Payment of fees to close down a dispute re. my son's membership of Xercise4less?

[dwelly59]

I would value your advice on how to respond to an offer from Xercise4less that hopefully would result in the closure of a dispute over my son's alleged membership arrears.

 

In brief,

my son and his friend joined Xercise4less last May on a monthly rate of £9.99

four months later when they went away to university they both cancelled.

 

 

A month or so later my son noticed the monthly fee was still being deducted

he cancelled the direct debit.

 

 

Shortly after that he received a letter from Harlands claiming he was in arrears and that he owed monthly fees plus administration charges of £25.

Others followed

 

 

a month ago CRS sent him a letter (followed by a text) asking for fees of £66.50 as part of alleged arrears now totalling £166.45.

 

He tried to contact Xercise4less by phone (no one ever answered)

and by email (the company replied by referring him back to his local gym as central office hadn't received any evidence of the cancellation of his membership).

 

 

More emails to the gym manager followed until he was told that in fact he was not a member of that particular gym

- but of another one 6-8 miles away!!

 

 

He had used the local gym for 4 months but no one had ever challenged him on the fact that apparently he wasn't even a member there...

 

By this time the whole situation was annoying me as much as my son.

I am regularly in pain and sleep is often difficult

 

 

I vowed to resolve this matter once and for all.

I emailed Xercise4less two days ago and this afternoon they replied.

They asked for evidence of his cancellation from the gym

(it was a verbal cancellation with nothing in writing).

 

 

They asked for proof that he had moved to university

(I have an email from his university with an accommodation tenancy agreement).

 

 

Then came the money part of the offer, the bit I need your advice on...

 

They said if evidence of relocation is provided a request would be submitted for his membership to be recalled from CRS.

However this would need “a final £9.99 payment and a £20.00 administration fee” for the account to be fully closed down.

 

My question is: should I pay any or all of those fees?

[martin2006]

Are they willing to put that offer in writing?

 

Im not saying its right to pay to end the dispute if you wish to fight, but if you dont and you just want it all to go away, is £29.99 a price your prepared to pay?

Only you can answer that question?

 

There are many threads here for harlands/exercise4less, have you had a read of them and the outcomes?

[dx100uk]

he cancelled correctly - giving 1 mts notice even be it verbally.

cant see why you need to pay a thing.

infact i'd go so far as to say that the DD'd taken after he cancelled

should be reclaimed under the DD guarantee.

[slick132]

Hi Dwelly and welcome to CAG

 

1. What date was the DD normally paid each month.

 

2. On what date did YS cancel verbally at the gym.

 

3. What date was the last DD paid.

 

I suggest you make no further contact with X4Less and/or Harlands until we sort out the facts of the case.

 

The gym has a bad reputation for failing to action cancellations so they're in no position to call the shots like this. Also, I'm particularly interested in how they're entitled to demand a £20 admin fee to close the a/c. I'm not aware of this being included in the T&C's that members usually get from Harlands.

 

[dwelly59]

Hi Slick132. Thanks for your reply.

 

Each of the DDs of £9.99 came off his account either on 30th, 31st or 1st of the month. The first payment came off on May 5th so I would have thought every monthly payment should have been made on the 5th and don't know exactly why the monthly payment date was brought forward. DD payments were made in May, June, July, August, September and October, the last one being an extra, extra month as he had cancelled early in the preceding month.

 

The date of cancellation would have been midweek around the 2nd or 3rd of September. Unfortunately he is not 100% sure of the exact date but my wife and I took him to his Uni halls on Sunday 6th September, the day before he started Uni, and he had already cancelled his membership by the time he left for Uni.

 

The last payment taken by Harlands was on 30th October. He noticed that an extra month's payment had been taken and cancelled the DD. This triggered the Harlands letters etc.

 

The other question I have (apart from the validity of these fees) is about the cancellation. I believe a verbal cancellation is enough in law but would like to be assured of that.

 

Thanks again for your help.

[dwelly59]

Hi martin2006 and dx100uk. Thanks for your replies.

 

I've read a lot of the threads about Harlands and understand totally how people can get caught out by them. They don't seem like an organisation I would like to work for.

 

To be honest I don't know enough about the law to be sure of my rights regards verbal notice or the DD guarantee. However I'm hoping to be a lot clearer by the end of this conversation on CAG. Thanks again for your help.

[dx100uk]

answer the questions in post 4 please

slick132 is the master on these

[slick132]

Hi Dwelly,

 

If YS cancelled 2nd or 3rd September at the gym, he should have paid the DD at the end of Sept or early October. Accordingly, YS should now contact his bank and ask that they refund the DD taken by Harlands at the end of October. He should say he requires the refund under the DD Guarantee Scheme because the payee took the payment after the membership was ended.

 

Let us know when the bank has refunded and then we'll tackle X4Less.

 

Ignore the gym and Harlands/CRS for now.

 

[dwelly59]

Hi Slick.

 

My son spoke with the bank this afternoon and they said they will refund him by tomorrow morning which is very good news. Thank you for your advice on the DD Guarantee. They will contact him within five days if there are any problems.

 

Now, what about Xercise4less/Harlands? They will still be looking for evidence from my son and also for their £9.99 and £20 fee. They will not be pleased to hear they have actually lost £9.99 (assuming the bank will ask them for the extra month's money).

 

What is the next step?

[dwelly59]

Sorry I didn't reply to you before, dx100uk . I don't wish to offend but you will see I answered all of the questions from slick132 about 20 minutes before you posted your message. Slick132 has been very helpful and I'm grateful for all information and advice posted on this site by all contributors

[slick132]

Hi Dwelly,

 

You've answered all I need for now.

 

You need do nothing until YS gets the DD refunded, but let us know when this happens.

 

Then we'll deal with the reply needed for Harlands/CRS.

 

[dwelly59]

Hi Slick

 

My son has just confirmed that the money has been refunded.

 

Dwelly

[slick132]

Actually, lets keep life simple ........

 

Wait for Harlands to hear that the bank has repaid the wrongly-taken DD. As soon as they hear, they'll write you a Snot-o-Gram.

 

Let us know what they say and we'll suggest how best to reply.

 

[dwelly59]

Looks like they have moved to the next stage of the process...

 

Another letter has arrived, this one giving notice that "failure to reply within the next 10 days will result in your account balance being passed to Zinc Group Ltd, one of the UK's leading providers of debt recovery solutions".

[dx100uk]

next bloke

next desk

in a diff coloured skirt.

 

nothing to worry about

 

a DCA is NOT A BAILIFF

and has

NO SUCH LEGAL POWERS.

 

go read other like threads,

[slick132]

Zinc are an external DCA that Harlands use before passing the matter on to Spratt Endicott, their pet solicitor.

 

Both of these bodies tend to threaten plenty, but do nothing.

 

Do nothing until Harlands find the DD has been refunded under the DDGS.

 

[dwelly59]

slick132

 

It's been a few weeks since my last message

 

 

as expected my son has received another letter from CRS.

 

 

It says they have been notified by Harlands that he had put in an indemnity claim for £9.99

that they had collected with his agreement by DD.

 

 

As this had to be paid back to the bank, he has "incurred a £25 administration charge".

 

He has been asked to call them to discuss payment of the account balance (which has now risen to £201.44)

and if he doesn't contact them within 10 days they will have

"no alternative but to take further action to recover the balance".

 

It's frustrating that these letters keep on coming with no end in sight

so from your experience of these companies at what point does this process start to change in my son's favour?

[dx100uk]

there is nothing not in your sons favour...

 

he got his moneyback by the DD guarantee claim?

 

if he poss owes £9.99 for the one months notice

is another matter

but most certainly does not owe any penalty nor admin 'fees'

 

don't forget

none of these people writing to him have ANY

legal powers

they are NOT bailiffs

[slick132]

Hi Dwelly,

 

As expected my son has received another letter from CRS.

 

It says they have been notified by Harlands that he had put in an indemnity claim

 

This makes me laugh - when will Harlands/CRS tell each other they are really just one single entity !! :lol:

 

YS should now write to Harlands :-

 

Dear Harlands,

 

I refer to your letter of xxdate using your CRS letterhead.

 

I cancelled verbally on 3rd September 2015 at the gym due to relocation to university. The gym staff said this was fine but they've failed to process the cancellation.

 

DD's were paid to you at the end of September and October and I reclaimed the October DD via my bank as this should not have been taken.

 

I owe you nothing and any further demands will be ignored but reported to Trading Standards and The CMA.

 

Yours faithfully,

 

The

 

Send to Harlands and get a free Certificate of posting from the PO counter.

 

When Harlands/CRS come back with further demands, you can go public on Twitter and Facebook about X4Less allowing Harlands to harass their members.