Long story short, I have signed up to a joint tenancy in a 6 person flat. 5 of us have signed on. It is the same flat as we had last year.

Problem is, the property management company claim we will need to pay the extra £15 as long as the last room has not been filled yet.

I am at a loss regarding what to do.

Hi V's,

 

You say this terrified your parents at home.

 

You need to instruct them, using the advice from the "Doorstep Call" link in post #25 posted by Locutus. Make sure they know that, if anyone calls (which is unlikely) regarding the alleged debt, they must simply tell the caller to leave without discussing the matter at all. You must also tell them to ignore any threats and they must not pay anyone a penny.

 

You could print off a copy of the letter from the link to leave with YP's, so they know how to deal with any such call.

 

Otherwise, ignore CRS.

 

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These are the two latest letters they have sent me. I really cba with their b.s. , I sent a letter with proof of my move to uni and they obviously have not got it with them.

I also told them in the Christmas holidays that i've moved address. This is terrible, i am really stressed because i have no time to deal with this bull****.

Hi V's,

 

Your worst nightmare will not happen !!

 

My experience of many years here working with gym cases is that the gyms or their admin companies will not take a contested case anywhere near a courtroom.

 

Concentrate on your studies and ignore CRS. If they send you anything you're not sure about, tell us and we'll halp.

 

This is their latest reply to me, it terrified my parents at my hometown address who remain afraid.

I am kind of worried guys, I have a very full schedule in the next couple of months and I really hope these guys don't actually take me to court over this (They know they have no case but are they crazy as well as stupid?) since I have exams (worst nightmare = court case when I am scheduled to have an exam).

I have sent them a letter with an amalgamation of the points here.

And i have made some adjustments to the letter which hopefully you find ok:

Dear sir or madam,

I refer to my membership with the gym and confirm that I have now cancelled the DD mandate.

When I joined the gym, I was told I could cancel when I moved to attend University as long as it was over 15 miles away, which it was. Confirmation of this with evidence had already been supplied to the gym both by phone, in person and via a letter which they have not responded to. It seems they are adamant the dispute is now your responsibility even though I have offered repeatedly to personally pay my debts to the gym.

I originally continued to pay the membership fees because I was told I could not cancel the contract. I now realise that I had every right to cancel the membership because this is what I was told before I joined. Indeed, it was only because of this that I agreed to join. Accordingly, I am afforded protection by Section 5 of the CPUTR 2008.

I have no dispute that the matter of your admin fees is included in the contract terms and conditions. However, that does not alter the fact that such fees are effectively penalties and are not enforceable in law. Therefore, it is in fact unlawful that you are insisting that I pay them.

I will not be paying any more to you or to the gym and you should consider this matter to be in clear dispute because you clearly don’t want to negotiate for a fair outcome since I did offer to pay the outstanding debt of £135 to the gym but not to your fees of £66.50. Please note that the offer of £135 does still stand if I pay that to Durham County Council directly.

In these circumstances, you must cease all collection activity until this matter is resolved. If you continue with any collection activity, your actions will be reported to the OFT.

I am very busy with my work and have no time to waste on arguing with you. I therefore reserve the right to ignore further demands from you but may refer them to the OFT without further notice.

If you believe you have a case against me, feel free to take court action. I welcome the opportunity to vigorously defend against any such action.

Yours faithfully,

The council will do little or nothing to help you resolve this issue and will say that they leave CRS to (mis)handle membership matters or disputes. It is pointless agreeing to pay the gym what you them, hoping that CRS will drop their admin charges as I simply don't believe this will happen.

 

From what you've said, I think you could cancel the DD mandate and argue that you were told you could cancel when you moved away.

 

You could drop CRS a brief letter as follows:-

 

Dear sir or madam,

 

I refer to my membership with xxxx gym and confirm that I have now cancelled the DD mandate.

 

When I joined the gym, I was told I could cancel when I moved to attend University as long as it was over 15 miles away, which it was. Confirmation of this has already been supplied to you.

 

I originally continued to pay the membership fees because I was told I could not cancel the contract. I now realise that I had every right to cancel the membership because this is what I was told before I joined. Indeed, it was only because of this that I agreed to join. Accordingly, I am afforded protection by Section 5 of the CPUTR 2008.

 

I have no dispute that the matter of your admin fees is included in the contract terms and conditions. However, that does not alter the fact that such fees are effectively penalties and are not enforceable in law.

 

I will not be paying any more to you or to the gym and you should consider this matter to be in clear dispute.

 

In these circumstances, you must cease all collection activity until this matter is resolved. If you continue with any collection activity, your actions will be reported to the OFT.

 

I am very busy with my studies and have no time to waste on arguing with you. I therefore reserve the right to ignore further demands from you but may refer them to the OFT without further notice.

 

If you believe you have a case against me, feel free to take court action. As a Law Student, I will welcome the opportunity to vigorously defend against any such action.

 

Yours faithfully,

 

See what comes back but otherwise ignore them for now.

 

Please can you explain the bit i have highlighted?

Hi VVV,

 

You didn't answer my Q above :-

 

You say you spoke to the gym asking to cancel but they said you couldn't, so you wrote to them but got no reply.

 

Do you still have a copy of it the letter you sent and, if so, please confirm the main points therein.

 

I still have a copy of the letter i sent to the gym in hard copy. To paraphrase, it basically says i intend to cancel my membership by writing because i had already tried by phone and they had refused to cancel by phone. I also attached a photocopy of proof that i had moved to my new city in September. This phonecall occured AFTER I had replied to the first CRS letter a couple of days after i started this thread.

I think i am still paying the monthly DD's as the council refuse to cancel the membership with me. So basically, the council are totally making a mess out of this (by relieving themselves of responsibility all the way throughout and giving the problem to the CRS pre-emptively) and the CRS are chasing after me like idiots.

I joined up in June 2011.

Hi V's,

 

Thanks for clarifying what was said when you first joined. As they said you could cancel if you moved away, that is what you should now focus on.

 

Cancel the DD immediately to stop them taking further payments.

 

It's not so important that you didn't send the letter by Recorded post. BUT, do you still have a copy of it and, if so, please confirm the main points therein.

 

I'll look in later and draft a letter to send to CRS.

 

Thank you for all of the help, sincerely. I am under the most pressure I have had in my life with my exams coming up, so this really does ease my mind a bit that others are in the same boat and standing up to these people.

Hi VVV,

 

You haven't been very clear about whether you asked, when joining the gym, if you could cancel m/ship when you had to leave for Uni. If you asked them about this, how did they reply.

 

I know you were later told on the phone that you could cancel because of going away to Uni. I assume the gym told you this but can you say WHEN they said it.

 

Do you have a copy of the letter that you sent the gym, to which they failed to reply. What did it say (short version) and when was it sent.

 

Are you still paying the monthly DD's.

 

What month did you join up.

 

CRS have replied to you in a predictable manner but they are totally wrong in their assertions. Ignore them totally for now.

 

1. I asked when I joined if I could cancel and they simply said I could if I moved more than 15 (i think) miles away.

My mistake that i didn't send my letter with recorded delivery (i.e. i have no proof). But, the letter basically gave them evidence of where I have moved to and also that I intend to cancel the membership because of this. I joined in June and I am still paying the DD's.

About the CRS's assertions, how should I deal with them apart from ignoring them? My problem is that Durham County Council refuse to take responsibility for the issue and simply say they have passed it on to the CRS. Even when, I tell Durham County Council that I can pay them my outstanding debts to them (but not the CRS's fees) directly.

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These are the developments in my situation. I need some advice on how i can counter their arguments basically. I am very under pressure in exams for my second year law exams because i need to get good grades for any chance of a shot at the Bar. I would really appreciate your help guys because i am a bit unsure as to the case law/statutes that make their demands here unlawful. They have basically did what Slick 132 said in post 3 here: "There will normally be something in your contract confirming that late payment and other admin matters will be dealt with by CRS or a third party.

If you read other threads here, you will find many where I've said that CRS admin Fees are not legally enforceable for various reasons.

Unfortunately, CRS will not agree and sometimes go to great lengths to explain that their fees ARE enforceable and have been agreed by various official bodies, such as the OFT or Trading Standards. This is basically rubbish !!

So you may have to deal with CRS about paying what you owe the gym but you will not have to pay CRS's extra fees."

Problem is, the county council have said everything including the cancellation of the contract has been passed onto CRS. So, Durham County Council won't let me cancel with them, i must deal with CRS. I have tried continuously since September, when i moved, to cancel the contract, but they have not responded. I am very annoyed and slightly worried because i am so busy with work at the minute.

I reassert that i am happy to pay the amount i owe to the gym but not the charges insisted upon by the CRS.

Well tbh, the government here are just leeches. Expenses scandal is just the tip of the iceberg.

Well, its a step towards the right direction, definitely. But, nepotism will always be there and work very heavily in the favour of more advantaged pupils.

I had hundreds of pounds taken from me via one of these scams. The bank gave me compensation but tbh i was very annoyed that their security could be breached so easily.

Tbh i have grown very disillusioned with my council. They have basically incorrectly passed my gym memberhip payments onto a credit resolution company who actually make arguably illegal threats.

tbh, it is quite hard to keep discipline to have a healthy diet when you are stressed out with work.

Thanks. I have not studied the whole Ashbourne case yet, I remember reading a summary of it last year but this bit escaped my mind. In light of this, i will phone up the gym tomorrow and ask them what i owe them, and have everything resolved. I will cite the case law in my phonecall and demand that i can cancel, because this is what the courts said a consumer is entitled to after all.

As for the CRS, we will see what they do next. I am sending a paper copy of the letter tomorrow, recorded delivery, and I have sent an email to them.

I must ask, how do these episodes usually end? Has anyone actually ever got taken to court before on here?

I think I stated clearly enough about their hassling on the letter, that if they bother me that would be unlawful and the court will take that into account.

Hi VVV,

 

There will normally be something in your contract confirming that late payment and other admin matters will be dealt with by CRS or a third party.

 

If you read other threads here, you will find many where I've said that CRS Admin Fees are not legally enforceable for various reasons.

 

Unfortunately, CRS will not agree and sometimes go to great lengths to explain that their fees ARE enforceable and have been agreed by various official bodies, such as the OFT or Trading Standards. This is basically rubbish !!

 

So you may have to deal with CRS about paying what you owe the gym but you will not have to pay CRS's extra fees.

 

Can you confirm if you signed up for a minimum contract period and how long is it.

 

Were you aged 18+ when you signed up.

 

Have you cancelled your membership in writing.

 

Have you cancelled the Direct Debit if that's how you paid the m/ship fees.

 

When we get your answers, we will try to help you in dealing with CRS.

 

I was over 18 when i first signed the contract. I signed for 12 months. I have not cancelled the membership because they said i couldn't when i spoke to them. I sent them a letter which was never replied to. They then told me on the phone i could cancel because i had moved away for uni, but they didn't tell me this when i asked them about it at the contract signing. About this: " There will normally be something in your contract confirming that late payment and other admin matters will be dealt with by CRS or a third party." I feel that this still does not give the CRS the ability to incur their own charges as a third party. They have no jurisdiction in my affairs unless i give permission by agreeing that i owe them money. I had an agreement with the gym not the DCA.

This is my letter so far, please do point out what i might be wrong/missing out on, thanks:

Dear Sir or Madam,

I am perfectly happy to pay my outstanding balance towards Durham County Council. In response to your fees, however, i disagree as a matter of law and principle.

At this stage, any legal action you may contemplate will be both vigorously defended and contested and consider this matter to be in dispute. And i will insist that the case is heard before my local county court.

The court will want evidence that all steps to seek a resolution have been taken before proceedings commence and I do not believe that Durham County Council or CRS have fulfilled their obligations to this end yet.

My offer to pay the gym stands, but due to your intransigence and that of your clients, it seems that we can only achieve a reasonable outcome to this matter by allowing the courts to decide, although this will involve us both in extra expense and time wasted with court proceedings. Do we really want or need this? Or shall we have the mutually beneficial outcome of me paying my outstanding balance to the gym and leaving it at that?

If we are to go down the courtroom route, I will most likely make a misrepresentation claim against you for misrepresenting your charges as a debt I am liable for in the absence of any contractual obligation on my part (bear in mind that i do know that all you can rely upon is the contract which my legal advisors and i have studied and concluded that you don't have any rights to incur the extra £66.50 under the terms). I draw your attention to the OFT guidelines on debt collection:

Charging for debt collection

2.9 Charges should not be levied unfairly.

2.10 Examples of unfair practices are as follows:

a. Claiming collection costs from a debtor in the absence of express contractual or other legal provision.

b. misleading debtors into believing they are legally liable to pay collection charges when this is not the case, for example, when there is no contractual provision

d. applying unreasonable charges, for example, charges not based on actual and necessary costs

e. applying charges which are disproportionate to the main debt.

In this, I consider your charge of £66.50 to be disproportionate to the main debt and not based on actual and necessary costs. I would like you to explain the breakdown of those fees in front of a judge should the occassion arise. Especially since you have no legal rights to enforce them. Therefore the charge that CRS are making is wrong. At the very least, should you pursue this matter beyond my offer, you may be reported to the Office of Fair Trading immediately as charging fees for debt collecting and 'file transfer' is not a fair charge.

Also, in their guidance notes for collectors the OFT say that it is an Unfair practice to claim collection costs from a debtor in the absence of express contractual or other legal provision. However, even if you do have these, which i doubt, recent case law in the Ashbourne Management services case and the UCTA 1977 would suggest that any contract i had with Lifestyle Fitness was unfair anyway and certainly the court will take that into account; with substantial weight. Especially since i wrote a letter to the gym which was never replied to. Certainly though, as a first port of call i disagree with any notion that i have a contract with the CRS. Please also note as part of my defence in any court action you will be asked to justify this charge giving a complete Breakdown of the costs to the Judge.

Further, i do demand that you to stop sending me such letters to my home address in the future. Especially since you are quite possibly breaking anti-harassment laws. Any correspondence to me should be done via this email address or a legitimate order by the Court.

Indeed I believe you may be in breach of the:

Malicious Communications Act 1988. This deals with the sending of letters or articles for the purpose of causing 'distress or anxiety'. A person found guilty can be fined in the magistrate’s court. To prosecute successfully the letter or article sent would have to convey:

a message which is indecent or grossly offensive;

a threat; or

information which is false and known or believed to be false by the sender.

I believe you cannot know whether or not your claim will be successful until a Judge decides, so you have sent me information which is inherently false until proven by a judge that i do owe you your £66.50, and thus currently your letter constitutes a threat becase of the inclusion of the "Colelctor" threat and the fact that bolded, underlined and red letters using such serious language would be deemed oppressive ( breaking part 2.5 of the OFT guidelines too) . If you continue to harass me in this manner I will be forced to take action with Police attendance under the protection from Harassment act 1997.

I may also take furtheraction under the Administration of Justice Act 1970 S.40, which makes it a Criminal Offence for a creditor or a creditor's agent to make demands (for money), which are aimed at causing 'alarm, distressicon or humiliation', because oftheir frequency or manner. Therefore, for the possibility that you may decide to phone me, I have created provisions which will enable me to record our conversations on the phone as evidence to be used in any Court hearing.

Additionally, I have heard from my advisors that the "collector" you refer to is a company known as "Face to Face". A company who are a group of self employed collectors with no legal power whatsoever. Should it be your intention to arrange a "doorstep call", please be advised that under OFT rules, you can only visit me at my home if you make an appointment. I have no wish to make such an appointment with you. Further, there is only an implied license under the English Common Law for people to be able to visit me on my property without express permission: the postman and people asking for directions etc (Armstrong v Sheppard & Short Ltd [1959] 2 QB 384

, per Lord Evershed M.R.). Therefore, from this, i bring to your attention that I revoke license under Common Law for you, or your representatives to visit me at my property. If you do so, you will be liable to damages for a tort of trespass and action will be taken, including but not limited to, police attendance.

I have made my position clear with a fair proposal for both of us.

Yours faithfully,

A.

To be honest, they are in for a backlash from consumers (gyms) because their whole business model involves tying people to unfair contract terms.

This is crazy.