LA Fitness / ARC Europe cancellation problem

[Vadim]

hi guys

I have similar situation with ARC europe

I cancelled my membership( £49.50 ) after 2 or 3 month, by direct debit. I warned them that I'll do it and I stopped paying. But one month later they sent me a letter that my balance is £500+ ( this is to pay total amount until the end of the contract)

I went to that gym club and asked for my contract. they gave it to me and there wasn't my signature. why? because they took my details via phone call and that's it. they didn't wive me to sign anything. So I said - I see no point to pay you; they said I should because there are my details.But that doesn't make any sense because what is the point of the signature then?) Then they were calling me but I didn't pick up the phone because number started with 02. But once they left a voice mail and they said to to call back and they said who they are and I searched in internet who they are and understood that it's LA fitness insurance company.

the ARC europe sent me a letter that I have to pay £534.05 or they will put my account to some dept thing.... then my dad found this forum and I decided to follow what you were doing... so after that I sent my first letter to LA fitness gym club this:

Dear Sir or Madam

 

I (my name and membership number) refer to letter received from ARC Europe on 14/02/13 demanding payments in respect to my membership at LA Fitness in Piccadilly circus, which started in June 2012.

 

After receiving a letter from you to inform me, it was a shock to have demands for £535. As these demands include unlawful penalty fees, I will not be paying them.

 

I have informed manager in Piccadilly Circus LA fitness one month before I was going to cancel my Direct Debit about my cancelation, as suggested by Mr Justice Kitchen in his High Court ruling against Ashbourne Management Services Ltd.

In his Penal Order against AMSL in 2011, Mr Justice Kitchen said that membership could be cancelled in various ways. At item 16(ii) he said:-

 

"An individual gym member may terminate an agreement by giving a gym club ...... notice by words or conduct ...... by cancellation of a direct debit mandate, or otherwise."

 

Understanding what you are saying by - I’ve agreed to terms and conditions via phone call, I have to say that I haven’t. Nobody didn’t read me what terms and conditions are, if you don’t believe me, check the length of phone call which will tell you that it is difficult to read all terms and conditions it that short period of time.

Secondly, I have my contract with LA fitness but without my signature in it, which means that I didn’t agree to any terms and conditions. Therefore, considering these two points I see no reason to pay you £535 penalty fee.

 

However, accordingly and without prejudice, I now offer you £49.50 being one membership month's fee in Full and final settlement of all amounts owed to the gym. If you accept my offer within 14 days, I will pay you and bring an end to this matter.

 

If you fail to respond within 14 days or insist that I pay any more, my offer will be withdrawn and I will not communicate with you further.

 

You can, of course, take court action against me if you wish but it will be vigorously defended. The membership agreement will form a poor basis for any court case and, following the High Court ruling against Ashbourne Management Services concerning cancellation; my chances of successfully defending are excellent.

 

Please ensure that no further demands are issued by you and/or ARC Europe while the matter is in dispute. Any demands received by me will be referred to the OFT.

 

I await your response.

 

So today I received a letter from ARC europe that I still have Balance: £535.05 and they also charged me"£40 contractual administration charge" and if I don't pay it in next 10 days they will my account to their Solicitors.

 

in the letter also says:

"However, should you want to continue your membership with LA fitness for the remainder of your "initial term" or our "notice period", our client would be prepared to waive the £40 administration charge at this time only, provided the arrears are immediately brought up to date and you re-instate your membership. Please telephone us NOW and ......"

 

So I don't know what I should do - ignore this or reply that I've already said I am not going to pay.

 

thank you in advance I hope you'll reply

[slick132]

Hi Vadim and welcome to CAG

 

I've put your post into your own thread that you can use from now on.

 

Until we have agreed on the best action for you to take, you should ignore ARC completely. They love to make threats but mostly there's very little they can, or will, do

 

I see you have used sections of letters that I have written on other threads but I'm not sure you have used them correctly.

 

Please let us know :-

 

1. On what date the membership agreement started.

 

2. After you joined by phone, did you receive any confirmation details, a m/ship agreement, Terms and Conditions or anything else by post or at the gym.

 

3. What was the minimum m/ship period.

 

4. When did you cancel.

 

5. Did you cancel by letter, email or in person.

 

6. If you cancelled before the end of the minimum m/ship period, why did you do this.

 

[Vadim]

1. I think July

2. No I have t receive anything, nor I've been told via phone

3.12 months

4. I think october

5.by direct debit cancellation, but I warned them in person that I will do it.

6. Because it was expensive, so I decided to save some money (I am student)

[slick132]

Hi Vadim,

 

From what you say, I don't think you have a good reason to cancel the membership. It may have been expensive as you say, but you agreed to pay them each and every month for a year. You need to consider such agreements very carefully before signing as you can end up owing a lot of money with no way out.

 

The letter that you wrote to the gym is wrong. Even though you've used sections from letters found on our forum here, you've used them incorrectly and a lot of what you wrote in your letter does not actually apply to your own case.

 

The good thing is that ARC threaten all sorts of nasty things, but they tend not to follow the threats through. For example, they say, "Pay up in the next 7 days, or we'll take court action.", but they don't. They just keep sending threats.

 

Any admin fees they add to "your account" are just penalties and they are not enforceable in law.

 

ARC have no authority or power so they really can do nothing unless they take court action and win.

 

The only way you can properly challenge ARC is to ask for sight of the Agreement and the membership Terms and Conditions which you should have been sent after joining by phone. My advice to you in this case is to write saying:-

 

I refer to your demands for money regarding the LA Fitness gym.

 

To enable me to consider your payment demands, please confirm that you have a signed agreement and Terms and Conditions that applied at the time which enable you to demand this money from me.

 

I was given no copy of these documents at the time and I now realise the gym should have sent them to me promptly.

 

See how they respond.

 

[Vadim]

Hi

Thank you for reply

Basically they are saying that I agreed to terms and conditions on internet... But i didn't, I gave my card details via phone.... So as I already said I have contract but my signature isn't there... They keep telling me that I agreed to terms and conditions via internet... What I am trying to say is that I am not meant to pay anything because I didn't agree it via phone/internet/by person/ by signature and it's their problem and mistake.

So I can sent them a letter to request the contract copy but I already have one.

[slick132]

Hi Vadim,

 

I understand what you're saying but a contract can be made verbally by phone. However, without your signature at some stage, LAF will have a problem proving any case against you. The gym should have asked you to sign an agreement when you went there.

 

If you joined on the internet, you would have ticked a box signifying your agreement. So perhaps that is why they are saying this is how you joined - so they can say, "Here's the agreement with the box ticked." But, if that didn't happen, then they are wrong to say it did happen.

 

Because of what you've said, I suggest we amend what you write to them as follows :-

 

I refer to your demands for money regarding the LA Fitness gym.

 

I must remind you that I did not agree to a membership agreement on the internet as you have suggested, nor did I sign any agreement at the gym. I only spoke to the gym by phone and they sent me nothing in response, for me to sign, or to confirm that a formal agreement existed. If anyone ticked an "agreement or consent" box on an internet application or registration, it was not me.

 

I was given no copy of these documents at the time and I now realise the gym should have sent them to me promptly. This is the gym's fault it is their problem that they have no signed agreement or a "ticked" internet agreement

 

Without a signed agreement or an internet agreement ticked by me, you have no grounds to continue to make demands. I shall therefore ignore further demands but they may be reported to the OFT without further warning.

 

See how they respond.

[Vadim]

Hi slick

That's exactly what I was trying to express but my English level isn't just that good enough!!!!

Thank you very much, I'm running to post office

[Vadim]

Hi slick

Yesterday they called me and left voicemail, asked to call them back. I didn't. They also sent me an email today to contact them. I am not going to do that because I don't want to talk to them. This is just to let you know that now they are not sending me any mails but asking me to contact them.

That's it =)

[slick132]

Hi Vadim,

 

You are doing the right thing !!

 

Ignore their calls and email for now - all they want to do is make you worry enough to pay them.

 

Wait for them to reply properly (in writing) to your letter in post #6 above.

 

[Vadim]

hello slick

yesterday I arrived at home and recieved letter from ACR europe

I will copy the letter that I recieved but before that I need to add one thing I forgot about, nothing special, but they mentioned it in the letter (I will underline it)

My personal trainer ( in LA fitness) recommended me to cancel the contract by telling them that I am leaving the country. So I told them that I am leaving the country (it is true I was leaving the country, but I came back) but they asked for evidence(any ticket), I didn't show them because I though that I don't have to. that's it.

Now they are telling me that they sent me an email and I accepted the terms and conditions at home. I even haven't recieve an email, am not even talking about that I agreed to something. I think it's not going to be easy to prove =( all they going to stick to now is to that email that "I accepted to termes and contitions" because they see a tick in their system. they are getting really annoying. ( don't appologise - this is not your fault :DD) I came late to work because of them couple of times.

so this is what was in the letter:

Dear ______

We are writing in response ...............

Plese note that ARC (Europe) Ltd is a debt collection "agent", acting in good faith on the instructions received from a "disclosed" principal, namely LA Fitness. we are therefore authorised to write to you in connection with the above matter and to instruct Solicitors in contemplation of Court Proceedings where we consider it appropriate to do so. We have acted in accordance with our client's instructions and within current collection legislation and guidance. We reserve the right to produce our correspondance to any Tribunal, regulatory body or investigating authority to prove our compliance and good conduct in this matter.

 

We referred your comments to our client and they confirmed that the agreement and Terms and Conditions were emailed to you at the address provided when joining. this provoded a 14 day cooling off perod if you decided not to continue with the contract. We understand you contacted our client previously to cancel the membership due to relocation and our client requested proof of relocation in order to investigate an early cancelation on these grounds. Unfortunately our client has not recieved your proof. Please provide proof of relocation to our office in order for us to refer the matter back to our client for futher instructions.

 

We are instructed to continue recovery action for the aboe balance in absence of your proof as you did not cancel your membership in accordance with the agreed Terms and Conditions.

 

you can make a secure payment to ARC 24 hour a day with ...............

 

then they just want me to pay. on the back of the pages are listed ways of payment also...

 

Well if they tried to scare me then they kind of did. I understand that it's unlikely that they will take actions to court or sent Solicitors, I just want your recommendation what shall I do in case Solicitirs wait me next to my doors. they also called me couple of when I was working and when I was in college, but I didn't pick up ( listened to voicemail they told that it's an important message from me, I deleted it)

 

I had a look for email they are taliking about in my email and I didn't find something close to in except their advertisments(spam).

 

you think it's a good idea to have a look in my email for the flight ticket when I left, sent them, and then they will think that I am not in this country and my parents are sendings these letters to them for me. and they will leave me alone.

 

or you have another suggestion? waiting to your response =)

[slick132]

Hi Vadim,

 

Continue to ignore any calls or texts from ARC. You have no need to speak to them and they have no right to demand that you do. And please don't worry that any collectors, solicitors or bailiffs will be waiting for you - this will not happen.

 

Stick to the truth as you do not need to rely on cancelling due to leaving the country, even though this was suggested by a gym staff member. Also, remember that our Forum is open for anyone to read and we know that debt collectors and others follow cases here.

 

There is no membership agreement signed by you, nor did you agree to m/ship online. Without this, ARC can do very little.

 

You don't have to go through your emails checking for what they sent you. It is clear, from what you say about speaking to them by phone, that you did not TICK any agreement box and they must have done this themselves when "signing" you as a member on the phone.

 

It is highly unlikely that they will try to take court action and, if they do, we would give you help in defending against them.

 

Reply to them as follows :-

 

Dear sir or madam,

 

I refer to your letter of XXdate.

 

I do not need to provide proof of relocation.

 

Regardless of what they gym has told you, I signed no membership agreement and I did not join online. This was confirmed in the 2nd paragraph of my letter to you of 6th March.

 

There is no signed agreement and I ticked no online consent. I can also confirm that I received no terms and conditions by post or email, although this is not even relevant.

 

I reserve the right to ignore future demands from you.

 

Yours faithfully,

 

[Vadim]

thanks Slick

you cooled me down, going to send the letter now.

I think you are right, should stick to truth that I didn't signed any contracts or ticked the box anywhere personally.

Thank you one again.

=)

[Vadim]

hi slick

I've taken a picture of the letter they sent me but I cant attach because I wrote only 7 posts but minimum should be 10.

so here is the letter

 

We are disappointed to note that you have not cleared your balance following our previous letter. On the instructions of our client we can now take steps to prepare a County Court Claim against you for recovery of the above debt.

A Court Claim may be prepared ten days after the date of this letter, unless we receive either payment in full or a substantial payment and a firm commitment to clear the remaining balance. You may want to seek independent legal advice from a Solicitor, debt counsellor, the Citizens Advice Bureau or similar organisation on this matter. If this action is necessary and we pass the Court Claim to our Solicitor for issue, our client is entitled to claim interest under the County Courts Act 1984 at the rate of 8% per annum together with fixed Court Fees and Solicitor's Costs amounting to a further £125.00. Please note that if the Claim is issued and the debt remains unpaid, our client can apply for the formal Court Judgment against you. lithe full Judgment Debt is not paid within one month of being entered, the Judgment will be recorded by the Credit Reference Agencies for a period of 6 years and this may seriously affect your ability to obtain credit in the future.

To avoid this action, please send a payment TODAY, made payable to ARC (Europe) Ltd and quoting your reference number 1498659 on the reverse.

For details of all payment methods please see the back of this letter or alternatively, call us NOW on 01932 251040 and ask for the Pre-Litigation Manager, Daniel Ryan.

Yours sincerely

 

Ahhh.. they cant be serious.... I don't have time for that x_x

[slick132]

Hi Vadim,

 

Was this letter sent in reply to your letter in post #11 above.

 

You should ignore their letter and the threats made in it. They will not start court action because they know they will lose.

 

Ignore them for now but let us know what they say next.

 

[Vadim]

Hi slick

Yes that was response to that letter in post #11

Well I hope so that they wont.

I will inform you even if they'll try to call me next time ( I wont pick the call, but I never know that it's them or not ) =/

thanks again

[Vadim]

hi slick

So far they called me like 4 times and only 2 times they left me voicemail and what is weird is that it sounds like just a robot reading the text not a real person. No mail received as well. I'll keep you updated with any news

[Vadim]

Hi slick this morning I received a letter from ARC Europe

I took a picture of it because it will take me long to copy everything

here it is: http://s020.radikal.ru/i706/1304/63/c100fa88a082.jpg

are they taking the action?

[slick132]

Hi Vadim,

 

They continue to ignore the points you made in your two letters sent previously.

 

I therefore suggest you ignore their latest letter for now.

 

They have threatened court action before, in post #10, post #13 and now the latest in post #17. Lots of threats but no action !!

 

Lets see what they do (or threaten) next.

 

[Vadim]

Hello Slick

I has been long time, so far they kept calling me, send me some e-mails, and couple days ago I received this letter ( http://s020.radikal.ru/i706/1305/7c/2b26a66d7d41.jpg ) I've been busy these days found some time to show you the letter, to inform you what they sent me... I don't know what to do - respond or still ignore =(

[slick132]

Hi Vadim,

 

It's just more of the same - threats of action that they fail to follow through, and a failure to properly address the issues which you have raised.

 

Reply to Scotcall :-

 

Dear sir or madam,

 

Your ref: 48xxxxxx

 

I refer to your letter of xxdate.

 

This matter is in clear dispute and, unless you want to be involved in a formal complaint to the OFT about CRS's activities, you should ensure you do not contact me again.

 

Yours faithfully,

 

[Vadim]

thank you slick

mail sent

[Petrel]

You should complain in writing to the OFT/FCA concerning their fitness to hold a CCL licence. The more complaints the better

[slick132]

A complaint to the OFT may be appropriate after all normal complain procedures have been exhausted. However, this will not help with an individual's case - The OFT do not have the remit to involve themselves in this way.

 

Also, the FCA are not usually appropriate because, in 99.9% of gym disputes, there is no credit agreement. Hence a CCL is not involved.

 

[Petrel]

It is clear that I did not make myself clear. The company to complain about is the debt collection company not the gym or the gym contract. I cant imagine why any thought I would suggest the gym contract as the thread seemed to refer to problems with ARC

[slick132]

Sorry Petrel if I misunderstood but the thread title refers to the gym and the DCA.

 

We have steered folk toward The OFT to report the activities of gyms, gym admin companies and the DCA's that are involved. However, we have done this on a limited basis so that complaints made are serious and not minor.

 

The OFT have taken an interest in the broader picture with gym m/ships for a few years. As a result, there have been undertakings from certain gyms and/or gym admin co's about how they run their businesses.

 

The top 2 Stickies in the gym forum refer to these undertakings.