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    • Hi all, I am wandering if this is appealable. It has already been through a challenge on the Islington website and the it was rejected. Basically there was a suspended bay sign on a post on Gee st which was obscured by a Pizza van. The suspension was for 3 bays outside 47 Gee st. I parked outside/between 47 & 55 Gee st. I paid via the phone system using a sign a few meters away from my car. When I got back to the car there was a PCN stuck to the windscreen which I had to dry out before I could read it due to rain getting into the plastic sticky holder.  I then appealed using the Islington website which was then rejected the next day. I have attached a pdf of images that I took and also which the parking officer took. There are two spaces in front of the van, one of which had a generator on it the other was a disabled space. I would count those as 3 bays? In the first image circled in red is the parking sign I read. In the 2nd image is the suspension notice obscured by the van. I would have had to stand in the middle of the road to read this, in fact that's where I was standing when I took the photo. I have pasted the appeal and rejection below. Many thanks for looking. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- This is my appeal statement: As you can see from the image attached (image 1) I actually paid £18.50 to park my car in Gee st. I parked the car at what I thought was outside 55 Gee st as seen in image 2 attached. When I read the PCN issued it stated there was a parking suspension. There was no suspension notice on the sign that I used to call the payment service outside number 55 Gee st. I looked for a suspension notice and eventually found one which was obscured by a large van and generator parked outside 47 Gee st. As seen in images 3 and 4 attached. I am guessing the parking suspension was to allow the Van to park and sell Pizza during the Clerkenwell design week. I was not obstructing the use or parking of the van, in fact the van was obstructing the suspension notice which meant I could not read or see it without prior knowledge it was there. I would have had to stand in the road to see it endangering myself as I had to to take images to illustrate the hidden notice. As there was no intention to avoid a parking charge and the fact the sign was not easily visible I would hope this challenge can be accepted. Many thanks.   This is the text from the rejection: Thank you for contacting us about the above Penalty Charge Notice (PCN). The PCN was issued because the vehicle was parked in a suspended bay or space. I note from your correspondence that there was no suspension notice on the sign that you used to call the payment serve outside number 55 Gee Street. I acknowledge your comments, however, your vehicle was parked in a bay which had been suspended. The regulations require the suspension warning to be clearly visible. It is a large bright yellow sign and is erected by the parking bay on the nearest parking plate to the area that is to be suspended. Parking is then not permitted in the bay for any reason or period of time, however brief. The signs relating to this suspension were sited in accordance with the regulations. Upon reviewing the Civil Enforcement Officer's (CEO's) images and notes, I am satisfied that sufficient signage was in place and that it meets statutory requirements. Whilst I note that the signage may have been obstructed by a large van and generator at the time, please note, it is the responsibility of the motorist to locate and check the time plate each time they park. This will ensure that any changes to the status of the bay are noted. I acknowledge that your vehicle possessed a RingGo session at the time, however, this does not authorize parking within a suspended bay. Suspension restrictions are established to facilitate specific activities like filming or construction, therefore, we anticipate the vehicle owner to relocate the vehicle from the suspended area until the specified date and time when the suspension concludes. Leaving a vehicle unattended for any period of time within a suspended bay, effectively renders the vehicle parked in contravention and a Civil Enforcement Officer (CEO) may issue a PCN. Finally, the vehicle was left parked approximately 5 metres away from the closest time plate notice. It is the responsibility of the driver to ensure they park in a suitable parking place and check all signs and road markings prior to leaving their vehicle parked in contravention. It remains the driver's responsibility to ensure that the vehicle is parked legally at all times. With that being said, I would have to inform you, your appeal has been rejected at this stage. Please see the below images as taken by the CEO whilst issuing the PCN: You should now choose one of the following options: Pay the penalty charge. We will accept the discounted amount of £65.00 in settlement of this matter, provided it is received by 10 June 2024. After that date, the full penalty charge of £130.00 will be payable. Or Wait for a Notice to Owner (NtO) to be issued to the registered keeper of the vehicle, who is legally responsible for paying the penalty charge. Any further correspondence received prior to the NtO being issued may not be responded to. The NtO gives the recipient the right to make formal representations against the penalty charge. If we reject those representations, there will be the right of appeal to the Environment and Traffic Adjudicator.   Gee st pdf.pdf
    • Well done.   Please let us know how it goes or come back with any questions. HB
    • Incorrect as the debt will have been legally assigned to the DCA and they are therefore now the legal creditor. Read up on debt assignment.   Andy
    • Thanks Man in the Middle and everyone it's greatly appreciated form was filled in online yesterday now just have to wait and see
    • Hi,    I'm almost done. One question is should I include a header with " Claimant's Trial Documents" or something similar and include a copy of my WX from the trial since that has the claim form defence and documents that were relied upon at trial so that the judge can see that? or should I assume they will already have those documents on the file and so simply include a short statement of case to show the case I intend to prove at the appeal should permission be granted. Since I've made a shorter concise statement of case setting out what I intend to prove at an appeal hearing I'm thinking maybe removing the header of "Documents/Exhibits for use for Permission to Appeal   " since the permission to appeal focuses on the grounds of law and so I'm thinking of just having   Appellant's documents Statement Of Case Skeleton Argument    Then a seperate category named Trial Documents Claim Form Defence Claimant's Witness statement Exhibibts to Claimant's trial witness statement   I'm wondering you think would be better, only because I don't reference a single exhibit in my appeal statement of case since I am just explaining the undeveloped points of law around why the judge is wrong since the  statement only focuses on permission, not the outcome of the appeal so there is no reference to any exhibits?   Or should I just remove exhibits and not add trial documents or exhibits on the understanding the judge will already have the trial documents and that if permission is granted I then include them in my appeal bundle.   Thanks   N/B My statement of case doesn't have the claim form or defence or any witness staements in. it is simply a short 4 page document setting out the claim history and the points I intend to prove at the final appeal hearing should permission be granted.
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Bannatyne Woes


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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 by wrdmrn
Wrong copy/paste
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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 saysOFT 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 by Conniff
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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?

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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.

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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!

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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. . . . . . .

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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.

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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 by wrdmrn
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  • 2 weeks later...

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???

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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.

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  • 1 month later...
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 :D

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  • 4 months later...

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.

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