Credit agreement with gym, cancellation help!

kelwal75

Hi all

Apologies if i've posted this in the wrong section, but wasn't sure which was more appropriate.

Myself, my partner and my daughter joined David Lloyd gym on the 3rd of January on a 3 month membership, January didn't count as part of teh 3 month as it wasn't a full month. We were told taht we could cancel anytime by given one months notice and that the minumum we had to pay was 3 dd payments.

Due to travel commitments with work and an injury sustained my my daughter we haven't used the gym as much as we would have liked to and as i may soon be out of work we decided it would be sensible to cancel the membership.

I sent a letter to the gym given my one months notice with a view to leaving the gym on the 1st may which would be the date the three months were up.

Yesterday i recieved a call from the manager advising me that the month would take affect from when we had completed the 3 mth membership therefore we could not leave until the 1st June. I challenged this but she was no help at all.

I looked through the agreement i signed and it mentions nowhere on the agreement that we cannot leave until one month after the three months. Surely if this was the case I would have been signing up to a 4 month (nearly five month) contract with them.

I have written a email to them and quoted the terms of the contract and clearly shown how i have done everything asked of me.

What i want to know is if i cancel my dd so they cannot take the payment and they take it to debt collection how do i (or can i) stop my cerdit rating from being affected as the contract is very clear and does not at any time mention that i cannot leave until one month after the three months.

Hope this makes sense, i guess i want to know legally where do i stand and where do they stand, if they try to take it to debt collection and i get a mark on my credit file how can i remove this if the contract doesn't tie me in.

Thanks

Kelly

ILW

kelwal75 wrote: »

Hi all

Apologies if i've posted this in the wrong section, but wasn't sure which was more appropriate.

Myself, my partner and my daughter joined David Lloyd gym on the 3rd of January on a 3 month membership, January didn't count as part of teh 3 month as it wasn't a full month. We were told taht we could cancel anytime by given one months notice and that the minumum we had to pay was 3 dd payments.

Due to travel commitments with work and an injury sustained my my daughter we haven't used the gym as much as we would have liked to and as i may soon be out of work we decided it would be sensible to cancel the membership.

I sent a letter to the gym given my one months notice with a view to leaving the gym on the 1st may which would be the date the three months were up.

Yesterday i recieved a call from the manager advising me that the month would take affect from when we had completed the 3 mth membership therefore we could not leave until the 1st June. I challenged this but she was no help at all.

I looked through the agreement i signed and it mentions nowhere on the agreement that we cannot leave until one month after the three months. Surely if this was the case I would have been signing up to a 4 month (nearly five month) contract with them.

I have written a email to them and quoted the terms of the contract and clearly shown how i have done everything asked of me.

What i want to know is if i cancel my dd so they cannot take the payment and they take it to debt collection how do i (or can i) stop my cerdit rating from being affected as the contract is very clear and does not at any time mention that i cannot leave until one month after the three months.

Hope this makes sense, i guess i want to know legally where do i stand and where do they stand, if they try to take it to debt collection and i get a mark on my credit file how can i remove this if the contract doesn't tie me in.

Thanks

Kelly

Personally for one months membership (I would guess around £150.00) I would swallow it and not risk screwing up my credit rating. It could cost you loads more if you ever want to take out a loan or remortgage etc.

lisyloo

Can you clarify what you mean by a "credit agreement".
If you are paying by direct debit then you have no credit agreement.
Perhaps I've misunderstood somewhere.

They could sell the debt on (but they might not bother for one month).
I don't believe adebt collection agency can just put a black mark on your credit file.
They would need to win a court case against you in the county court.

I would suggest you write (to the adress on your agreement) and ask them to specify where it says you cannot give notice until 3 months is up.

But would be helpful if you coudl calrify the "credit agreement" issue.
If you do in fact have a credit agreement then they can mark late payments on your credit record, but if you are paying by DD I can't see where the creidt agreement is (UNLESS the payment is due up front and you are actually paying off a loan).

I would argue with them, but yes you are potentially over a barrel if you do have a credit agreement as they can screw up your credit rating.

kelwal75

Your right actually it's not a credit agreement just a membership agreement.

Strangley i have just recieved a call from the manager and it seems they are letting me leave on the 1st of may, It seems my email did the trick.

If anyone else has similar problems i would suggest you do the same, don't just accept that you should pay an extra month, especially if it's not specified anywhere in any agreemnts you have signed.

:j

Thanks for responses :-D x

Figo

I've looked into this as well. The agreement is actually a "membership agreement" and not a credit agreement but essentially they can write back to your credit file if they have an agency agreement with a credit reference agency. I have no direct experience with the gym industry but due to the costs involved I would guess that they would be unlikely to do this.

Kelwal - I'm glad you managed to sort your situation out. For anyone else searching for info on this subject I would recommend that you have a read of this: Google search term [copy and paste into google] = Guidance on unfair terms in health and fitness club agreements+oft373.pdf

It might be worth quoting some or all of that if you have a dispute with your gym over the cancellation of your membership.

kelwal75

thanks figo, the mein lesson i've leart is to fully read t&c's i think my gym realised that should it go to court, they'd have no hope of getting the money. but it does make me wonder how many people have just paid up. perhaps an opportunity to claim back the money for some people .

Figo

kelwal75 wrote: »

thanks figo, the mein lesson i've leart is to fully read t&c's i think my gym realised that should it go to court, they'd have no hope of getting the money. but it does make me wonder how many people have just paid up. perhaps an opportunity to claim back the money for some people .

I myself fell foul of it. I bought my girlfriend gym membership for Christmas and happily signed an 18 month contract to waive the introduction fee of £150 only to break up with her 3 months later. I then tried to cancel the membership and they told me that I couldn't, so ensued a similar argument to the one you described.

I rolled over...

It wasn't until I saw the OFT guidance that I realised that I had good grounds to cancel by which time I had completed the term... grrr :mad:

Nevermind. Lesson learned.

kelwal75

oh dear that's a shame, well hopefully this post weill help others to avoid being in a similar situation. I think my email must have clearly pointed out there error at trying to charge me an extra month as i didn't even have to argue for it.

I'm going to make sure i use it until my mebership runs out, as much as poss just to make sure i finally get my moneys worth lol.