It's me again need advice. help!!!!!!!!!

moo_cow

hi all, it's me again. I posted on here a couple of weeks ago regarding son's old gym membership.
Basically he belonged to a gym for about a year or so and then they closed down. he was told he could join another gym
but the other gym wasn't suitable for his needs so didn't bother.
In the meantime we heard nothing. Until a couple of weeks ago when we had a letter from
ECI debt recovery.
I wrote them a letter of dispute stating that the gym had in fact broken their own terms and conditions and how on earth can
you pay for a service you're not recieving.
Basically they have ignored this and sent a letter this morning stating the following:


Re: Notice of Intended Court Proceeding

Despite our repeated requests for payment, we are disappointed to note that our client Fitlife Ltd has an account of £152.13 which remains overdue.
PLease find enclosed details of the amount to be claimed which may be processed to the court as on 09/12/2008 without further notice to you. As you will see, interest is added to the debt together with legal fees and costs.
To avoid this costly and time consuming process, we look forward to recieving your payment for the aforementioned amount by return, or alternatively an acceptable repayment plan.
Should proceedings be issued and judgement obtained, it may affect your chances of obtaining future credit.
We look forward to haring from you by return or by telephoning this
office on ...................



anyway, son is now worried to death and is home sick at the moment also so can't deal with this. any advice would be gratefully recieved please.
Thanks guys

moo_cow

hi guys, I actually left one point out which I had forgotten about and that was that son had actually 'won' the membership and was asked to pay for a 'maintenance charge' towards the gym.

saintly_2

there is a thread already about fitlife, if you search for it, it should come up, looks like other people have had issues with these guys as well, you might be able to get some useful information on there!

good luck and hope your son gets better soon

moo_cow

thanks saintly, I read one thread about them and saw the links but couldn't use them. 'webpage expired' message. have spoken to consumer direct who have advised me to write to both ECI and Fitlife asking for copy of actual credit agreement. But to be honest he is concerned at what type of agreement it is. whether it relates to use of any gym or just the gym in question which closed down. If it's use of any gym then he will have to pay them and that's it. He was only 17 at the time and didn't understand credit agreements so didn't know that he was possibly signing one. It's appalling duping a kid like that. if i'd have been with him i'd have looked at the agreement first and known it was a credit agreement. i'm not the sharpest knife in the box but I would have questioned why a credit agreement for maintenance.

To anyone else who may get a phone call telling them they've won a free gym membership, please be aware that's it's anything but free.

jude47

Hi Moo

Your son was 17 at the time?? In law, a minor cannot enter into a legally binding agreement so anything he signed up for before he was 18 is unenforceable. Let it go to court and see what the District Judge has to say about that - they do not like companies who try to bully people into paying unenforceable agreements!!
Let us know how it goes, but if I were you, I'd ring this bunch of t***ers and explain the basics of the law of the land! These sorts of companies really pee me off....grumble, whinge.

Let us know how you get on.

Jude x

RAS

Jude is right Moo - at 17 he was leggally unable to agree a contract, so this is unenforceable.

just do not ring them, speak to NDl or someone and write to them.

jude47

Oops, good point RAS - I was so keen to reply I forgot the first rule of dealing with these numpties - do everything in writing!

Cheers mate for pointing that out!

Jude x

moo_cow

hi guys, will get on to this now. will check everything over and make sure of the dates and if everything's correct will tell them where to get off. In a nice way of course. IF ONLY!