Bannatyne Woes

[wrdmrn]

Guys,

 

I was wondering if someone could look over this letter before I send it off to Bannatynes. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

 

 

Bannatyne Head Office

Haughton Road

Darlington

DL1 1ST

4 November 2009

Dear Sir or Madam,

Bannatyne Membership –

I am writing to express my extreme disappointment with your company and the manner in which you are dealing with my attempts to resolve my account issue. I did not envisage that it would come to this, a written letter of complaint.

The basis of my complaint stems from an injury (broken wrist) I sustained back in July 2009, when this injury occurred I immediately went to my club and spoke with staff, I enquired about a “account freeze” as I would be unable to use the club. I was then informed that I would need to obtain a doctors letter that would result in my membership being cancelled, but allowed me the option to re-join once I was fit. However, this appears to not be the case and I am now unable to restart my membership unless I pay what I believe is an unfair debt of £165.00. After all I have followed the advice given by staff and asked my doctor to provide a letter which I had to pay £12.00 for and sent it to head office to be auctioned.

I visited my club and explained the situation to them, the administrator was more than happy to waive the £165.00 fee so long as I was willing to sign upto a new 12 month contract and pay a £25.00 sign up fee, clearly she seen the bigger picture in terms of expenditure, but Bannatyne Head Office appears to be clueless and would rather enforce the £165.00 debt.

I contacted Membership Customer Service’s telephone in an attempt to resolve the issues and get my membership up and running again, to which I was abruptly told that “if I did not pay the outstanding balance of the old membership, which should’ve been cancelled, the I would be taken to court and have a CCJ enforced on me. The attitude of your call handler was appalling, bad mannered and VERY poor customer service for any company, especially one of your size.

After my disappointing call I have been researching my rights and I’d like to out point to you that the Office of Fair Trading “OFT has concerns that, where the member has already completed the 12 month Commitment Period, requiring him/her to give a further 3 month’s notice if he wishes to cancel the contract is excessive”. In effect you have actually signed me to a 15 month contract which has not been made clear and therefore this gym membership has been mis-sold to me and most probably ever other member in your health club. 3 months is excessive given that I can cancel other products I.e a mobile phone with 1 months notice. I joined your gym in June 2008 and you received payments until July 2009, which is 13 monthly payments, one more than the commitment of 12 months, therefore effectively serving my notice with yourselves.

I have no complaints about the staff in the club itself as I feel they have tried to help me with this matter but it is when I get to head office I hit the brick wall

As a young professional man in Edinburgh and having never been treated like this before I am very sad that I now have no option but to join another gym, I will also be letting all my friends, family and work colleagues know what happened and discourage them from spending their hard earned money on a company as narrow minded as yours.

I have been a member of a number of Health clubs over the years, trying to find the right club that suited my requirements, am very sad that having eventually found one I now have no option but to leave as I have lost a lot of faith in the company which I feel is an unfair reflection on the staff at the club as they are excellent. I will also be letting all my friends, family and work colleagues know what happened and discourage them from spending their hard earned money on a company that can’t see the wider picture. Your facility was less than 5 minutes from my work in Musselburgh and a number of my colleagues are members also, they to are all disappointed in the hassle I am having. We use to go as a group at lunch time, but this will no longer happen and many have said that they will cancel due to the above, for obvious reasons.

All I wished to do was to restart my membership again for another 12 months without hassle and I did enquiry about adding my wife onto a joint membership so in fact I was bringing another member to your club making you more money but it seems Bannatyne’s don’t want our money for 12 months and only wish to get £165.00 for a membership that should have which should have been cancelled.

I would like an fair solution to be reached and my preferred option is to have a new 12 month contract with yourselves that way we both myself and Banntyne get something from the end result. If this matter has not been resolved within 2 weeks from the date of this letter I will have no other choice but to take this matter further and seek legal advice and contact the local and national press as I feel it is extremely unfair for me to be threatened with court action for a matter that should have been almost 4 months ago by your company.

Yours Sincerely

 

 

 

Thanks In advnace.

Edited November 4, 2009 by wrdmrn
Wrong copy/paste

[Conniff]

Guys,

 

I was wondering if someone could look over this letter before I send it off to Bannatynes. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

 

 

Bannatyne Head Office

Haughton Road

Darlington

DL1 1ST

 

4 November 2009

 

 

 

 

Dear Sir or Madam,

 

Bannatyne Membership –

 

I am writing to express my extreme disappointment with your company and the manner in which you are dealing with my attempts to resolve my account issue. I did not envisage that it would come to this, a written letter of complaint.

 

The basis of my complaint stems from an injury (broken wrist) I sustained back in July 2009, when this injury occurred I immediately went to my club and spoke with staff, I enquired about an “account freeze” as I would be unable to use the club. I was then informed that I would need to obtain a doctors letter that would result in my membership being cancelled, but allowed me the option to re-join once I was fit. However, this appears to not be the case and I am now unable to restart my membership unless I pay what I believe is an unfair debt of £165.00. After all I have followed the advice given by staff and asked my doctor to provide a letter which I had to pay £12.00 for and sent it to head office to be auctioned.

 

I visited my club and explained the situation to them, the administrator was more than happy to waive the £165.00 fee so long as I was willing to sign upto a new 12 month contract and pay a £25.00 sign up fee, clearly she has seen the bigger picture in terms of expenditure, but Bannatyne Head Office appears to be clueless and would rather enforce the £165.00 debt.

 

I contacted your Membership Customer Service’s by telephone in an attempt to resolve the issues and get my membership up and running again, to which I was abruptly told that “if I did not pay the outstanding balance of the old membership, which should’ve been cancelled, the I would be taken to court and have a CCJ enforced on me. The attitude of your call handler was appalling, bad mannered and VERY poor customer service for any company, especially one of your size.

 

After my disappointing call I have been researching my rights and I’d like to out point to you that the Office of Fair Trading says “OFT has concerns that, where the member has already completed the 12 month Commitment Period, requiring him/her to give a further 3 month’s notice if he wishes to cancel the contract is excessive”. In effect you have actually signed me to a 15 month contract which has not been made clear and therefore this gym membership has been mis-sold to me and most probably ever other member in your health club. 3 months is excessive given that I can cancel other products I.e a mobile phone with 1 months notice. I joined your gym in June 2008 and you received payments until July 2009, which is 13 monthly payments, one more than the commitment of 12 months, therefore effectively serving my notice with yourselves.

 

I have no complaints about the staff in the club itself as I feel they have tried to help me with this matter but it is when I get to head office I hit the brick wall

As a young professional man in Edinburgh and having never been treated like this before I am very sad that I now have no option but to join another gym, I will also be letting all my friends, family and work colleagues know what happened and discourage them from spending their hard earned money on a company as narrow minded as yours.

 

I have been a member of a number of Health clubs over the years, trying to find the right club that suited my requirements, am very sad that having eventually found one I now have no option but to leave as I have lost a lot of faith in the company which I feel is an unfair reflection on the staff at the club as they are excellent. I will also be letting all my friends, family and work colleagues know what happened and discourage them from spending their hard earned money on a company that can’t see the wider picture. Your facility was less than 5 minutes from my work in Musselburgh and a number of my colleagues are members also, they to are all disappointed in the hassle I am having. We use to go as a group at lunch time, but this will no longer happen and many have said that they will cancel due to the above, for obvious reasons.

 

All I wished to do was to restart my membership again for another 12 months without hassle and I did enquiry about adding my wife onto a joint membership so in fact I was bringing another member to your club making you more money but it seems Bannatyne’s don’t want our money for 12 months and only wish to get £165.00 for a membership that should have which should have been cancelled.

 

I would like an fair solution to be reached and my preferred option is to have a new 12 month contract with yourselves that way we both myself and Banntyne get something from the end result. If this matter has not been resolved within 2 weeks from the date of this letter I will have no other choice but to take this matter further and seek legal advice and contact the local and national press as I feel it is extremely unfair for me to be threatened with court action for a matter that should have been almost 4 months ago by your company.

 

 

Yours Sincerely

 

 

 

Thanks In advnace.

 

A duplicate sentences and typo/spelling errors. You should change the words 'unfair debt', 'debt' and 'fee' to 'penalty charge'.

Edited November 4, 2009 by Conniff

[wrdmrn]

Fixed my letters, haned one into my own club for the adminstrator, I asked for signed proof that I had handed in a letter and I've sent the same one to Bannatyne head office by special delivery.

 

I'm making sure that they receive my letters this time as claiming they've never seen them is a familiar habit gyms appear to have. Just look what happened with my doctors letter!

 

I don't think I'm being unreasonalbe, I've offered a soultion that should suit both parties, however I'm not getting to excited as I fully expect them to reject all my claims.

 

I know I'm a tad ahead of myself here but what are the next steps I should be looking into and preparing for?

[Conniff]

Yes, seems they are DVLA trained as they never seem to receive letters either.

 

I don't think you are being unreasonable, what they said is what goes, deciding to change direction at a later time is not on.

 

I don't see that you can do a lot else. If they decide to continue their greed, then you might get some letters from a dca in which case you will have to move on to the next gym and lose the convenience of this one.

 

If they should decide to continue after the sum, and hand it over, you will need to come back here as there are some really clued up people on debt collectors.

[wrdmrn]

In the current economic conditions I would've thought that £68/month for a joint memebership was more valuable to them that holding out for a payment that I will never make!

[rebel11]

You should of written to Duncan.

[wrdmrn]

Lol I would've loved to but I have no idea how to find an address for him.

 

I was wondering if he was really desperate for the £165 to finance his latest Dragon's Den kitty. . . . . . .

[rebel11]

All you do is send it to there Head Office, addressed to Duncan Bannatyne, Chairman. If your not happy with thier response, you get a second bite at it.

 

He was actually on Watchdog a couple of weeks ago talking bout sunbeds, he got a 'roasting' from Ms. Robinson.

[wrdmrn]

I'll keep that in mind, my first letter to their head office I've address to the Membership Services Dept. I have a feeling that it will go AWOL but lets wait and see.

[wrdmrn]

My wife pointed out something to me last night, the majority of the threads on this forum are about people wanting to cancel memberships and are rightly holding their ground over unfair T&C's.

 

My complaint is you won't let me spend money with your company - actually pretty funny when you think about it!!

Edited November 5, 2009 by wrdmrn
Doubled Up Sentence

[wrdmrn]

Thursday, 19th - 2 weeks to the day after I posted my letter to Bannatyne I get the following reply

 

Dear Mr Ward,

 

Thank you for your recent letter dated 4th November 2009 in relation to your memebership with out Edinburgh Newcraighall Health Club.

 

We have reviewed your correspondance and in light of your circumstances we can confirm that as a gesture of goodwill, we will reduce the remaining contractrual amount by 20%, and therefore, a settlement of £132.00 is offered to cnacel your memebership with immediate effect and enable you to rejoin. However, we are unable to allow you to rejoin until we are in receipt of the outstanding amount.

 

Alternativly, you may pay the full amount of £165.00 in consesecutive monthly payments, and should you wish to do so, please confirm this in writing with an offer of a monthly amount and we can review accordingly. This offer is applicable for a period of 14 days and if accepted must be paid within that time.

 

In response to your comments regarding the length of your membership, the contract you signed upon joining is for a minimum period of 12 months with a cancellation of 3 months written notice, which may be given after the end of month 9 as documented in your terms and conditions.

 

We enclose a copy of your signed 12 month contract along with the terms and condidtions to which you have agreed.

 

 

 

 

Does anyone have advice on what my next move should be???

[wrdmrn]

Its took me almost a week but I've finally managed to write my response - going to the post office to post recorded at lunchtime.

 

Dear xxxxxx

 

Ref:

 

Thank you for your letter dated 18th November 2009 in response to my membership with Bannatyne Fitness.

I thank you for attempting to resolve my membership issues but I feel that both your offers are not what I would consider fair, due to the fact that they hugely favour Bannatyne only.

I also applaud the audacity of Bannatyne for thinking that this offer is fair and for being arrogant enough to assume that if made to pay I would even consider rejoining as no doubt I’ll have all the standard joining fees and upfront payments while at the same time being ineligible for any of the offers or promotions your company uses to entice new members.

I thank you for enclosing a copy of my contract and I would like to point you in the direction of clause 6(f) which relates to termination of membership upon medical grounds. 30 days written notice was provided along with a doctor’s certificate, which appears to have vanished, from researching the internet I have found this to be an all to common occurrence within the health and fitness industry.

The Newcraighall Club Administrator confirmed her acceptance that my current membership could be picked up where it was left (due to my medical circumstances) so could you please explain why this is no longer acceptable, and I would appreciate it if your explanation did not hide behind terms and conditions.

As stated above, if your company does insist on perusing these monies, I can confirm that I would have no intention in re-newing my membership now or at any time in the future. I consider your level of customer service to be abysmal to say the least, and I would question why your business would be happy to lose a member paying fees in excess of £800 annually.

I expect a response within 7 days from the date of this letter with a fair and reasonable offer, otherwise I will be seeking consumer advice on how I can have this matter resolved, I consider this to be a fair response time.

[Gregaroo]

You should of written to Duncan.

 

 

He is based at the Haughton Road Office in Darlington lol

 

 

I know because i see him at the Darlington Branch all the time lol and the Head Office is right next door

[Marla_Singer]

I was curious if you were able to get anywhere with them over this.

 

I am faced with nearly the same problem and the exact same bog standard stubborn BS responses from them. As if a 20% "discount" on being completely screwed over is in any way a favour to us.

 

My husband and I have been members for several years but he has had some medical problems and neither of us have been to the gym for over 5 months. We didn't want to cancel but it has become necessary. I go to do that, get a useless "tough luck" kind of response from their young brat receptionist and go through it in writing, as instructed. Weeks go by and I hear nothing, then I get the same stubborn "Oh sorry, but we're going to be greedy unreasonable tossers anyway" (I paraphrase) letter, mentioning of course nothing of the 30 policy on medical grounds. Just their absolute nonsense of insisting on 3 months. When I write again saying how unacceptable that is, I wait another week and get their oh so generous offer of reducing it by 20%. It's a slap in the face and I can't believe their nerve.

 

Anyway, I am in the middle of trying to dispute this with them and I wondered what happened in your case, wrdmrn.

 

Thanks.