Gym membership - contract legal?

[Jsgirl]

Hi everyone,

 

I'm a newbie who's been reading the site on and off for a bit and is now hoping for a bit of help herself.

 

I have a legal / contracts question about cancellation of a gym membership.

 

My partner and I have cancelled our gym membership (I shall keep schtumm on who it was with for the moment) but surprise, surprise, we've had problems.

 

They lost our form and letter proving relocation which they asked for to allow us a 3 month cancellation period rather than staying for the full 12 months as there was no gym in the group close enough to our new home. All this was originally supplied in Jan and we paid up til March when we moved to our new address. They were given our new contact details but then continued to write to our old one demanding payment for membership. We eventually got a letter passed on to us in Aug from a debt collection agency.

 

We presented the case in writing but don't have a copy of the form unfortunately as we daftly filled out and gave back the original. (Stupid I know!) Anyway, they have now accepted that we cancelled and reduced the demand from £700 to £400 but they are saying that cancellation is from when we moved not when we cancelled because we continued to use the gym in the notice period!!!

 

Surely this cannot be right? That has to be an unfair term? They have it all ways... you can cancel at three months notice... but no matter when you do it, notice only starts from the time you cannot use the gym so they get more money???

 

Any thoughts? Mine are to get legal advice and tell em to sling their hooks at this point but the mind boggles at what some of these companies think they can do. Should I be demanding all sorts of copies of stuff and giving them the run around whilst I work out what to do?

 

Thanks for any help or advice anyone can give.

 

Jsgirl

[PGH7447]

If you gave the a cancellation notice three months prior to the membership being cancelled then I would assume that you still had the three months to pay up until the contract was cancelled, therefore you had the right to use the gym for that three months.

 

so they do not have a case against you, simple logic dictates that if you are in a cancellation period and have paid for that period you can use the facilities - tell them to get lost

[Jsgirl]

Mmm hmm... that's my thought.

 

They haven't even commented on whether they acknowledge they received this info back in Jan tho. They are simply saying that now they know we moved in Mar, the three months started then so cough up another three months.

 

Don't you just love these people?

[PGH7447]

just wait them out, one gym tried this with me, the we never got your letter [problem], said see you in court then that was 2 years ago

[Jsgirl]

Thanks PGH7447 Maybe you're right - an affronted letter explaining their mistake again and tell em to push off and see what happens. I guess I will have to put up with the calls from their debt collectors til they decide what to do tho huh? We shall see.