Russian groups feel cheated by one of Norway’s biggest national matches

In May, around 7,000 young people will celebrate Russian time in Trøndelag.

They can end up spending around NOK 140 million during the Russian holidays, but every year many feel cheated by companies.

Now two Russian groups in Trondheim are taking a hard line against the practice of one of Norway’s biggest national events.

Thought the meeting was about volunteering

The girls in the Russian group Sensual are Russian this year and started thinking about the celebration in the second year of high school.

In May last year, they met representative and board member Jon Eiolf Carlsen from Landstreff Fredriksten (LF)which was to tell them about the event in Russian times 2024.

– Another Russian group said that they offered volunteer work. We actually thought we were going to talk about it, but then we realized along the way that they wanted us to sign up for the national meeting, says Eylul Özcaglayan in the group.

The girls went after school to a meeting room with representative Carlsen at a hotel in Trondheim.

Read the response to Landstreff Fredriksten further down in the case.

Was asked to sign on the day

Carlsen gave a presentation in which he talked about the national meet. Then he made a price offer to them.

– We were shown a form with how much we could save if we committed to signing a contract right away, says Sigri Breirem de Beer.

The girls were hesitant as all but one of the Russian group were under 18.

– But he was insistent that we had to sign straight away. He said that the offer only applied if we signed that day, says Tina Tran Eggen.

– He stood over us, held out the pen and said “don’t think anything more, just sign”. It was uncomfortable. When we tried to say that we were unsure and wanted to think about it overnight, he protested, says Sigri.

Eventually, Carlsen from Landstreff Fredriksten was to have a similar meeting with another group. Meanwhile, the girls in Sensual were put in another room to think.

Experienced the same

Carlsen met Filippa Nilsen Leinum and Tiril Alstad Branem together with several from the Russian group Den dama. They say that they too were met with a different presentation than what they thought.

– We were there because we had received a message from LF that they could help us get volunteers, but when we got there it was really just an advertising campaign for them. We never heard anything about charity.

The girls signed the contract after being offered cheaper festival tickets. The group experienced the meeting situation as intense.

– We had to ask him several times if he could leave the room because we didn’t want to discuss in front of him. In addition, we tried to ask if we could think about it and hear from the rest of the group who were not there, but that was completely out of the question, says Tiril.

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– We feel cheated

A few weeks after the meeting, the girls in Den dama saw that the discount did not match. Tiril says that they feel manipulated after the incident.

– We felt pressured to rush to get it as cheaply as possible. He was just doing his job and saying how good and how much cheaper it was, but it wasn’t true. We feel deceived, they say, adding:

– We want to warn the next generation so that they cannot take advantage of young, stupid minds.

– I hardly dare to trust anything I see on Tiktok anymore

Couldn’t take it anymore

After talking to the Russian girls in Den dama, Carlsen returned to Sensual at the national meet.

– Then we asked if we could talk to the other Russian group to hear what they thought. He said that we were not allowed to because they were sitting and signing, says Eylul.

The girls say they ended up sitting in the meeting room until around midnight that night.

– We said we had to go home to our parents, but then he brought us several pens and continued to say that we had to sign right away, says Izabelle Wik Rognes.

By this time, the girls were tired and fatigued, they say.

– We also had school the next day. In the end we thought “yes, well” and just signed, says Eylul.

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Saved less than they thought

Eylul was the only adult in the group. She therefore signed on behalf of all nine.

– It became a very big responsibility for me. I had just turned 18 and signed a contract for several tens of thousands of kroner. I also signed for people in the group who were not there that day.

The invoice for the national meeting came a few weeks after the meeting at the hotel, with a total price of NOK 35,820. They paid NOK 2,490 for the festival pass and NOK 1,490 for the bus per person, which is the same price they were offered by the national meeting.

– When we returned from summer holiday, we noticed that the prices of the ordinary tickets that were posted were not as expensive as they said at the presentation, says Iselin Samakom Gustad.

– When we signed, it seemed that we were going to save NOK 1,500 per person if we signed right away, but in reality it was only a few hundreds of kroner cheaper, says Sigri.

– Mum was mad

The girls react to the fact that the parents were not contacted, since many were 17 years old.

– Mum was furious when she found out, says Izabelle.

They felt they could not call their parents while the meeting was in progress, as the representative had refused them to speak to other Russian groups in the past.

They react to the procedure of Landstreff Fredriksten.

– I suppose they solve the legal issue by having an 18-year-old sign, but I think it’s very strange that it’s legal, says Eylul.

– Seems like a form of abuse of power

Camilla Wik Utgaard is the mother of Izabelle in the Russian group Sensual. She remembers that her daughter seemed shaken and frightened when she came home from the meeting.

– I think it seemed like a questionable practice. They are completely new to adulthood and I think it is both sad and completely inappropriate that they have such a first meeting with a grown man who will give information about an event. Although they said no several times, they were not heard. I think it seemed like a form of abuse of power, says Utgaard.

At first she could not understand how her daughter could have committed herself to this, since she was under 18 years old.

– I still don’t understand how that agreement can be valid. It’s strange to me that an 18-year-old can sign for all the others. It puts the 18-year-old in an extremely difficult situation if one of the parents says no or the others are unable to pay. It is a tremendous responsibility to be given as the only adult in the Russian group and in no way something I think I am up to.

Several Russians in Finnmark have also recently come out against the procedure of Landsstreff Fredriksten in NRK.

This is answered by the national meeting

Adresseavisen and Trd.by have been in contact with Landstreff Fredriksten several times since the interview with the girls in September.

Managing director Lasse Kjøningsen and board member Jon Eiolf Carlsen have read the criticism that appears in the article and respond as follows in an email:

“We have no opportunity to answer you on this until after this year’s national meeting. We have tried in the past and over the course of 6–7 months to answer Adresseavisen and feel that it is speculative from the newspaper to come and demand an answer to this now that we are in Halden for the set-up for LF. Our office is in Oslo and all written information is stored in our archive there.”

The Landstreffet has not wanted to comment on further questions we have sent.

Think the girls don’t need to be tied up

Trd.by has asked lawyer Margrethe Buskerud Christoffersen about the legality of contracts like this. She currently works as a professor at the Department of Private Law at the University of Oslo.

The lawyer explains that the 18-year-old who has signed the contract is initially obliged to pay the sum, although she cannot oblige the other minors to pay.

Nevertheless, Christoffersen believes that the 18-year-old is not bound if it is true that the ordinary prices turned out to be something other than what they were told before entering into the contract.

– It is an agreement with large disclaimers from the organizer in an agreement with a young consumer buyer. It is obvious that the information that the market price is 3490 and 1990 was motivating for them to commit to buying nine tickets so early. If they actually only saved NOK 400 and not NOK 1,500, in my opinion incorrect information was given to such an extent that the person who signed is not bound to such an agreement according to contract law rules, she says.

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Was advised to complain

At the start of September 2023, one of the girls asked what they should do on the public information channel for young people, Ung.no. Then a supervisor from the Consumer Council replied that they should complain.

On 12 September, they sent an e-mail to general manager Lasse Kjønigsen in Landstreff Fredriksten in which they criticized the way the contract had been signed.

When they had not received an answer after a few weeks, they contacted Trd.by.

– We want to warn the next Russians about this, because we feel “scammed”. We don’t want future Russians to feel the same way, says Eylul.

– Why did you choose to pay the invoice and wait so long to complain?

– We didn’t want to get into trouble for not paying. And it was only when the ordinary tickets were released on 22 August and we went through the invoice that we realized that we had received less of a discount than we thought we would get.

Both the girls in Sensual and Den dama have tried to sell their tickets afterwards. Many of them have sold the tickets cheaper than what they bought them for.

Some of the girls in Sensual have not been able to sell their tickets, but will not be participating in the national meeting.

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– Contrary to good business practice

Thomas Iversen, senior legal adviser at the Consumer Council, says that they regularly receive questions from Russian groups, individual Russians and parents about everything from large bus contracts to festival tickets.

He believes the girls should be able to argue that the agreement is invalid, if they felt pressured and manipulated into signing.

– It may also be against good business practice to exert pressure on young consumers in this way, writes Iversen by e-mail.

Iversen emphasizes that consumers should not sign anything if they are in doubt, as it is always difficult to prove that an agreement should have been different from what is stated in the contract.

At the same time, he says that it is neither unusual nor illegal to have time limits for discounts in contracts.

– It is nevertheless important that the trader does not create unreasonable pressure on the future Russian. They must have time to review the contract, talk to the parents and anchor the agreement in the Russian group. If the students are pressured to sign very quickly, the contract may end up being invalid, he continues.

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