HELP!! Cancellation of David Lloyd Gym!

[stellamanella]

I hope someone can HELP me with this David Lloyd problem! So here it goes...

Basically I joined David Lloyd gym around Feb/March 07 at £58per month. Anyway shortly after I received a letter from David Lloyd saying this was going up to £60per month from October. I later decided to cancel as I was moving 80miles away, so I phoned and they said I had to write to the manager. I wrote to them on 29th May to cancel the membership as I was moving away, but might be moving back to the area sometime in the future so I would rejoin then. (In their T&C's they have a 3months cancellation policy) so I moved and after 3 months I cancelled my direct debit.

In September I received a letter saying they hadn’t received the payment and unless they received the next 2 months (totaling up to £181.50) they would forward it to debt collectors.

I phoned them up to say I'd sent them a letter on the 29th May to cancel and they said that I should have got either proof of postage from the post office or a receipt at reception if I handed it in, and as stated in their terms and conditions I needed a receipt from them to acknowledge this. I wrote to them again (Original letter attached) saying as far as I was concerned I had already paid the 3months I owed, also my financial situation had changed & couldn’t pay another £181, and I didn’t even live in the area now to use that gym. They got back to me basically saying exactly the same thing, "as stated in their t&c I should have got a receipt. I wrote to them again saying I couldn’t afford this and is there anything they can do as It seemed to be their mistake for misplacing the original letter.

Ive now received a letter from the debt collectors asking for the £181 or they'd take me to court and it would affect my credit rating. I phoned them and explained the situation they said they'd give me a call in a week to see what had happened.

I need to know what to do next, DL just keep giving me the same excuse of "as stated in their T&C's" etc. Does anyone know what the laws are for this? Is there anyone I can make a complaint to? As far as I was concerned I paid the 3 months they were asking for and didn’t even use the thing for those 3months. I really cannot afford another £181 just before Christmas, they are being really unreasonable and when I try to phone them there is either no answer from the manager (I can only speak to him apparently) and they are quite rude on the phone.

I’ve googled cancellation problems for David Lloyd Gyms and it seems a lot of people have this problem with them. Letters going missing and having to fork out another 3 months or they say (if you've sent the letter near the end of the month) the manager is on holiday and he's the only one who can acknowledge these letters, therefore it carries on to the next month (So if I cancelled 2nd of November, I'd have to pay November in full, then they'd terminate it from the 1st December, I'd then have to pay December, January & February) So you pay 4 months notice instead of 3.

Someone has suggested I offer to pay them £1 per month a duration of Xtime and they have to accept this and back off, does anyone know the law on this? or even if it's true?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance! xxx

[Alastrum]

Hello, I had a similar hassle with David Lloyds when I got made redundant and could no longer afford the gym membership. They absolutely would not budge, and insisted I paid the 3 month cancellation fee. Of course I wouldn't/couldn't, so really had to fight hard. Eventually, I went over their heads and wrote to their Head Office, who sorted it out quite quickly. After providing proof of my unemployment, the fee was waived. My advice would be to go straight to the top, ignore the petty little manager of your local gym and go to Head Office.