hi,

i had a membership with xercise4less in late 2014/early2015.

i was sold this membership with the understanding that there was no contract and that it was a flat rate of 9.99 per month and that cancellation was simple.

i used the gym for a few months and then was due to be out of the country for the best part of a year on ops at with work.

i called the gym and asked if i could cancel my direct debit and that id restart when i got home.

i was told that this wasnt an issue and my membership was terminated and that was that.

a few months later i realised that the money was still being withdrawn from my account

i called again and again i was told

' yes, cancellation is confirmed'.

a few months after this,

the money was still being withdrawn from my account and at this point i cancelled the direct debit.

i heard nothing after this.

until i got home to some red headed letters from harlands and crs demanding over £200 in unpaid fees and admin fees.

i tried to dispute this but received no reply from xercise4less

i reluctantly paid it (early 2016). id heard nothing since.

The past few months ive been hounded by crs with calls, emails and letters demanding almost £200 in unpaid membership fees.

after explaining and them confirming that i had already paid these fraudulent fees,

i was told that i still had to pay as there was still a contract.

i called xercise4less and was told that i hadnt been active on their system since mid 2015 and they would try and sort it.

i heard nothing for a few weeks assumed it was done with.

a few days ago i got an email from crs demanding money

i emailed xercise4less again and have been completely ignored but im still recieving voicemails etc from crs asking me to set up a payment plan...

**crs**

I have emailed the manager at xercise4less, again.

I am trying to sort this as fast as possible but as usual, they appear to be using their usual tactic of ignoring people until they give in and pay.

I am only one of hundreds of people that have fell victim to their staff incompetent, fraudulent business and complete lack of moral fibre.

I will be in contact as soon when/if they decide to speak to me.

From:

Sent: 19 February 2018 11:13

To:

Subject: CRS Ref No: ,,,,,,

Dear Mr ....

Re: CRS Ref No: ..../ Xercise 4 Less Ref No: ......

Further to your recent email,

It is true that you have not had a contract with them for a number of years,

but this debt has been outstanding for a number of years.

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

On you entered into a Membership Agreement with Xercise 4 Less.

You agreed to pay £9.99 a month and give a months notice when you wished to terminate your Agreement.

Xercise 4 Less have not received the relevant notice from you to cancel your Membership, but payments stopped in Autumn 2015.

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.

Please contact us within the next 7 days on 01444 449165 to discuss repayment of your balance.

Yours sincerely,

David Castle

Collections Department

**xercise4less emails**

I’m still receiving emails from this debt collection agency.

As said in my previous email,

I had already paid an ‘outstanding balance’ of over £200.

I had been told by your reception staff numerous times that my contract was cancelled.

Can you please contact me regarding this.

I know I am only one of hundreds of people that are in this situation, brought on by what I can only assume is staff incompetence.

As such an amount of time has passed, I can only hope that the current staff has had proper training to stop this fraudulent behaviour happening to other people.

Please reply asap as I am being hounded for money that I have already paid, for a contract that has been cancelled for 3 years.

Many thanks

thank you if youve taken the time to read this far. all suggestions and advice are greatly appreciated.

many thanks

IGNORE CRS, completely they've already stolen £200 off you!!!

Kick this gym in to touch, complain as much as your'e able, get onto social media and embarass them on there, twitter, FB etc.

Lodge a formal complaint with the CMA about this clown outfit and their ''customer care''.

DO NOT pay them anything again.

IGNORE toothless CRS and hammer X4L, go after the gym manager, and escalate it to his manager.

thank you for such a timely response.

i had already spoken to the manager at the hull branch and he said there must have been a mistake as my membership had been inactive for almost 3 years.

i was told to leave it with him and itd be sorted.

i didnt hear anything for a while, assumed it was settled

now im being bombarded with calls and letters from crs again.

i have since tried to call and email the manager again but in usual xercise4less fashion i have been completely ignored.

the reception staff are woefully incompetent and the whole xercise4less franchise are fraudulent, morally bankrupt con artists.

When i spoke to crs previously they said they were aware that i had already settled it and they were not obliged to give me statement proof of this and that this new debt was for further membership fees to present...

Dear Mr Cooper

Re: CRS Ref No: ... / Xercise 4 Less Ref No: .....

Further to your recent contact with CRS.

We refer you to our previous correspondence and our position remains the same,

you continue to have an account balance of £171.47.

Please contact CRS directly on 01444 449165 to discuss your account within the next 7 days.

A suitable resolution can be organised.

Your membership with Xercise 4 Less has not been resolved correctly and your account balance remains payable.

Our lines are open 08:30am - 6:00pm, Monday to Friday.

Yours sincerely,

Nick Bright

Deputy Collections Manager

another email now

Ignore them.

Pay nothing.

Keep a diary of events with a view to reporting the gym for the criminal offence of harassment.

Any emails CRS send, mark as junk and bounce them back.

Text messages 'forward' them to 7726 (SPAM on your phones keypad)

Letters, stamp with date received, read, laugh, file away.

Hi Dan and welcome to CAG

If you came here earlier for advice, you'd have told Harlands/CRS to swivel !!

They've conned you out of money already but you don't need to pay a penny more !!

Take time to read other threads here and you'll see Harlands/CRS spout hot air, hoping to con folk into paying their alleged gym fee and admin fee dues.

Do NOT speak to Harlands/CRS again for any reason.

I suggest you now email the manager at Hull X4Less saying, "Unless you now tell Harlands/CRS to back off immediately, I will take court action against X4Less citing Harlands/CRS as co-defendants, for harassment."

Let us know how they respond and please read other threads here for more info or examples.

quite honestly i'd consider doing a DD guarantee reclaim against you bank for those payments taken after your cancelation...

Good afternoon

Thank you for your email

I have now advised CRS to stop pursuing you for arrears, It can take them up to 5 working days to receive and action our requests, please ignore any correspondence regarding arrears within this time frame.

Please take this email as confirmation for the cancellation of your membership.

Kind regards,

Willow

On 19 February 2018 at 13:42, wrote:

Hi, I had a membership with the hull branch of your gym chain in 2015.

I was about to be out of the country on deployment for over a year so I called to cancel my membership.

I was told that this was fine and money would no longer be taken from my account.

A few months passed and I realised the money was still being taken from my account.

I again called the hull branch to question this and was told again that they had confirmed cancellation and that was that.

After returning to the uk, I arrived home to a pile of letters from crs/harlands debt recovery agency demanding over £200.

I tried to dispute this but was completely ignored by the staff at xercise4less, hull.

Eventually, I reluctantly paid the money and thought that was the end of it.

I hadn’t heard anything at all for almost three years, when suddenly I got a phonecall from crs demanding almost £200 again in unpaid membership fees, which I had cancelled 3 years prior on more than one occasion and also already paid over £200 to this company to save myself hassle.

This is amongst many emails that they keep sending me.

I spoke to the manager at xercise4less hull when I first started getting these emails, letters and constant calls again and he told me that my file had been inactive since mid 2015 and was certain there was some kind of mistake.

I heard nothing more for a few weeks so I assumed it had been dealt with and resolved.

I have since emailed the hull branch numerous times requesting an end to this but I have had no response.

Also, calling the gym has been unsuccessful as the manager is never there to take the calls and the staff seem to have no idea how to deal with basic customer enquiries.

I can only assume this constant barrage of calls and emails accounts to harassment and I hope there is a reason for the complete lack of communication with the staff at the hull branch and that its not down to staff incompetence in anyway.

Could you please get in contact with me as soon as possible regarding this issue as this agency is driving me insane.

I have already paid unnecessary money to this agency and I cant see any reason whatsoever as to why I should have to pay it again after my membership being inactive for 3 years.

I have attached the latest email from CRS.

Thanks in advance for any help you may be able to give.

recieved this after contacting head office.

unsure of whether to try and claim the money back or just forget about it.

as the cancellations were made over the phone i have no evidence of it.

cant see why not

Sorry but I disagree.

The DD's were paid because you failed to cancel the DD mandate.

You then went on to pay more to Harlands/CRS in the belief you owed them money and had to pay it.

If you wanted a refund of DD's paid under the DD Guarantee Scheme, you should have claimed this long ago. I would put this down to experience and read this about cancelling in future - https://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?452671-Cancelling-your-Gym-Agreement-Get-it-right-!

I'd be happy that X4Less have called off Harlands/CRS and they'll not trouble you again.

Read the link above to avoid similar problems (gyms or other subscriptions) in the future.