Hi,

Like most posters,

I'm having an issue with Harlands over cancelling my DD prior to filling out their online form.

I received a letter in the post today demanding the £19.99, as well as a £25.00 admin fee.

I'm not going to pay the admin fee,

but am happy to pay the £19.99 as I recognise that I cancelled the DD within the 30-day period.

I am going to use the letter template below,

which I found on another post with exactly the same issue.

However, I'm a recent graduate who is working nights to save for travelling,

which means I have all the time in the world to deal with these people.

Given the widespread nature of this issue,

would it be worth contacting a TV Programme such as Rip-Off Britain to try to nationally shame these bullies?

It makes my blood boil that they are effectively spoofing more vulnerable people out of their money.

"I refer to my membership at Xercise 4 Less gymi in XXXXXXXXX which was a month to month agreement.

I cancelled my direct debiticon mandate in September but realise now that I should have given 30 days’ notice to cancel. Cancellation of the DDicon mandate was adequate notice of my wish to cancel.

I now offer to pay £19.99 for the notice period.

I will not pay you any administration or cancellation fees.

If you confirm in writing that you will accept the amount of £19.99 in full settlement of all that I owe, I will pay you promptly. If you fail to accept my offer within 14 days or you demand any higher amount, I will pay you nothing and my offer will be withdrawn.

Yours Faithfully,

XXXX"

Edit: Forgot to say..

First direct debit went out of my account 18/09/2017,

I cancelled shortly after as I wasn't impressed with facilities.

They tried to take the next monthly £19.99 payment on 04/10/2017 which obviously got rejected.

you've done correct

dx

Hi James and welcome to CAG

Did you raise your concerns about the poor facilities with staff, either verbally or in writing.

The letter you used is ok for now by may not be appropriate, given how recently you joined and your reason for cancelling.

So, tomorrow is the last day my offer stands. After tomorrow, do I just ignore any future contact from them?

Yes, you need do nothing more for now.

Wait until Harlands reply specifically to your letter and report back to us.

Harlands, as predicted, have passed this onto CRS

who have sent me a letter stating the amount owed is now in excess of £200.

They have also sent me an email asking me to ring them.

Harlands STILL haven't replied specifically to the email I initially sent them.

from my perspective,

they've continued to add charges after I disputed the debt with them on the email address advertised on their website.

Zinc is their next step, yes?

All the same printer....

You did write rather than email your offer letter?

I'm afraid I emailed them. I'm assuming I should have sent it via post?

Ooppss

Always write

Do it now

Should I reference the email I sent to them previously?

27th November 2017

Credit Resolution Services

41-43 Perrymount Rd

Haywards Heath

RH16 3BN

Dear Sir/Madam,

RE: Harlands Reference

Xercise 4 Less Reference:

On the 12th October 2017, I emailed Harlands at ... recognising my error at cancelling the direct debit without going through the correct process and offered to pay the £19.99 missed payment. I did not receive any form of reply. I then went through the correct process of cancelling the direct debit and have an email from Xercise4Less acknowledging my request.

I later received a letter stating the November payment had been missed and that I owed £89.98. I recognise that the cancellation form was sent less than 30 days before the payment was due, so I am liable for the November payment of £19.99 too. If Harlands had replied to my email on the 12th of October to open a dialogue, I would have happily paid the £39.98. Instead, I have simply received more letters imposing financial penalties, the most recent demanding more than £200, leading to me believe that yourselves and Harlands have no interest in reconciliation, instead preferring to ramp up additional charges. As

As stated, I would be happy to pay the £39.98 as I realise my error and acknowledge the debt. However, I will not pay the unfair administration charges imposed on me by you, as you have not provided a breakdown of the costs and I believe them to be unfair, as they amount to over five times the missed payments. Furthermore, you have added additional charges since my ignored attempt to reconcile.

From the Office of Fair Trading’s 'Guidance for the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contract Regulations 1999':

Group 5: Financial penalties – paragraph 1(e) of Schedule 2:

5.1 “It is unfair to impose disproportionate sanctions for a breach of contract. A requirement to pay more in compensation for a breach than a reasonable pre-estimate of the loss caused to the supplier is one kind of excessive penalty. Such a requirement will, in any case, normally be void to the extent that it amounts to a penalty under English common law.”

Group 18(a): Allowing the supplier to impose unfair financial burdens

'18.1.3 These objections are less likely to arise if a term is specific and transparent as to what must be paid and in what circumstances. However, as already noted, transparency is not necessarily enough on its own to make a term fair. Fairness requires that the substance of contract terms, not just their form and the way they are used, shows due regard for the legitimate interests of consumers. Therefore, a term may be clear as to what the consumer has to pay, but yet be unfair if it amounts to a 'disguised penalty', that is, a term calculated to make consumers pay excessively for doing something that would normally be a breach of contract.

19.14 The concern of the Regulations is with the 'object or effect' of terms, not their form. A term that has the mechanism of a price term...will not be treated as exempt if it is clearly calculated to produce the same effect as an unfair exclusion clause, penalty, variation clause or other objectionable term.'

Based on the above OFT regulations, I insist that these administration fees are in fact disguised penalties. The charges imposed on top of the 2 x £19.99 missed payments are disproportional to the amount owed to Xercise4Less and unfair.

Yours sincerely,

Anything else?

My version would be a wee bit shorter :-

Dear Harlands/CRS,

On 12th October 2017 I emailed Harlands offering to pay the only amount that was due from me.

In the absence of any reply to that email, the offer was withdrawn long ago.

Further demands from Harlands/CRS may be ignored but reported as harassment.

Yours sincerely,

That will suffice. The arguments you raised merely encourage Harlands/CRS to reply and counter.

Went with Slick's template and sent via recorded mail. They replied with;

"We have been passed your file by Xercise 4 Less in regards to upaid arrears due under the terms of your Membership Agreement.

On 4 SEP 17 you entered into a Membership Agreement with Xercise 4 Less. You agreed to pay £19.99 a month and were required to give notice when you wished to terminate your Agreement.

As your payments were not honoured and you failed to rectify your breach of Agreement, charges were applied to your account and your file was referred to ourselves.

Xercise 4 Less have not received the relevant notice from you to cancel your Membership. If you believe you have given the correct notice to close your Membership, we request you please provide evidence of this."

I have the automatic email from Xercise 4 Less from when I sent my cancellation notification in October.

ignore now

This was a rolling monthly agreement and you cancelled and have proof of this.

Ignore Harlands/CRS for now but keep us posted.

Keep a log of all types of contact from Harlands/CRS or Zinc in case a complaint for harassment is needed.

Received this from CRS today;

"Following our initial letter, we are disappointed that your account with Xercise 4 Less is still in arrears and our fee has not been paid.

We would still like to reach an amicable resolution to this, however, if you fail to respond to this letter, we will have no option but to commence further action to recover the monies owed. The options we have available to us are:

1. LEGAL ACTION

We believe you are in breach of a legally binding contract with Xercise 4 Less because you have not paid your membership and our fees. We may pursue this claim under this contract through the courts. If we do so the following process would apply:

1. We will write a formal letter explaining what we are demanding and give you a final opportunity to pay/reply

2. If this failed to settle the matter we would issue proceedings against you in the county court

3. You could then either;

a) make payment, ending the legal process or

b) dispute some, or all, of the amount was owed.

4. If you dispute the amount was owed the court process would continue, at the end of which the court would make a decision on our claim.

5. A strict court imposed timescale will apply in relation to the court process.

Were we to be successful in out claim, or if you ignore the claim, a CCJ may be registered against you requiring you to make payment. You may also be liable for our costs of pursuing legal action and interest on the amount owed.

If you then fail to pay the amount covered by the CCJ we would take the next steps required to enforce the judgment. To do this we would have to make an application to curt.

2. OUTSOURCE TO EXTERNAL AGENTS

Your account would be passed to another collection agency who will take further action to recover moniesowed.

You can avoid this happening if within the next 10 days you contact us on 01444 449165 to arrange payment with us.

email?

email?

This arrived by post this morning.

good not by email

you can ignore safely

What would be different if they emailed me?

not a lot but you simply block them and bounce it back

The advice would be the same - ignore them.

We usually tell folk to avoid email exchanges as it just encourages Harlands/CRS to reply easily and quickly.

Harlands/CRS say, " ........ we would issue proceedings against you in the county court."

This is rubbish. We have 1,000's of threads here now and we've seen just 1 claim issued in the last few years. The claim was withdrawn because the solicitors and Harlands/CRS made a complete hash of the process.

It was a letter through the post, but i'll continue to ignore anyways. Thanks guys.

Just an update;

Had an EMAIL about them going to Zinc if I don't ring them by the 4th of March.

Find it strange they send the letter via email instead of post this time.

Oh well, .

Was reading through the contract and it states under fees

"If you fail to pay any monies due under this agreement or if any Direct Debit is returned unpaid or any cheque is returned unpaid or if any other form of payment is not honoured for whatever reason, you shall pay us (Harlands Services) on demand an administration fee of £25 (which we (Harlands Services) require to cover our costs of seeking to pursue such payment from you)." That clearly says an admin fee of £25, not multiple fees. Is that not breach of contract on their part?

block and bounce any emails