Gourmet Society Advice Needed

Joseph_Williams

Hi All,

Just need some advice please. I signed up in March for the Gourmet Society 1 pound for three months offer. As with many other people I did not see the automatic renewal clause included in the small print.

Further to this I did not receive any emails asking me if I wanted to renew or now. I discovered all of these emails in my spam as they came from very strange addresses. I realised what had happened and cancelled the card that I had registered with them so they could not take the full amount. Unsurprisingly the emails sent demanding the full amount are sent from a more legit address that makes it through every time (it's almost like they didn't want me to receive the renewal reminders).

The card I gave them is dead, I have moved from the address they have for me and as far as I know they don't have my phone number, just an old email address I could easily lose. I received this email from them today:

May I refer you to points 8 & 9 of the agreement.

Membership Fee:
You agree that we will charge you each term for the Gourmet Society service ("membership fee"). The amount of the membership fee due is detailed at your registration or via any subsequent notices. You authorise SL for the entire duration of your membership to access funds from any billing device you have provided to SL in order to take the membership fee and, if applicable, additional charges pursuant to section 9.

Additional charges:
SL may levy reasonable additional charges that it incurs in recovering your payable membership fee, including legal and administration costs, if access to your funds would not be possible for a reason attributable to you.

We request that you make the payment of the fee offered within the next 7 days to ensure no further action will be taken.
Please call the collections department on 0161 883 2987 to make your payment with us.

The question I am asking is - should I pay? Are the vague legal threats worth listening to? Do they have any way of taking money from me or pursuing me? I feel like I should just refuse to pay but am not sure.

Any advice on this would be very welcome.

Thanks in advance for your help

Best wishes
JW

wealdroam

Joseph_Williams wrote: »

Hi All,

Just need some advice please. I signed up in March for the Gourmet Society 1 pound for three months offer. As with many other people I did not see the automatic renewal clause included in the small print.

Further to this I did not receive any emails asking me if I wanted to renew or now. I discovered all of these emails in my spam as they came from very strange addresses. I realised what had happened and cancelled the card that I had registered with them so they could not take the full amount. Unsurprisingly the emails sent demanding the full amount are sent from a more legit address that makes it through every time (it's almost like they didn't want me to receive the renewal reminders).

The card I gave them is dead, I have moved from the address they have for me and as far as I know they don't have my phone number, just an old email address I could easily lose. I received this email from them today:

May I refer you to points 8 & 9 of the agreement.

Membership Fee:
You agree that we will charge you each term for the Gourmet Society service ("membership fee"). The amount of the membership fee due is detailed at your registration or via any subsequent notices. You authorise SL for the entire duration of your membership to access funds from any billing device you have provided to SL in order to take the membership fee and, if applicable, additional charges pursuant to section 9.

Additional charges:
SL may levy reasonable additional charges that it incurs in recovering your payable membership fee, including legal and administration costs, if access to your funds would not be possible for a reason attributable to you.

We request that you make the payment of the fee offered within the next 7 days to ensure no further action will be taken.
Please call the collections department on 0161 883 2987 to make your payment with us.

The question I am asking is - should I pay? Are the vague legal threats worth listening to? Do they have any way of taking money from me or pursuing me? I feel like I should just refuse to pay but am not sure.

Any advice on this would be very welcome.

Thanks in advance for your help

Best wishes
JW

Firstly, I cannot understand why you appear to have made no attempt to engage with GS to resolve this issue.
Having discovered the renewal attempt, my first action would be to speak to GS and apologise for overlooking the cancellation rquirement and ask them to cancel the agreement forthwith.
Why are you running away rather than facing your obligations?

Card issuers have processes in place such that I am pretty sure that GS will be able to get their money from your account even thought the card number you gave them is no longer valid.

You might like to read other threads about the same issue:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5048283
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5149425

Joseph_Williams

Thanks for the reply. I have engaged with them about it since I received an email saying that I should pay them.

My contention is that I did not receive any renewal reminder emails due to their constant spamming, resulting in no emails coming through and me not having the chance to cancel in a timely fashion. They are not offering any compromise on this.

Also, the links you posted appear to be broken, it would be great if you could repost.

wealdroam

Joseph_Williams wrote: »

Thanks for the reply. I have engaged with them about it since I received an email saying that I should pay them.

My contention is that I did not receive any renewal reminder emails due to their constant spamming, resulting in no emails coming through and me not having the chance to cancel in a timely fashion. They are not offering any compromise on this.

Also, the links you posted appear to be broken, it would be great if you could repost.

The reminder email is just a courtesy. You agreed at the time of signing-up that a renewal would take place at the end of the trial.

Sorry about the duff links - now corrected.

vuvuzela

Joseph_Williams wrote: »

Thanks for the reply. I have engaged with them about it since I received an email saying that I should pay them.

My contention is that I did not receive any renewal reminder emails due to their constant spamming, resulting in no emails coming through and me not having the chance to cancel in a timely fashion. They are not offering any compromise on this.

Also, the links you posted appear to be broken, it would be great if you could repost.

Not sure what the bit in bold actually means. Are you saying that you might have been sent an email but due to the volume they send you either delete them all without reading them or blocked their email address ?

Joseph_Williams

The section in bold refers to the fact that because they sent me so many emails my account automatically filtered them. They came from odd addresses and they also varied - most spam filters will get rid of such emails. Therefore I am not keen to pay them as I did not see their emails due to what I believe are their dodgy tactics. I feel that the emails were intentional designed to be spam filtered, thereby meaning that I would not cancel the automatic renewal. Then as soon as the automatic renewal has occurred they send emails from legitimate addresses that won't get filtered.

I am mainly asking for advice as to whether they can physically take money from me or what might happen to me if they pursue me, not for advice as to whether I should pay or whether I am right or wrong regarding terms and conditions.

They used threatening language over the phone suggesting legal costs and court cases. I want to know if this is real or a bluff. If they can't actually do anything to me and are just trying to scare me into paying then I don't intend to pay.

Caz3121

Can you confirm you have now cancelled your contract with them in line with the T&Cs and it is the missed payments they are asking for prior to you cancelling?
You will have ticked a box confirming that you read and understood the T&Cs. The fact that you ticked the box without fully reading them does not mean that they do not apply. Any reminder would be a courtesy and is not required as all the information was covered in the T&Cs you agreed to.