It’s April, so in normal times students across the country would be gearing up for a quintessentially Irish experience familiar to thousands of students and graduates – the American J1.
But this year, thousands – who signed up with travel company USIT before it went into liquidation amid the coronavirus pandemic – are facing uncertainty and financial insecurity, having been told they won’t be refunded the amounts they’ve put towards a summer west of the Atlantic.
Interviews with students in colleges across the country show a cohort – well aware their issues aren’t the biggest facing the world right now – who’ve nevertheless been left in limbo by a company that has not returned their money, and given them little in the way of advice for how to recoup what they’ve paid.
Some students, keen to “keep ahead” on their payments, had paid up to €1,300 to the company – a sum could lose out on, after USIT told them it was “not in a position” to issue refunds.
Throughout, students say, they’ve been kept in the dark, left to piece together disparate threads left worryingly loose after USIT’s shutdown.
Truth be told, I really didn’t like them as a company when I was working with them
“What is there to do? Because USIT has given us nothing, genuinely nothing”, says Sadhbh Dodd, a second-year biological and biomedical sciences student in Trinity.
“Truth be told, I really didn’t like them as a company when I was working with them and when I was trying to liaise with them about everything going on. For how popular it is, I personally thought they were very disorganised.”
Dodd had been hoping to spend her summer in San Diego, but when that location was no longer available, she had opted to travel to Chicago.
Like all students who had applied for J1 visas, she now must go to the country’s Commission for Aviation Regulation to seek redress.
But in an information vacuum, this is much easier said than done.
Today, USIT sent an email to participants of the J1 programme, requesting information from participants on their plans if the lockdown is restricted.
The email, signed by USIT Ireland Limited (in provisional liquidation), said: “We are reviewing participants applications, in relation to the processing stage they are at, and will need to know what your plans are before we can determine the next steps with your application.”
“Please be aware, although we will try to our best for you. If you do wish to travel we cannot guarantee anything at this stage due to the many uncertainties surrounding the summer work and travel programme as a result of Covid-19”, it said.
KMPG, the company appointed as USIT’s liquidator, had not responded to a request for comment by the time of publication.
What is there to do? Because USIT has given us nothing, genuinely nothing
Andrew Fitzpatrick, a third-year arts student in the University of Limerick, (UL) says he found out about USIT’s closure in an article online. “And if I hadn’t seen that”, he says, “I wouldn’t have known, because we didn’t receive any contact from USIT at all”.
None of the students interviewed for this story heard about the liquidation – and the risk to their money – from USIT itself. Instead, they read about it in the Irish Times and on social media.
The company has even closed off its website, robbing students of another source of information. Dodd says that “through USIT’s website, each person going on a J1 was given a reference number and login details, because we had a portal through this website to show how much we paid, what the insurance covers are, flight itineraries, everything like that”.
“That would be really useful”, she says. “That’s all the information I need to fill out this claim. But because now they’ve shut the website down I can’t get to it. It’s so difficult to try to get in contact with someone from USIT.”
Some students are more optimistic than others when it comes to the prospects of a refund. Rebecca Byrne, a second-year student in Technological University (TU) Dublin, has taken several steps to attempt to recoup what she spent.
She’s given the Commission for Aviation Regulation “all my bank statements of any transactions I made with USIT, all evidence, flight plans, itineraries. I had to ring up United Airlines to see if USIT had paid them for my flights, which they hadn’t”.
“I had to check with the insurance company to see if they paid them for the insurance, and then you send off all your claim forms within 60 days and hopefully get most of it back, is what I’m thinking.”
Most of my savings are gone. I’ve paid about €800 now and I don’t know how much of that I’ll get back
Others aren’t so sure. Aoife Lane, a third-year student at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI), says that “most of my savings are gone. I’ve paid about €800 now and I don’t know how much of that I’ll get back, which is fairly stressful”.
“I’m hoping I’ll get about €400 from the insurance company, but I’m not really sure what’s going to happen with it.”
Fitzpatrick, who says he “was kind of trying to keep ahead of myself” on payments, had handed over €1,300. “And that’s how much I’m going to lose”, he says.
“For a student, that’s a lot of money. Whereas I didn’t have to pay that much, I could’ve gotten away with paying 300 up until then, but I was trying to keep ahead of it and pay it off as quickly as possible.”
Among students, satisfaction with USIT – even before the crisis – was varied at best.
Shane Horan, a third-year student in TU Dublin, was already due to have left for the US to work in a hotel in Massachusetts.
Before the outbreak, he and his friends had their visas denied after a mix-up between USIT and their host organisation. Horan says USIT was “very lax about the whole situation”.
“Originally we were told when we were denied in Dublin, that they were 99.9 per cent sure that we would be given a visa in Belfast, and once we weren’t, they were not very sympathetic.”
“It was very kind of cold responses – just that we could pull out of the programme”, Horan adds. “This was before all the travel bans were put in place. We just didn’t have the visa and it wasn’t just me but everyone had a consensus that they weren’t very professional – it was a very stressful experience on the whole.”
Dodd also found USIT difficult to deal with, “With this company”, she says, “it’s just been bad experience after bad experience with them”.
“I have been telling everyone I know: ‘I’m going on a J1 with USIT. If you’re going on a J1, don’t go with them.’”
Despite the J1 programme being essentially shut for this year, some students are still hopeful about doing it next summer. Sophia Hjelseth, a second-year TU Dublin student, writes in an email that “I know I will definitely try and go instead next summer and this time I will have a greater understanding on the application involved”.
“On the other hand, with the current situation ongoing, hearing about the liquidation placed a feeling of relief on myself (and my mother).”
