Hello, I am desperately hoping someone can help on what step to take next with CRS / Harlands. To give back story, my partner signed up to a boxing gym in November last year for an 11 month term contract (English is not his first language and was mislead to believe he could cancel his contract at any time with 1 months notice as like a rolling contract) He lost his job that following December, and in January he went into the gym to inform them of this and ask if he can cancel his membership. The woman there told him that it is fine under these circumstances and he can cancel his direct debit. She did not at any point tell him to contact Harlands and cancel it Via them. In February he started receiving letters saying he owed 80 odd pounds, and he has been charged penalties, fees etc. He contacted them saying that he has lost his Job and was told this IS an acceptable reason to cancel his membership at the gym. He sent them the evidence of his loss of job, but because he was actually effectively sacked out of his job by a new manager who did not like this was classed as him being 'dismissed', CRS responded saying he is NOT able to cancel his membership as they can only cancel his membership if he is made "redundant or other loss of livelihood" After this I advised him they are being ridiculous (CRS) and that he should offer to pay the last month and ignore them. Since then they have sent him numerous other letters demanding £741.20 for the full years membership £495. (he paid 2 months) and then £290 odd of fees!!! I have had phone calls with them try to explain he lost his job and he was told totally incorrect information at the gym about cancelling his membership, but because those were 'verbal conversations' there is no proof of them taking place !! The man on the phone was very condescending and snotty about all this. After months of back and forth, he has had enough and has recently offered to pay the £495 for the rest of the years membership and to just try and end all this. I used the template found on other threads here and sent them a letter offering them that as a final amount and to Pay no fees or penalties, within 14 days and if they do not accept he will not pay anything. They have now responded via writing with the following: Further to your recent correspondence, 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 for collection at which point you became responsible for our collection fees. These charges have been added to cover actual and necessary costs incurred because of your breach of contract, and are stipulated within the terms of that contract. It is our position that our charges are lawful and in line with all relevant guidance. We may, in some circumstances, be able to negotiate a reduction on these charges, but will not accept any offer of payment that gives no consideration to the costs these charges cover. For the above reasons, we shall be pleased to negotiate on this sum, taking into consideration your concerns, but cannot accept your offer to pay just the remaining membership fees as sufficient to settle this balance. We are, however, concerned to hear that someone here has told you that you cannot cancel in the circumstances you have described. This is not the case, but it is true you cannot cancel by the procedure you have followed. We wish to confirm that the terms of your agreement state: “This agreement can be cancelled upon appropriate proof of redundancy or other loss of livelihood.” The terms also state, however, that: "ANY cancellation for the above reasons will not be effected until the appropriate proof is provided and received." As such, you will remain liable for your arrears up to the point such evidence is received, but a reduction is possible and so we recommend that you supply us with evidence of your change of circumstances as soon as possible in order to maximise the discount we can offer you in relation to the remaining balance. For termination on the grounds of redundancy or other loss of livelihood, we require either a letter from your former employer which is either signed or on headed paper (ideally both) confirming the termination of your employment ( either from the time your employment ended or a new letter), or any document relating to a claim for job seeker’s allowance. Please note we cannot accept a P45 as sufficient as this would be supplied even if you left your previous employment to take a higher paid job. This evidence may be sent to us by posting it to Credit Resolution Services, 2nd Floor, Rockwood House, 9-17 Perrymount Road, Haywards Heath, West Sussex, RH16 3TW, by emailing it to *email. uk or by faxing it to 01444 449 152. Please be aware that we are happy to accept scans, photocopies and photographs of evidence, we do not require original documents. We shall hold further recovery action for a period of 7 days to allow you time to provide such evidence. Yours sincerely Now, should we write back and offer to Pay the penalty fee of late payment on top of the £495 (£20 I believe or something) or just ignore them and act as this is them declining his previous offer. And also, is him loosing his job NOT by redundancy, but by being dismissed reason enough for him to be able to cancel his membership anyway?.. Surely it should apply to both, and can even be considered a 'loss of livelihood' if he does not have his job any more?? is he actually not obliged to pay anything at all because he lost his job ? Please any advice on what he should do next would be greatly appreciated! I cannot believe they are not accept his payment of nearly £500 and still want £740. Thank you in advance !

I joined the Swansea branch during 2014 and am certain that I went down to the branch, filled out the cancellation forms and cancelled the membership before I left. I've only just now been going through my financial statements and it turns out even after 3 years Harlands are still charging me the £9.99 a month. I am trying at present to cancel my membership once again through the online cancellation form on the website of xercise 4 less; but I keep getting runtime error. There is no way for me that i can see to contact either group through emails. I also cannot login through the onsite portal to see my profile; as although my email address is correct; it still says I have no details relating to that email address. Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated. I would love to get my money back considering I already cancelled but if I just did something wrong and had to cancel harlands payments through direct debit itself then fine - ill write it off as money lost. Just would love to get rid of them.

Hey. I got contract for 12 months after 14 or 15 months of use i tryed to cancel by contacting by phone. No answer. after couple of times with no luck i cancelled my dd. And everything started... ofc i putted a .I. on them but still intrested to know do they have any legal right? Thx.

Hey Guys in a ongoing battle Going back few months now with harlands over the head of cancelled membership of a gym! Last July 6th months pregnant I verbally informed a member of the gym to freeze my account until after the baby was born. My gym membership is a 30 day rolling contract btw. Wasn’t until Feb of this year that I realised that the money was still Coming out of account I rang the gym who told me to put it In an email which I did and sent it off In March still had no response from The gym I went to the bank who claimed back the money under the indemnity scheme. Then the letters started from Harlands, immediately I rang them and explained the situation and forwarded them the email I sent to the gym in February. They were to look into It and get back to me. I got a letter to say that as harlands hasn’t heard from me the amount owed had now risen and was being referred to a debt collection agency. messages started coming to contact this number I rang harlands again and explained again and they told me it was now passed to Crs who I just rang this morning and they were just shouting at me that I should have contacted them as it states in the terms and conditions and I breached these conditions I am liable for all the money and they are starting court proceedings for the 180 I claimed back and 25 for administration fee and I don’t even know what else he as shouting. I thought no this isn’t on this is the gyms fault I just rang them this morning, turns out I spelt the girls name incorrectly that I emailed, but she also said that I should have left a letter to say I wanted to freeZe my account, this wasn’t told to me at the time however they were happy to verbally take my notice. But now start stating I should have done this and that when that day they were fine accepting that I wanted to freeze it was a 30 day Rolling contract , I wasn’t tied into any contract What should I do It’s such a mess and the messages and phone calls are unbearable

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.

hello everyone. I am in deep mess with harlands, due to automatic membership renew. i joined Bromley Self Defence in May 2013 with my son. Monthly fee was ridicules but because I was attacked carjacked few months earlier I would pay for anything that will restore confidence and ease the stress. I paid monthly £80. anyway I have signed the contract. from what i understood i was tied up for 6 months, but after 8 months I realized that they keep charging me. at that time me and my son didn't attended classes anymore. I cancelled my DD and start receiving letters from Harlands demanding monthly repaiment and admin fee. I contacted Bromley Self Defence but received information that my contract stated that i will be renew with contract after 6 months if didn't cancel in advance and that also Harlands sent me letter saying i have two weeks to cancel or will be renewed. i didn't received any letter. now my balance is £210 and I seriously don't know what to do. please advise me, this is beyond my understanding.

Hi, I received a text from CRC this morning stating they had sent me a letter a week earlier and to call them about it. From looking on the internet i released its Xercise 4 less related. i contacted Harlands who told me my direct debit was cancelled in late July (by my bank) so from then up to now i've not been paying any subs to the gym. I received an email from Harlands on 22nd July, saying: "Harlands administer the collection of all payments due under your agreement with Xercise 4 Less. Your bank have advised us that your July instalment has been returned unpaid "refer to payer" as there were insufficient funds in the account to pay the amount due. We will therefore debit your account on 2 AUG 16 for the total amount of £34.99. Please note that the submission for this will be made two working days prior to 2 AUG 16 and if this date is not convenient" i thought fair enough the money will come out on 2nd aug, but it didn't as the bank cancelled the DD, however i didn't realise this and Harlands / CRC apparently started sending letters out to me but to an address i've never heard of!! i.e. they had the wrong address on their systems. I called CRC today and the guy said if you pay within the next 30 days we will reduce your fees to £112.49. now i do owe Xercise 4 less subs to cover July to September but im not happy they are wanting so much. i find it grossly unfair when they had my address down wrong. they could have emailed me again, texted me, froze my account so i couldn't access into the gym to make me aware of this issue. The CRC guy said i will need to call back on 22nd nov to either pay the £112..49 or sort out other arrangements. He said it was my responsibility to pay and the letters sent out (to the wrong address!) were only courtesy. He also said i should have checked the payment went through on the 2nd, i told him i thought it would have gone through DD without an issue. i feel frustrated, will call my bank tonight to ask why the DD was cancelled. any advise on how to tackle CRC ?

Hello, hope somebody can help me out, please. Took a Gym membership out due to moving away and commute to and from the gym would have been a nightmare I spoke with the Gym who informed me to cancel through Harlands of which I did and they accepted as proof of cancellation. they would not cancel my Gym membership stating I had arrears of £89.98, this included £39.98 for monthly instalments and £50.00 for the admin fees. of which I did offer to meet halfway to resolve the matter with a payment of £45 as I was not prepared to pay the fictitious admin fee. Moved address and did not hear from Harlands for a good while. CRS have started to email trying to chase me for payments. Did a little homework of which I now know Harlands and CRS to be the same. Sent The Gym, Harlands and CRS an email stating. Re: CRS Ref No: ****** MP Fit Gym - Brighouse Ref. No: *** I cancelled my direct debit in September 2017 due to moving home, having informed MP FIT Gym and HARLANDS via email.! I provided proof of my new address to HARLANDS in the form of a bank statement and an itemised bill of which was received on the 08th December 2017, HARLANDS have copies of both and accepted as proof for cancellation.! Apparently, I! had arrears of £89.98, this included £39.98 for monthly instalments (October 2017 and November 2017) and £50.00 for the admin fees. of which I did offer to meet halfway to resolve the matter with a payment of £45. The offer has now passed and no longer stands. I will not pay you or HARLANDS Services Ltd any ‘administration fees’ as these are penalty charges and are unlawful and unenforceable.! Adding charges, even as implied in the misleading membership terms and conditions, is unfair and amounts to penalty charges. Provision for cancelling the membership due to moving away from the facility is completely within the stated terms and conditions, as discussed in email correspondence.! However, these terms and conditions are both misleading and unclear, as they do not state who the agreement is with. This is unfair.! The average consumer who wishes to cancel is likely to give notice to their gym, as I did in September 2017, providing proof of my address.! I wish you to withdraw all attempts to demand money from me via HARLANDS Services Ltd or their subsidiary companies forthwith and agree that I cancelled the agreement in September 2017. I also wish you to agree that there is no outstanding debt, balance, arrears, account (which you refer to but I do not believe exists), owned by me.! If you disagree with the above, my intention will be to seek a court judgment.! I will ask that the following be considered: 1. A declaration that all of your demands, including those of HARLANDS Services Ltd, are contractually enforceable.! 2. Nominal compensation at an amount decided by the court for MP FIT Gym and HARLANDS Services Ltd continual harassment.! The route I shall take to resolve this will involve the county court, using the small claims court procedure.! Sincerely, __________________________________________________ _____________________ to which CRS replied with Re: CRS Ref No: ****** / MP Fit Gym - Brighouse Ref No: *** Further to your email, we initially wish to apologise that the agreed cancellation of your membership was not taken into consideration in our previous correspondence. The evidence is sufficient to support termination of your membership from the date the evidence was received (8th December 2017). There is no record of any attempt to cancel in September 2017 and the terms are clear that cancellation will be form the date evidence is received. As such your balance has been reduced in relation to sums which had not become due on the date your evidence was received. This means we can accept £156.48, consisting of arrears already due on the date your evidence was received, in order to settle this matter. Your comments regarding the terms being misleading and or unclear are noted but not accepted, and we can see no basis for these claims other than that the terms are not convenient to you personally in this circumstance. 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 for collection at which point you became responsible for our collection fees. These charges have been added to cover actual and necessary costs incurred because of your breach of contract, and are stipulated within the terms of that contract. It is our position that our charges are lawful and in line with all relevant guidance. We may, in some circumstances, be able to negotiate a reduction on these charges, but will not accept any offer of payment that gives no consideration to the costs these charges cover. For the above reasons, we shall be pleased to negotiate on this sum, taking into consideration your concerns, but cannot agree to write off this balance. If you believe now, or at any time in the future, that our course of conduct constitutes harassment, we recommend that you take any action you deem necessary. We are, however, aware of Section 40, subsection 1 of the Administration of Justice Act 1970, and Section 1, subsection 1 of the Protection from Harassment Act 1997. We are confident that we are not guilty of any offence because one or more of the exemptions within subsection 3 of both the quoted sections of these acts of legislation apply to this circumstance. It is our position that this balance is due, and our correspondence has been appropriate to the matter in tone, content and frequency and as such is reasonable. Please contact CRS directly on 01444 449165 to discuss your account within the next 7 days. A suitable resolution can be organised. Our lines are open 08:30am - 6:00pm, Monday to Friday. Yours sincerely, David Castle Collections Department Credit Resolution Services and CRS are trading styles of Harlands Services Ltd. Registered Office: : 2nd Floor, Rockwood House, 9 - 17 Perrymount Road, Haywards Heath RH16 3TW. Company Registration No. 2982925. VAT Registration No. 799 7113 70. IMPORTANT This e-mail is intended solely for the addressee, is strictly confidential and may also be legally privileged. If you are not the addressee please do not read, print, re-transmit, store or act in reliance on it or any attachments. Instead, please e-mail it back to the sender and then immediately permanently delete it. Although efforts will have been made to ensure that this e-mail and any attachment(s) are free from software viruses you should yourself ensure that they are in fact virus-free. Please note that Harlands Services Ltd does not accept any responsibility for any loss caused by software viruses. __________________________________________________ _____________________ Soo asking should I continue to argue with Harlands/CRS or ignore all correspondence with them, has anybody had any joy with Harlands/CRS and has any been to civil court with them. Cheers

Hi, joined an Xercise for less gym around a year ago and was paying the peak membership of 19.99 a month with one month notice period. I had actually joined another gym and forgot to cancel the direct debit. I then took cancelling the direct debit would mean that my membership would automatically get cancelled. Recently I received a letter from Harlands saying that my August direct debit had not been received and they are charing me an administration fee of £25.00 which means in total they are saying I need to pay £44.99 to get my account in line. They also said that if I did not pay this by September 25th that I would be charged an additional £25.00. I have tried phoning them to resolve this which re-directed me to the Xercise4Less website. filled out their cancellation form they have now sent me an email saying they can't find my details and asked me to respond with other details which I have. I haven't received a response in this, which would seem odd for a company that apparently am I in debt too. I accept that I should pay the month of August as it is a one month termination clause but I don't see why I should be paying extra admin fee's that they are adding without explaining why. I also cannot get a hold of a real person on the phone, it just goes to an automated voicemal for xercise for less cancellations and re-directs you to their website. What is the best approach to take here as I don't want my credit rating to be affected? Thanks for any advice/help

Hi, I need some help asap. I joined TruGym in 2nd October 2017. Then my account was immediately defaulted because my bank account doesn't take DD. Because i didn't have another payment method i let it there. I wasn't able to access the gym at that time also. After 3 months in late december i received an email form CRS that i owe a debt of £167 passed by trugym Platinum. I tried to contact TruGym at first but they didnt reply in any emails. Then one month later i received another email from the CRS with a Letter attached saying that i owe £203 and that they will take legal action if i dont pay them. Also they are willing to "reach an amicable resolution to this". What should i do?

Hi, I am looking for some further advise after following these post around the Harlands, CRS and trying to do it myself using your advice. I think I have come to a point now where I’m fed up of playing email ping pong and need some further help. I cancelled my DD a month too early for Harlands. They said they have written to me but assume they have my old address. I then received an email from CRS. Will post below the emails to make it easier to read. Re: CRS Ref No: Xercise 4 Less Ref. No: We regret that despite our attempts to reach an amicable resolution to your account, you remain in arrears to Xercise 4 Less. We must therefore give notice that failing to reply to this letter within the next 10 days will result in your account balance being passed to Zinc Group Ltd, one of the UK's leading providers of debt recovery solutions. WE WOULD STILL LIKE TO RESOLVE THIS MATTER We're still happy to listen to your reasons for not paying and will do whatever we can to reach an acceptable resolution for both parties. All that is required is for you to call us on 01444 449 165 by no later than 29th October 17 so we can discuss your account further. I replied using the email template from here. Dear Sir or madam, I refer to my membership at Xercise 4 Less gym, and to your demands for payment. I joined the gym June 2016 in Bristol and entered into a direct debit immediately and started paying DD of 14.99 every month. I cancelled my DD mandate June2017 because I had never used the gym facilities in the entire year. This is adequate notice of my desire to cancel the gym agreement as per the High Court ruling in The OFT v Ashbourne Mgt Svs Ltd in 2011. I will not pay you any admin or Cancellation Fees as these are penalties that are unlawful and unenforceable. I now realise I should have given a month's notice and, to remedy this, I offer to pay you a final month's fee of £14.99 for July 2017. If you confirm in writing that you'll accept this amount in 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 other payment, I will pay you nothing and my offer will be withdrawn. Yours faithfully, They immediately sent back.. We wish to advise that cancelling your Direct Debit was not adequate notice of your intention to cancel. The terms of your agreement specifically state that you must give notice in writing and complete minimum number of Direct Debit payments you committed to. We believe you are mistaken with regards to Mr. Justice Kitchin's ruling in the case of the Office of Fair Trading versus Ashbourne Management Services Ltd. as such a statement does not appear anywhere in the judgement, a copy of which can be found at [. If you can identify any passage in this ruling that supports your claim that cancelling your Direct Debit was sufficient, please tell us the paragraph number and we shall give consideration to your offer. We should warn you than in the six and a half years since that case, no one has yet been able to show us where this statement has been made. In the absence of this, we are unable to accept your offer of £9.99 as sufficient to settle this debt because more than one month has passed without payment and without completing the correct cancellation procedure. As you did not complete the correct cancellation procedure, the club were bound by the contract to hold your membership open for you. A service has been provided during this time, at cost to the club, whether you attended or not. 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 for collection at which point you became responsible for our collection fees. To be clear, the addition of these charges in such circumstances is stipulated in the terms of your agreement. It is our position that our charges are lawful and in line with all relevant guidance and thus are not unlawful. These charges have been added to cover actual and necessary costs incurred because of your breach of contract and thus are not penalties. We may be able to negotiate a reduction on these charges, but will not accept any offer of payment that gives no consideration to the costs these charges cover. For the above reasons it must remain our position that the balance of £222.47 is correct and due. Payment can be made by Credit/Debit card by calling us on 01444 449165. A payment plan can also be set up if you are unable to settle in full, although we do charge a little extra for this. Please ensure a payment or response is received within the next 7 days, so we can avoid further action being taken. To which I replied using one of your templates I refer to your email of 24th October 2017. There is plenty of case law which confirms that your admin fees are, in fact, penalty charges which are unlawful. The fact that they are included in gym's T&C's does not alter that fact. If you decide to take action to enforce such penalties, I will produce the necessary evidence to the court. If you believe that the case of The OFT v Ashbourne Mgt Services Ltd did not set precedents applicable to all gym (or other similar) cases, that is your prerogative. However, I will rely on this judgement if court action is taken. I will make you one final offer to pay the month's notice fee of £14.99, as per my initial email (not the 9.99 which you quoted in the email) This is my final offer, valid for just 14 days. Accept it in writing and I will pay. Otherwise I will pay you nothing. Further demands from you will be reported to Trading Standards. They came back to me today with, Further to our previous correspondence, please quote the case law you refer to, as these charges have been enforced in court numerous times and NEVER been deemed unfair or as penalties by any judge we have presented them to. We do not dispute that the Ashbourne case set precedents relevant to our business, what we dispute is your claim that cancelling a Direct Debit was sufficient to cancel the membership was such a precedent. We have even presented you with the judgement you refer to so you can see this for yourself, and you have entirely failed to justify your claims. As such you may rely on that judgement as much as you wish but neither we or our client are guilty of any of the issues discussed in that case and it does not support your position. We have been operating in this manner for almost fourteen years and added our fees to over six hundred thousand debts and are confident that if we were guilty of any wrong doing we would be notified by one or more of the numerous bodies set up to protect consumer rights during this time. The OFT, Trading Standards, the FCA and the Financial Ombudsman Service have sought to take action against us a grand total of zero times since CRS's inception in 2003. It is simply not plausible that we would still be trading if these fees were not lawful. They have been enforced in court, proving that they are enforceable. You can state you know them not to be, as can the adminsitrators of the Consumer Action Group forums and many other such websites; we know otherwise and apparently so does every district judge we have come across, the OFT, Trading Standards, the FCA and the Financial Ombudsman Service. Your position is based on bad advice received for unqualified third paries with little or no understadning of the situation. We urge you to consider the actual evidence that has been presented to you as your dispute lacks any credibility. Your offer of £14.99 is not reasonable and is not accepted. We have noted your comments and we have nothing further to add, you continue to have an account balance of £222.47. We will proceed with next actions to recover your balance. If you wish to discuss the matter further, please contact us immediately on 01444 449165. Our lines are open 08:30am - 6:00pm, Monday to Friday. Yours sincerely, David Castle

Good morning, I looked at my bank statement this morning to see that Harlands have taken £36.99 out of my account. called them and they said it was refused by my bank as "Refer to payer". received an email from them a day after they tried to take the payment(24th January) saying that it was "Refer to Payer" and that there was insufficient funds in my account" called my bank today and they said they can see that Harlands attempted to take the £11.99 on the 23rd January but it was refused. They said I had over £100 in my bank on that day. They then mentioned that it was a merchant problem and that the payment "Is not a fair charge" I then called Harlands back and they flat out told me my bank were lying to me. Harlands also sent me an email also showing the status of the payment as "Refer to Payer" What do I do now? They already have taken the £36.99 out of my account. How would I go about getting the £25 back when I did in fact have sufficient funds as confirmed by my bank? Thanks for your help. Carl

Last week whilst sorting through bank statement I came across a Harlands direct debit for £19.99. After researching on google I realised it was for a gym membership (in my knowledge I hadn't been a member of a gym for s substantial amount of time)! After phone calls I realised it was for Simply Gym Wrexham which I had joined in April 2013! I'd been a member for a few months (been to only a handful of times) and had believed Sid cancelled it in January 2014! I remember telling a member of staff on the desk that I wished to cancel and writing to bank to cancel my DD. I've since been in to the bank and they have no record of me cancelling the DD and the manager in the gym said it's the responsibility of the member to cancel the DD and they do nothing (this was not communicated to me at the time either)! They have all the correct contact information (name/address/tel/email) but I have had no contact from them in 4 years. They also had me listed on their system as 'high risk' as I hadn't been there for such a long time (4 years!!!)! think this is morally wrong and really underhand on the part of the gym. They continued taking the DD but no contact. I have since spoken to a couple of friends, coincidentally one who had the exact same situation with the same gym. Membership believed to have been cancelled but was not. I know I should've picked up on this sooner and I will be checking my statements from now on what can I do to get some of the 48 x 19.99 (nearly 1,000) money back. To date the only response back I've had is 'it Is the responsibility of the member to cancel their Direct Debit with the bank when they wish to cancel, we believe we have abided by the terms and conditions of the membership and are unable to offer the refund requested'. It would be very interesting to find out how many other similar unknowing 'high risk' members they have! Any advice please..... Any advice on what to do next? realise I should've picked up on it sooner and will be going through bank statements monthly from now on... Thank you

Hi, just wondering how you're getting on with this? I'm currently having a bit of a nightmare with it. https://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?481432-xercise4less-harlands

after a little google and a browse around the forum I've seen alot of prople having the same issues with Harlands after trying to cancel gym membership! My situation is as follows I joined a gym (choices health club) september 2015 for a 12 month contract and then it went on to a rolling contract. I was working away monday to friday and the gym was near where i worked. I started a new job in sept 2017 (75 miles away from the gym I'd joined) I cancelled my DD on 13th september 2017, i rang up the gym to cancel my membership, I was told I'd have to call in to cancel, I explained I now live over an hour away and they emailed me a cancellation form. I got an email from Harlands 15th september regarding my cancellation of my DD and that if i didnt reinstate it by 25th september (my billing date) I would be charged a £25 administration fee. I didn't send off the gym cancellation letter. These are the t&cs on my cancellation letter, as I've already cancelled my DD I didn't want to sign this agreeing that If i cancelled my DD I would accept the 'irreversible adminstration charges' TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF CANCELLATION • You must abide by the cancellation notice period applicable to your membership contract • In the unlikely event of a dispute, it is the member’s responsibility to provide proof of cancellation • You must keep your copy of this cancellation and be able to produce it if requested to confirm your cancellation, if you are not offered a copy please request one • Do not cancel your direct debit until all payments have been made after the submission of this form, doing so could result in irreversible administration charges • You may not downgrade your membership within the cancellation period • You are able to withdraw your cancellation at any point during the cancellation period, we can accept this withdrawal verbally and once it has been accepted you must resubmit a cancellation form to cancel your membership I then received another email from HARLANDS dated 26th september referring to their letter dated 15th september I have not contacted them. As i have not reinstated my DD I know owe £25 adminstration fee £39.99 for bill dated 25th september £39.99 cancellation fee £104.98 Total owed If i do not contact them by 16th October I will incur a further £25 adminstration fee. Just looking for some advice on what to do next? As I haven't yet sent my cancellation form off i realise that my gym still recognises me as a member. I called the gym again yesterday 26th september stating that I had received another email from HARLANDS and asked if they had processed my cancellation form (I haven't sent one) I haven't used the gym since July 2017 My home address is still the same as when I joined the gym I can provide the wording of HARLANDS emails however from what i have read from other people s posts it seems like a default reply. Thanks in advance guys!

Hi, ive been following http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?424491-Harlands-and-Xercise-4-Less to help. i cancelled my direct debit and also sent 2 cancellation emails to xercise4less via their website as i was moving further than 50 miles away from the gym i was paying membership for. As i cancelled the DD before sending the cancellation emails, the only response i got to the emails is that my account is in default and i must pay it. I assume they then sent various letters to my old address as on the letter to my new address they said they had added admin fees for me not replying to their letters. I replied with the following: Dear Sir or Madam I refer to your letter of 24 august 2017 received 30 august 2017 and our subsequent phone discussion. I have already forwarded my cancellation emails with xercise4less where I request to cancel membership twice. Also please find attached proof of address. In addition I cancelled my DD mandate on 19/05/2017 and this was adequate notice of my cancellation of the gym agreement as per High Court judgement from the case of The OFT v Ashbourne Mgt Servcies ltd in 2011. I now realise i should have paid one further months fee for the notice period and am willing to offer you £9.99 now. If you confirm in writing within 14 days that you'll accept £9.99 in full statement of all amounts due, i will pay it promptly. If you fail to accept my offer within 14 days, or if you demand any admin or cancellation fees (unlawful penalties), my offer will be withdrawn and i may ignore further demands from you and/or harlands/xercise4less. Such reports may be reported to Trading Standards Yours faithfully, They then replied saying the same thing pretty much saying my account is in debt. They also said my proof was 4 months late as in my original emails i only said i was moving location but not where to, which is true, but if they needed extra proof why didnt they say this instead of declining my offer and saying i owe them money!? i replied saying please refer to my statement about Office of Fair Trading versus Ashbourne Management Services Ltd. They then replied saying in 6 years nobody has ever found that in the case that cancelling a DD is sufficient and they are saying if i can find it please let them know otherwise i still owe them £121. Im in a bit of a pickle, should i just ignore them?? thanks, Dom

Hi, I have been receiving letters from Harlands regarding failed direct debit payments and admin charges etc, similar to many of the other posts on this forum. Back in August, I paid for two memberships with Lifestyle fitness(for me and my girlfriend), both of which were on a "flexible" contract which required a minimum one month commitment. Both of these direct debits were setup under my bank account. My girlfriend moved back home in September and I wanted to go to a more local gym and so tried to cancel the memberships. My girlfriend rang the gym up who informed her that only the owner of the bank account can cancel the contract. I sent an email off at the beginning of October to Harlands customer support including my name, bank account and sort code and asked them to cancel both direct debit agreements linked to my bank account. 10 or so days later, after hearing no response from Harlands and it being only a few days before the next direct debit payment was due to be took out, I decided to cancel both direct debits via my online bank account. After this, I had no contact from Harlands for around a month or so until I received a letter through the post addressed to my girlfriend with the whole admin fees crap. Strangely enough, I didn't receive the same letter for whatever reason. I think I read before in the T&Cs that you must give at least a month's notice if you're cancelling, which I didn't realise. I'd happily pay the last month's fee for my girlfriend but outright refuse to pay the now £50 admin fee. Is there anything I can do to get them off my back?

Hi, As many people have had an issue with Xercise4Less I too am having a problem with them right now. I saw a student advert on a free month from Xercise4Less and did not realise I was being sucked into a 12 month contract, and only realised after a month was paid for after my first free month. once I saw a month being paid for I immediately cancelled the direct debit! Now I have received a letter from a group of people called "Harlands", saying: (Date of letter 17/10/2017, Date recieved: 21/10/2017) "Your bank have recently advised us that your Direct Debit instruction has been cancelled. The terms of your Membership Agreement mean that you have to repay all your installments by direct debit. Therefore, you must call the HARLANDS HELPLINE immediately on 01444 449033 to reinstate your Direct Debit over the telephone. " They also said: "If you do not call us by 7 NOV 2017 you will be charged an administration fee". I really have no idea what to do! The idea of it being free was really appealing to me. I have already paid 1 installment (this installment got taken out on 09/10/2017), with 10 months left as I have already had a free month (my free month started on 09/09/17)! I'm not really using the membership, also I just can't afford to pay for a whole year, being an 18 year old student! Any help, to what I should do next? I've read on other threads that I should call up (I was about to until I read the other threads). Is there anyway I can get them to cancel my whole 12 month membership? Thank you very much!

Hello It is my first time posting in this so I’m unsure what I need to put. I Joined 1gym a few years ago on a 12 month contract (I wasn’t aware of as I was rushed to sign the forms and I was only young). I didn’t use the gym and they were taking more money out than agreed I sent an email and cancelled my direct debit. I haven’t heard anything since until today I received an email from CRS asking for over £300 for the membership as an unsettled debt. It needs to be paid within 7dayz or they will take further action. I believed everything was fine as I haven’t heard anything until now? What should I do?

Hi I've recently cancelled my direct debit to Xercise4less and received a letter from Harlands saying I owe them admin fee of £25 aswell as the monthly fee etc... I had been with the gym for over 3 years now (rolling contract atm). I haven't stepped foot in the gym since 27/06/16. So over £175 wasted (my reason for cancelling). The letter I received from Harlands states that if I do not pay by 10 December I will be charged another £25. So I phoned up Harlands today and offered to pay what I owed (£9.99) without the admin fee ofcourse. But as you'd expect they had declined the offer. I don't know what my next step is to take? I have read a few topics and I'm not 100% sure what to do in my personal situation thanks all.

Hello everyone, I am very sorry to be posting such a familiar tale, but am also thankful to have come across this site. I joined Xercise4less as a rolling monthly member in February, as I knew that I would move before the year and chose not to sign up to a years contract for this reason. I moved away recently, so went in to the gym in October time and spoke to a member of staff about cancelling the membership, they advised me that I could cancel it when I liked as I was a rolling monthly member, so I cancelled my direct debit and thought nothing more of it. Until..... I was checking through my email and had received one from Harlands stating that I owed £19.99 and a £25 admin fee, which would increase by £25 if not paid by 6th December. I thought there must had been a mistake, so contacted the gym. The member of staff I spoke to admitted there had been fault by the staff who was new and not aware of the procedure, although said it was nothing to do with them, and I was subsequently passed from pillar to post between Harlands and Xercise4less with both feigning ignorance and saying that neither of them could clear the charge. I offered to pay the original £19.99, but not the £44.99 given that this was due to miscommunication, however I did this by phone and the terrible Harlands staff member was just very rude and said there was no way she could remove the charge without confirmation from the gym that they were at fault (which they refused to do) and told me that I just had to pay (which I didn't). Of course I am very anxious about being charged a lot of money/being chased by debt collectors, but have found this site reassuring. Please could someone advise me of the best course of action? Thank you in advance and best wishes, El

Hi all. I had a 12mth contract with x4less. After the 12mths was up i cancelled. All was fine, then started getting txts saying i owed £10? apparently my DD was cancelled, they gave me a number to ring and pay. for weeks i tried to ring and pay this £10 to no avail, kept ringing and ringing untill i got a message saying 'all our representatives are busy, please leave a message' I left multible messages with my details saying i wanted to pay. for weeks i tried and got more texts. Rang the gym, harlands, emailed gym, the manager never did i once get a reply! Now im getting letters saying i owe over £100?? What can i do? Thanks all. Steven

Hi all, First off, fantastic community here. I have spent a fair amount of time researching and it really is incredible how companies can act. I have a slightly different situation which I couldn't find anything comparable from searching the forums. I signed up for a 12 month Fit4Less membership where the first payment was taken October-2016. I cancelled the direct debit sometime about August 2017 where the last payment was taken August 2017, this was due to me moving about 1.5 miles away and wanted a gym in walking distance. Therefore, I have only paid 11 of the 12 months. I know I should have waited and paid the last month but didn't check fully. Subsequently, I have received the Harlands letters like many on this forum. What are my options? Should I offer the final payment while stating I refuse to pay any admin or cancellation fees? Thanks,

Hi I recently cancelled my direct debit that was set up for my Gym etc membership. I had not used the gym in many moths ~6+ and I believe I was 1 month away from the 12 month contract being up. I received a letter asking for the 25£ i owe as the final installment of my membership contract AND a 25£ admin fee to be payed, so 50£ in total. I am willing to pay the 25£ and either end my gym contract or keep it going but I am not willing to pay the 25£ admin fee. I sent an email to harlands saying this: Hi I have not used my gym membership for many months due to a lack of time because of university and work and you can check that I have not used my membership by looking at my account. I cancelled it and I thought that my contract, which I can't view anywhere, ended in July because in 2016 I cam back from Germany in July and started my membership again . If possible I would like to either pay the 25£ that was due for the last month or restart my membership as in my current financial status an extra 25£ charge is something that I cannot afford currently. I hope you understand this. I have not yet had a response. If they do not respond should i assume that they don't need to be paid. And what should I do if i want to sign up to that gym again?

Good morning folks, I'm getting in touch on behalf of my partner. She signed up to Simply Gym back in August, who use Harlands as their money collector She's just received an email this morning stating that she is £97.98 in arrears because a direct debit was cancelled and the last two payments of £25 have not been going through. They also state that if the debt isn't paid by 14th November a debt of £313.89 (yes, £313.89!) will be passed on the a Debt Recovery Company. They stated that they've been sending letters up until this point, but we haven't received anything prior to this. Upon checking, it seems that the direct debit to Harlands was cancelled accidently back in September, and not because she wanted to cancel the membership. We haven't used the gym during this time, anyway, so it's not like she's been using the facilities for free. Is there any way she can just make the two missed payments for the service, and avoid paying all these ridiculous extra charges (£313.89.. , as there was no foul play here, it was a genuine mistake that the DD was cancelled. Kind regards