Hi all, i've been reading these forums for awhile after a certain run in with Harlands/Xercise4less as it appears i'm not the only one to fall victim to their harassment. I would really appreciate any advice regarding the matter - I know that it's not something to lose sleep over but i'm a bit fed up at the moment. Brief background: July 2018 - I hadn't used the gym in a couple months as I moved to a different area and joined a different one closer to work. I thought I had completed the 11 month obligatory period and decided to cancel the direct debit, but I was mistaken, I still had a month left (although I had not used the gym in a couple months by this point already) August 2018 - They send me an e-mail saying I owe them 36.99 (11.99 missed gym fee and 25 pounds administrative charges.) I ring xercise4less and harlands (a mistake) and do not manage to resolve the matter. I send them an e-mail that I recognise there is a month's missed fee and am willing to pay that, but will not pay them any more and will not offer anything further if they do not accept. October 2018 - They have continued to harass me via e-mail and the charges have accumulated to 110.97 and are they are now e-mailing via CRS. They say that if I do not pay, they will have no option but to take legal steps. So i've drafted a letter which I will send to them via post, but I was wondering if there was anything else I should do/add to the letter before I send it off! Again, thank you for your time and any advice would be much appreciated. Best regards, worriedwort

Hi guys, First time poster here, I'm hoping to receive a little bit of advice if possible. I signed up with exercise4less back in either October or November 2017, and paid for my membership through until May2018 when I had to cancel my direct debit due to having no money. I have been suffering from mental health issues for a while and have only just about managed to get a grip on my life again therefore would like to get a grip with this. I received an email yesterday from CRS asking me to call them urgently, stating I owed 212 pounds of which roughly a hundred was the CRS fee. I must admit when I saw this I panicked a lot and phoned them today trying to sort the issue. They weren't exactly very sympathetic when I explained my situation and that I was willing to pay the contract off. I have always had the intention to pay off the full contract that I signed up for, however I feel 212 pounds is extortionate for 3 months of unpaid direct debits. I feel this is very high baring in mind the contract was 11.99 a month, which would have left approximately 5 or 6 months left to pay. I was offered a settlement of 170 pounds to close the dispute, however at this moment I don't have that much money lying around due to poor finances. My question is, have I got a leg to stand on? Or would I need to pay these fees in full? To reiterate I am happy to pay the months I haven't paid for to finish the contract. Is there anything I can do? Thank you for any help and advice.

Hi, I cancelled my DD with Harland's earlier this year after speaking to a member of staff at the gym who told me this was an adequate way to cancel since I was pregnant and could no longer fully use my membership. This month I received an email from Harland's asking me to pay £100+ in fees due to cancelling my direct debit. I rang as instructed and was asked to provide proof of pregnancy and that by doing so the amount would be cleared and the account cancelled. After sending proof I received an email saying I was required to pay £52+ in order for them to cancel my account as I hadn't let them know before payment was due. I refuse to pay anything since two members of their staff instructed me, I followed staff guidance and am now required to pay more which I wasn't told and frankly can't afford. This is causing me a lot of stress and with pregnancy this is not a good situation to be in. Any advice on what to do would be greatly appreciated.

I took out a no contract gym membership as i needed it temporarily since i was coming back from uni to stay with my parents and wanted to be on top with gym. The gym i found was a no contract no joining fee membership which was ideal since i needed the gym for 2 weeks. The first payment had come out and then upon the 2nd week so around 1.5 weeks id told the gym i wanted to cancel which they said was fine, i filled out some forms and that was that. But the person had said that id need to cancel the DD with my bank and they said to do this after the next payment comes out. However i didnt think this would be a problem for me to cancel before the second payment since they said id need to give 30 days notice but nowhere upon email or conditions did it state that. All id found was something to do with harlands stating that they need 14 days notice that i need to give to the bank and harlands? Id cancelled the DD upon 1.5 weeks into the first month of the DD bearing in mind the first payment had already come out. I now got told and recieved a letter to my parents address since i dont live there atm stating from harlands id been charged admin fees of £25 plus the cost of month gym at £16.99 coming to £41.99. However this from what i understand cant be right since the contract wasnt a fixed contract so dont see why i need to give a months notice and why in the email that i received for joining id need to write to harlands before cancelling. what can i do, i really need help since i need to pay by the 30th otherwise id be charged more.

Hi All, Hopefully someone out there can help me, and put an end to this matter! I have used some of the information on CAG, to which the current state of play is below. Firsly, a bit of back ground. I cancelled my £9.99 DD on the back of personally going to my local Xercise4less, to tell them I do not wish to continue the membership - To be honest I don't think they were that bothered, well not by the attitude of the member of staff I spoke too anyway. I did, I cancelled my direct debit and thought nothing of it. Until I received an initial letter off CRS stating I owed them £187!! I am only dealing with them via e-mail, not by phone at all. I work nights anyway, so can hradly get hold of me during the day - Especially considering their non friendly opening hours! I have gone back and stated that their charges do not stand etc etc, and have offered them £9.99 to clear this debt and let it be as that... Now I have received the below, from the infamous David Castle. ..Any help would be greatly appreciated... 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. We have received extremely similar claims before, citing the case of the Office of Fair Trading versus Ashbourne Management Services Ltd. as evidence that cancelling the Direct Debit was sufficient. We believe you are mistaken with regards to Mr. Justice Kitchin's ruling. Such a statement does not appear anywhere in Mr. Justice Kitchin's judgement. A legal precedent can only be drawn from a ruling but the statement you rely upon appears in the Penal Notice issued specifically to Ashbourne Management Services Limited, advising them what they must and must not do. This only applies to Ashbourne Management Services Limited because contracts 1-13 examined in this case were found to be unfair and thus unenforceable. As such the penal notice issued to them stated any course of action indicating a desire to end the membership (including cancelling Direct Debits) was sufficient to cancel because those contracts could not be enforced anyway. Xercise 4 Less' contracts have not been supplied by Ashbourne Management Services Limited and have never been deemed unfair by a judge. There is, therefore, no reason to believe that the terms regarding how a member may terminate their agreement will not be enforceable in other instances. We are unable to accept your offer of £9.99 as sufficient to settle this debt because costs have been incurred because of your breach of contract that must be taken into consideration. With regards to your comments that our charges are penalties, it is our position that all charges applied to this balance are to cover the above mentioned actual and necessary costs and thus are not penalties. Lord Dunedin, when considering whether charges stipulated at the outset of the agreement were penalties, set out in Dunlop Pneumatic Tyre Co Ltd v New Garage & Motor Co Ltd (1914) that: "It is no obstacle to the sum stipulated being a genuine pre-estimate of damage, that the consequences of the breach are such as to make precise pre-estimation almost an impossibility. On the contrary, that is just the situation when it is probable that pre-estimated damage was the true bargain between the parties ( Clydebank Case, Lord Halsbury; Webster v. Bosanquet, Lord Mersey)." The above applies to the charges of £25.00 applied by Harlands and also in regards to our own collection fees of £66.50 both of which are pre-estimates of the average costs incurred from defaulted agreements, but which vary from case to case and cannot be precisely calculated in advance. We believe, therefore, that these charges do not constitute a penalty and are thus fully enforceable. We wish to confirm that as this matter does not relate to a regulated credit agreement it is outside of the jurisdiction of the Financial Ombudsman Service. They will not be able to uphold any complaint on your behalf nor will they be able to charge us for their involvement. If you wish to escalate a complaint outside of our business we recommend that you contact the Credit Services Association of which we are a member and they can be contacted online at. For the above reasons it must remain our position that the balance of £187.49 is correct and due. We may be able to negotiate on this sum, but would require you to contact one of our telephone negotiators on 01444 449 165 in order to do so. Payment can be made by Credit/Debit card by calling us on 01444 449165. Alternatively, cheque/postal orders should be made payable to Credit Resolution Services and sent to CRS, 2nd Floor, Rockwood House, 9-17 Perrymount Road, Haywards Heath, West Sussex, RH16 3TW. 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. If you are experiencing financial difficulty, there are organisations who offer free debt advice and assistance such as Step Change (0800 1381111), National Debtline (0808 8084000) and your local Citizen Advice Bureau. Please ensure a payment or response is received within the next 7 days, so we can avoid further action being taken. Yours sincerely, David Castle

Hi guys, Following my recent situation, I've been reading your very informative forum, and thought I would ask for your help. In November 2016, I attempted to cancel my membership at Xercise4Less Glasgow online . Having worked in a bank, the first thing I did was cancel my direct debit to stop any further funds coming out. Although I'd completed the form, I now, in hindsight, realise my system must have crashed before it went through completely - and I take full responsibilty for this! I had also moved address, so did not recieve any correspondence from either the gym or Harlands. Fast forward to Wednesday 1st February: I recieve a text from Xercise4Less stating: 'Dear Member, Harlands have advised they will be sending your account to a third party debt collectors in 14 days. To settle with us please call 01132038602'. I rang straight away, explained the situation, and the Xercise4Less worker informed me that he would waive the fees and I had to make a 1 off payment of £64 to resolve the matter. We agreed that I would pay the amount this Friday - 10th - and that was that. Fast forward again to February 6th - I recieve a panicked phonecall from my mum, telling me a debt collection letter (dated Feb 2nd) arrived for me. Bear in mind this went to me home address in Northern Ireland - I don't know how they got those details. This letter was from CRS, and detailed that 'Our fees of £102.50 have been added. Therefore your account balance now stands at £162.49'. I rang Xercise4Less straight away to question why I had recieved this letter, when I had agreed upon a settlement with the gym already. The employee assured me that the payment on Friday (tomorrow) would end the matter and to ignore any further correspondence from CRS. Finally, today Thurs 9th, I recieved a text message from CRS saying they want to speak to me. Having read these forums, I have no intention whatsoever to respond to CRS/Harlands at all. Fingers crossed the matter is settled tomorrow, but I still have a very uneasy feeling about the entire scenario. Any tips or pointers will be greatly appreciated!!

Slick's attempt to translate Suemo's post below :- Hi any Hell soule be gréât. M'y daughter jointe a local gym And thought it Washington £14.99 Monthey And cancelled direct débit in September. Harlands havé added 2 lots of £25 fées on And say Shell Owens Mooney événement thought sues mot be en sincère she cancelled direct débit. Si Thérèse any teint she can do about thaïs pléiade. Any Hell Will be gréât!

My daughter cancelled her membership by sending a letter to her X4Less Gym, then cancelled her DD a month later. She recently received the Standard Harland's letter saying she owed a month's membership with their standard threats of Admin fees. She was outwith the main contract period. We wrote back to them, after looking at advice on this site, and told them she had cancelled and we wouldn't accept any fees. We enclosed a copy of the cancellation letter. Today we received a reply from Harland's, their reply was: "We can advise the Xercise for Less do not deal with cancellations by letters, in fact you would be required to provide them with 1 months notice via their website under the FAQ section" my highlighting. I found this statement incredible, no cancellation by letter, it goes beyond all common sense. I'm planning to write to them to highlight how ludicrous this statement is and tell them my daughter isn't paying anything but wanted to run it past the Forum first. Any advice appreciated. Thanks, Stephen

Hi there, hoping for a bit of advice here please. I was a member of exercise4less for about 24 months but I decided to cancel in October 2015. I did this via their website via 'contact us' link. in November 2015 I received an email from the gym branch manager saying my membership had "expired". However, the monthly payments continued to be taken until I cancelled again via an online form and later cancelled the direct debit. I now have Harlands emailing me saying they won't cancel my membership until I pay another 9.99 fee and the admin charges. The balance is now about £69, which is a big increase from 9.99. I did email them to explain I cancelled in November and the expired membership email was proof that I was no longer a member! I cancelled again using the form just over a month ago but they said my membership wouldn't be cancelled I now have letters arriving saying further charges will be added. I just don't know how to respond now, I don't want this to mount up.

Hi I am hoping someone can help me. I joined a gym (I know you've seen plenty of these) called Helio fitness which I lasted 2 months after that I decided I did not want to continue the membership. I went into the gym and spoke with the manager and told him I was going to be working away and that I could not continue with the membership. After a few months past I recieved an email from Harland CRS to say I owed £354 or round about that number (I filed the letter). After I explained to Harland by phone they told me they would get back to me. They did by quoting the contract agreement to me and basically saying I was a liar. I then replied by email because I have not given them my phone number. I wanted to see the signed contract before I continue this conversation. I did not sign anything and I used a friends bank account for DD, that is why I asked for a signed copy of the agreement. This was there reply! Dear Mr ****** Re: CRS Ref No: ****** / Helio Fitness Ref No: **** Further to your email of 7th July 2015, we apologise for the delay in our reply. In regards to your request that we supply you with a "signed copy of the agreement" we should like to advise that this membership agreement was entered into via an online sign up process called SNAP and as such no signed physical document exists. We have enclosed, however, a copy of the terms and conditions of the agreement, as well as all of the information transmitted at the time of joining, including the personal details you supplied (highlighted in green) and the product information supplied to you (highlighted in yellow). We shall suspend further action for a period of 7 days to allow you time to review these documents. Yours sincerely, David Castle Collections Department Do they have me by the short and curlys? Thanks

Hi, I signed myself and my girlfriend up for gym memberships back in June of this year. I then had some financial difficulties and couldn't pay the gym memberships. I had no idea how to deal with letters for both my girlfriend and myself, I have spoke to Harland's a few times and tried paid them a few times. Although they keep adding charges I had no idea till this evening that I didn't have to be paying these. They passed my account on to another company crs I think, I have moved home and have no letters or correspondence will them. All I know now is I'm due to pay £40+ on the 10th of this month to fix arrears and charges on my account this is a repeat payment till June of 2015 and another £38 on the 17th for my girlfriends arrears and charges. I will silly and naive and also my girlfriend was some what worried when we received these letters. After reading posts on the forum tonight I wonder if anyone could give me my best course of action as I feel I am being took advantage off. Thanks

Me and my partner joined I-motion gym on the 4th January 2014. On a non contract rolling month by month membership. We went to the gym a couple of times and decided it wasn't for us so we cancelled befor our 1st direct debit came out which was due on the 19th January 2014. On the 25th we received a letter each which reads... Your bank has advised us that your final instalment has been returned unpaid "instruction cancelled". We have therefore added a £25 administration charge which means there is a balance due of £62.98. To bring your agreement to an end call the Harland's helpline immediately on 08712502423 as we can collect the £62.98 by debit/credit card please ensure you have your card details to hand. Alternatively you may send in a cheque which must reach us by no later than 28 jan 2014 to ensure that no further administration charges are incurred. We have assumed that you do not wish to renew your membership. If this is not the case and you do want to retain your membership at I-motion gym please discuss this with one of our customer services team when you call to make payment. Yours sincerely Harland's Just wanting abit of advice were do we stand as I don't want to incur more charges or get bad credit. Thanks