Harlands - Gym Membership

[squilly]

I signed up for a 36 month contract with a local gym, not a chain, but Underground Fitness in Sheffield, in 2012. I broke my arm soon after and found that I couldn't attend. The relationship I had with the gym wasn't great to start with. The girl who was attributed to me as my personal trainer wasn't brilliant and I found that I didn't use the gym as a result of this. I have now been with them since June 1st 2012 and wanted to cancel in June of this year. I appreciate that I have an obligation for 12 months of the contract at least, but thought the High Court Ruling last year meant that the remaining two years would be unenforceable as the contract length was equivalent to an unreasonable contract clause.

 

I contacted Harlands by email saying I wished to cancel as the service at the gym wasn't tailored as promised and they had under-delivered. I received a reply saying I had to pay to the end of the 3 year contract. I rang up and spoke to someone there and said that the recent High court ruling found that any contract over 12 months was unreasonable and therefore unenforceable. They said that this only applied to Ashbourne contracts. They said they were not bound by this ruling as they provided fair exit from the policies, ie if I moved, if I was injured or if I paid a fee. The fee came through today and is £273, the difference between the discounted gym membership I had for the year and the price of a full priced 12 month membership. I can't afford to pay this amount now and am struggling to pay the monthly sum of £18.00 a month.

 

Having googled the issue, I found your website and borrowed some text from your standard letters. It was the message that cited the court case, so I sent this by email to Harlands. They've since sent me back a holding reply.

 

Originally I'd seen this information on the Citizens Advice Bureau webpage and I spoke to someone there who said that as I'd signed a 3 year contract I'd have to carry on paying. I asked them about the high court ruling and they said they didn't know about it. I'm confused now. Is there any way at all of getting out of this contract without having to pay £273? Or am I stuck with it for the next 2 years? Hope someone can help!!

[honeybee13]

Hello and welcome to CAG.

 

I'll move your thread to the gyms forum for specialist help and leave you a short term redirect here.

 

My best, HB

[BankFodder]

They are talking rubbish. They are affected by any court decision. Of course, I don't suppose that you have any evidence of this conversation. Start recording everything or stop using the phone.

 

You only have to pay for their administrative expenses caused by any breach. the problem is that if you stop paying they may get debt collectors involved and hurt your credit file.

 

Have you already complained about the personal trainer? If you only do it now then it will look as if you are looking for excuses.

 

Anyway, if you are up for the fight, then you should write to them and cancel. Tell them that it is because of injury and also because of the quality of the personal trainer.

 

Tell them that you are paying them one month's fee and that you will not pay them anything else unless they can show you that you have caused them additional losses.

 

If they come after you then your solution would be to attack them by suing them on the basis that they were in breach of contract by not following their obligations under UK law.

You would have to be prepared to make a small claim in the county court to do this. Don't bother to bluff anything. Only make threats that you are prepared to carry out.

[slick132]

Hi Squilly,

 

Further to the advice above, Harlands is just the admin company that manages gym memberships on behalf of gyms. The only DCA that will get involved is CRS who are simply Harlands wearing another hat. They try to look like a separate DCA but they operate from the same address.

 

They will not report adverse credit data to the CRA's - none of the gym admin companies do this after the OFT case against Ashbourne and I believe it's the CRA's themselves who are unwilling to carry data about gym m/ships.

 

A 36 month agreement is unlikely to be enforceable after the OFT v AMSL High Court case but, more importantly, Harlands will not take the risk of going to court over a contract of this length. The general view is that 36 month agreements are unfair to the consumer unless they have adequate cancellation clauses (re illness, moving away, etc) AND they allow you to cancel because you don't want to be committed to 36 months of m/ship. In these circumstances, you can cancel before the end of the first year.

 

Harlands will continue to write, saying you're contractually obliged to pay for 3 years OR that you must pay the higher rate for the first 12 months. They'll then put on their other hat and CRS will write. But they generally won't take further action, beyond writing, phoning and sending emails.

 

I agree with Bankfodder, that you should write to Harlands by Recorded Del'y. Say something like:-

 

I confirm that I wish to cancel my membership at XXXX gym with immediate effect.

 

I will allow one further DD payment to be taken to compensate the gym for the lack of notice. After this is paid, I will cancel the DD mandate and no further payments will be made.

 

The 36 month contract is unfair to me as a consumer and the High Court case of The OFT v Ashbourne Management Services set a clear precedent in this matter.

 

I will deal with this in writing only and any calls or emails from you will be ignored.

 

See how they respond and make sure you cancel the DD mandate via your bank after the next payment is taken by Harlands.

 

[squilly]

Thanks. I put everything in writing to them, via email, after this posting and they responded via email. They basically just sent a holding email, saying we are looking into this, but it's in writing and confirms that my email was received.

 

I will send any further details via recorded post as you've recommended. Thank you so much for your help.

 

I am not too worried about my credit rating as we are credit averse in my family, so I wasn't too worried about this aspect. Having said that, I'm old school, so anything that isn't totally straight about money is a bit of a worry. I like things to be right, which is the key issue.

 

I appreciate the advice given here and will update once Harlands respond. I will chase them if I haven't heard by middle of next week. I don't mind paying up the end of 12 months. I signed the contract, so that's my bad...it'll teach me to be more careful in future!

[slick132]

Hi Sqilly,

 

My advice is to do what is suggested in my draft letter above - make one final payment, then cancel the DD mandate via your bank.

 

If you offer to pay up to the end of the 12 months, they will probably still push for the higher monthly rate so you'll owe more than just the 12 x £18.00.

 

If they sense any weakness in your willingness to "do the right thing", they'll push to get all they can from you.