TM participants whether you are an intern or missionary is assigned an ID#. All donors are also assigned ID#s to help keep track of everything in Oracle. So if we opened up a piece of mail and there was a check but no ID# to go to a specific intern’s or missionary’s “account” we would look up the donor to see if they had donated before and to whom. The vast majority of money donated was ear marked for a specific person. We did receive general donations but we mostly processed money for interns/missionaries. If a check was made out to an intern, it was a huge pain in the ass. We had to get a hold of the intern, have them come down to the finance office, sign the check, and then we could deposit it in TM’s name.

I can tell you that a few months into the internship one of the guys in my brother core got dismissed. His mom paid for his year upfront in full. He asked about having his money returned, I asked my manager, and was given the spiel: no returns, we are non-profit, tax issues blah blah blah. HOWEVER, he and his mother were so persistent and demanding (rightly so cause we’re talking more than several hundred dollars, probably like $2,000-$4,000) that TM did end up returning the rest of his money. So, either that refund was illegal on TM’s part or they are refusing to give out refunds as a general rule which is wrong.

Which is it?

The finance dept. was intense. The turnover rate for the staff members was higher than the other departments. My manger was 23-24 yrs old and a couple months into it, she told me she had no idea what she was doing. She said she had us organizing the vault (where all the financial records were kept) the first few weeks until she could figure out what to do with us. She left TM after that year.

When summer hit, it was somewhat organized chaos (more chaos, less organized…). Ron Luce came to our department and told us we needed to process the money faster. If we didn’t, missionaries couldn’t go on their trips, therefore people couldn’t get saved, and that was our fault. Talk about pressure!

That year the online donation system (VeriSign) had a major issue. It wasn’t capturing peoples donations for a few months and when the IT dept. fixed it, many peoples donations were charged twice to thier credit card. I spent many long hours dealing with screaming parents on the phone or in person (when missionaries were registering) about how they were charged twice. That was an absolute nightmare.

Group trips were the worst because the missionaries had their own ID# but then the group had an ID#. If money was put into an individual missionary’s “account” it was bad cause then we had to “transfer” the money into the group “account.” This brings up the money “transfer” issue (I keep you using quotes because accourding to TM all of the money is in one general account). If one intern had extra money in an account we’re not allowed to transfer that money into another intern’s account. The only time that was allowed is if it was between siblings. My question is, why go to so much trouble keeping track of every cent as to which participant it goes to if there is just the Teen Mania general account?

4 or 5 years ago was the FIRST TIME that a person with a finacial degree was hired for the Accounts Recievable position-that’s a bit ridiculous considering the fact we were processing thousands upon thousands of dollars from GE, ATF, & HA. I’m not sure if she’s still there. There was a certified accountant in the accounting dept, and the lady in charge of the entire finance dept did have financial experince/education-she’s not there anymore either. Like I said, HUGE turnover rate.

Anyways, just wanted to give you a heads up in case you didn’t know some of this stuff. I just know their finances are confusing and it seems a bit shading when they say no refunds but then do one anyways.