MIMS Deposit

Tracy_ClarkTracy_Clark Norwich, United Kingdom (from Auckland, New Zealand)Member

At the end of 2014 I submitted my (painful) application to be a part of MIMS (Manhattan Island Marathon Swim). Along with this application I paid US$250. Then waited and waited and waited some more. It became evident by early March this swim was not going to happen. I know a lot of you know this story...off by heart I'm sure! I emailed and left many messages on the MIMS answerphone, asking the organiser Morty Berger to contact me and please return my deposit. Zero response. I did get to swim my Manhattan Island circumnavigation - thanks to David Barra and Rondi Davies stepping up to keep this amazing swim going (and thanks to Roger Finch and his persistent ways)!!! For this I am grateful beyond words! A better organised swim you could not wish for! However, to get back to the topic, I am still out of pocket for US$250! I was contacted by a fellow swimmer yesterday who also swam the 20 Bridges swim the same day as me, and he too is still out of pocket. I would be really keen to hear from any other swimmers who are still owed monies by Morty and even more keen to hear if anyone has a suggestion or direct line to Morty to ask for these monies to be returned. I did pay by credit card but I was too late to ask for a refund this way. There was also an article in the New York Times featuring the demise of MIMS and the new 20 Bridges swim - I seem to remember Morty being quoted that he has or will return all deposits owed!!! Thanks in advance.

Jayttriven

Comments

  • JayJay Outside Boston, MAMember

    Thanks for your post Tracy - it was me who you was in contact with you through email. I agree that Dave, Alex, and Rondi did a fantastic job in getting the 20 Bridges event done so smoothly and in a narrow window of time. But back to the MIMS deposit - I too made my $250 deposit while submitting the excruciating application requirements by the November date. Then nothing other than the auto-reply emails saying the MIMS organizers would look things over and get back to me. Days, weeks, months passed with no word. I tried emailing and phoning the contacts, again to no avail. I did speak with my credit card company in the spring, and told them I'd try one last time to reach out and get the $250 back, which I tried. Again, nothing. I plan on contacting them again in short order and asking the $250 be contested as a fraudulent charge. It's extremely frustrating (the polite word) that I heard the MIMS organizer took a solo swimmer out around the time the 20 Bridges event took place on 8/15. The NYT article mentioned something about MIMS returning the deposits, but that seems to have fallen by the wayside. If I recall correctly, there were about 30 swimmers who would have paid $250 each - $7500 in total. I'd think that if the head of MIMS wanted to do right, he'd have written out checks by now. How long does it take to write 30 checks, about an hour?

    Tracy_Clarkdpm50ttriven
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