Thanks for replying. No admin fee was taken by DD - I cancelled the DD at the beginning of this palaver. Sorry, must not have been clear in my original post. I cancelled my DD when I knew I couldn't honour my normal payment due at the beginning of May - I didn't want to be slapped with a bank charge by my bank . Harlands then put my account in arrears for the original £9.99 and an admin charge of £25, and then they just kept adding charges for the fun of it, none of which I have paid, so no reclaim necessary.

Hi dx No money to get back as cancelled DD before this all started.

Thanks for your advice guys. Am holding my nerve and ignoring them

Hi, I suffered a change in circumstances leading to a significant drop with my salary. I was unable to honour my direct debit to Harlands to cover my gym membership for Xercise4Less so cancelled it without giving them any notice. I find out later that they charged me a £25 admin free as per their terms and conditions. The T&Cs mentioned were news to me as not aware of any. None were presented at the time I took my membership out, and all I signed was the direct debit mandate to authorise them to deduct £9.99 on a monthly basis. I eventually found the T&Cs in the acknowledgement email from Harlands, but they were hidden within the DD instruction and mandate so I missed them. Also the principle term states that this agreement will commence once signed by both parties - neither party has signed and Harlands/X4L didn't seek a signature. Due to the too'ing and fro'ing, misinformation, adding charges willy nilly, they are now saying the balance is now £171.74. I sent Harlands a letter offering £13.99 to cover membership costs between 2nd May and 12th June (based on Slick's template on this forum - thank you), but this has now lapsed and no further contact has been received from Harlands. I've gone through the complaints procedure with X4L, and not received a satisfactory reply. X4L are insisting that I pay £34.99 to cover one months gym membership and an admin charge (this has been dropped from £171.74). My argument is the t&cs weren't agreed and I should pay nothing as I haven't received anything that I haven't paid for although I did offer to pay £13.99, and . The next course of action I was going to take, was to raise a complaint with the relevant ombudsman, but can't find who the relevant ombudsman is. Does anyone on this forum know who the relevant ombudsman is? If there is no relevant ombudsman, what is my best cause of action? Thanks, in anticipation