Advice needed pls on disputed amount owed to a creditor

dharm999

I'm in a bit of a pickle and not sure what to do, so I thought I would ask for advice from you kind people.

We have a problem with an online school we enrolled our son in. We weren't happy with the service so gave them the required notice. They in turn wanted our son to finish straight away, and they would waive the notice period. Eventually after a long discussion we agreed to this. However, in the course of the conversation we had with the people from the school, we realised they were doing something that we now know may well be a breach of the data protection act, which we are separately investigating. Because of the seriousness of what they told us we felt compelled to tell the other children and parents in the school. Because of this 'disruption' to the school, they have now said they have changed their minds on waiving the notice period, and are chasing us for thr full amount of the notice. We have ofered to pay them (£82) upto the day our son was in school, per the original agreement, but they are insisting on full payment (£148) of the notice period.

We are extremely stressed and worried about this. They have threatened to take legal action against us? What can they do? Can they get debt collectors to chase us for the money? Do they have to go to a small claims court and get their money? If they use debt collectors would we have to pay costs? If it went to a small claims court would we end up with a CCJ against us? What if we came to an arrangement at the small claims court, would that still result in a CCJ against us?

I'm worried that we will damage our credit history as a result of this. I know its not much money but it is the principle.

Thanks for all your advice and help.

CLAPTON

are they contractually in the right or the wrong?

beanielou

What was in the contract that you signed?
Did u get it in writing that they were willing to waive notice period?

dharm999

Our contract with them requires us to give them two weeks notice, which we were originally prepared to honour, but they wanted us to go immediately, and they were the ones who said that if we leave straight away, i.e. at the end of our sons lessons that day, then they would waive the notice period, which we agreed to reluctantly. We're happy to pay upto his last day in school but they didn't let us have any access to the school, our logins were disabled, and still want us to pay for the full notice.

dharm999

Beanielou,

Unfortunately we didn't get it in writing from them, but we do have an email from them in which they say they are going back on their agreement to waive the notice period as we had acted unreasonably, i.e. told the other children that all their private chats they were having between themselves weren't in fact private, but could be monitored and looked at. I've got no problem with that if we had known up front that that was what they would do, but we were never told that. When we told the children, they were all extremely shocked and upset - they thought their private conversations were private but they weren't. My son was very upset, that all the private conversations he had with other children weren't private. To us, its the same as reading someone's diary.

dharm999

Bump - any advice please?