Hello I used to live in the midlands (now in york) and took out a gym membership back in April 2012 with the windmill village and golf course. I fell into a long term illness (just got over it) after being with the gym for about 3 months. I ended up having to leave my job and the last thing on my mind was the gym so I failed to pay the membership. After another month or so I got a letter from the infamous CRS demanding I paid the £430.56 in membership fees I still owed but because I couldn't pay in time I rang them and told them I could only afford to pay £10 a month. They agreed but then sent a letter out saying I owed the previous amount as well as a new £210 charge that had been added (£15 setting up fee and £195 handling fee which was £3 per instalment) which brought the total to £646.56. At the time I was no wiser and too ill to challenge any of this so just went along with it. I don't have a copy of the original gym membership agreement that I signed and so far I have paid off £410 of what I owed. Now I am better I searched online to see if these extra £210 charges were in fact legal and found all of your threads which lead me to starting my own and see if I can just pay off the remaining £20.56 that I owe to the gym then ignore the ridiculous charges CRS have added. I don't really know what my options are from here. Any help will be greatly appreciated. Rich

This is a bit of a long story so please bare with me cos I really do need some advice. My son has been on my case about a new Blackberry Z10 for ages! I finally managed to save up enough money and found a sim free phone which is what he wanted with a company called SIMPLY ELECTRONICS.NET I placed the order and paid the full amount of £449.95 on my debit card. I got an email the following day asking me for a copy of a current utility bill to verify my address. I thought this a bit strange so telephoned the customer service number and got through to a call centre - I was told that the phone would not be sent out without seeing this verification. I told them I was unhappy to send anything else as I had paid in full and the card used was registered to my address which was also my delivery address. The person on the phone was less than helpful and just kept insisting on seeing verification or no order would be sent so I told them I wanted to cancel the order and have the payment returned to me as it was already showing that it had left my account. I was told that they couldn't accept a cancellation over the phone, that it had to be done via email. So I emailed them. I received an email back saying sorry you want to cancel, if you would like to reconsider we will offer you a free screen cover, I said no thanks, just cancel the order and send me my money back. 2 days later I had not received my money back so I phoned them again. I was told they hadn't received an email from me cancelling therefore the order was on hold. I told them I'd received an email back saying sorry you want to cancel but they said they had no notification of this email. I asked to speak to the person who the email had come from and was told they do not accept telephone calls, only correspondence by email. I asked for a manager or supervisor and was told they were in meetings and would be all day. I asked for the operators name and was told she was not allowed to give it to me. I asked again for a full refund and was told it would take 2-3 business days for this to be done. I waited 3 days and received nothing, I rang again. I was told this time it would take 6-7 business days and would I cancel the order by email. Again I done this, to every email address I have of theirs stating I wanted an immediate refund seeing as they took the money immediately. I got a response back saying once the cancellation hadd been processed it could take up to 2 weeks for my refund. You can probably detect that I'm rather angry by now. I rang Trading Standards and was told that my bank could reclaim the money. Apparently that can only be done after 15 days since the money was taken, then they have to send out forms for me to fill in and return, along with any evidence and then they have to investigate! All of this could take up to a month or 2 the bank tells me. I called the company again today and asked why I hadn't yet received my refund and was told for 'some reason he couldn't say' it had been held up and he would now put an urgent request on this and could I give them another 3 days!?! My question is this (finally) HOW ON EARTH ARE THESE ONLINE COMPANIES ALLOWED TO DO THIS and SURELY there is SOMETHING us, as consumers, can do to get our money back without having to wait forever?! £449.95 this company has of mine and to be quite frank, I want my bloody money back and I want it NOW! They wasted no time in taking it!! :mad2::mad2::mad2: