Urgent.... Gym Membership Price Increase.

lambandfox

Hi,
First i would like to apologise in advancev if this is in the wrong topic.

Back in November 2016 i joined my local gym under a £6.60 offer. The advert read £6.60 on a 28th day contract through direct debit. I was charged a joining fee and the £6.60 for the month of November. On the 1st of December as expected £6.60 left my account through the DD. On the 1st of January 2017 however, without any prior notice the direct debit had been changed by them to £21.99, i had not been made aware that this would happen. I immediately cancelled this direct debit with them when i noticed the significant price increase of more than 220%.

They were informed by their direct debit company that i had cancelled this with them, and today they emailed me to say i was in breach of contract due to notice of 28 days needs to be given. So they now say i owe a further £21.99 which needs to be paid within 14 days or the matter will be passed to a debt collection agency.

For a young student like myself an email like this is very daunting, with thoughts of my credit rating etc being effected.

So ,I would just like to know of my rights regarding this matter. First did they have the right to change the amount in the direct debit WITHOUT any notice given to me. And although i admit i am breaching the 28 day notice but i would argue that they also breached by charging more than the agreed £6.60 and would such a large increase be an unfair term?

I hope to hear back soon, many thanks for taking your time to read this.
Kind Regards,
Charlie

shaun_from_Africa

Do you have any written terms and conditions that you signed? or anything on an e-mail detailing the terms?

£6.60 seems extremely cheap for any form of gym membership so are you totally sure that it wasn't an introductory 1 month special offer or trial with it reverting to the full price after this period?

If you signed up on line, you may be able to find a cached version of the offer page here:
https://archive.org/web/

martinsurrey

lambandfox wrote: »

Hi,
First i would like to apologise in advancev if this is in the wrong topic.

Back in November 2016 i joined my local gym under a £6.60 offer. The advert read £6.60 on a 28th day contract through direct debit. I was charged a joining fee and the £6.60 for the month of November. On the 1st of December as expected £6.60 left my account through the DD. On the 1st of January 2017 however, without any prior notice the direct debit had been changed by them to £21.99, i had not been made aware that this would happen. I immediately cancelled this direct debit with them when i noticed the significant price increase of more than 220%.

They were informed by their direct debit company that i had cancelled this with them, and today they emailed me to say i was in breach of contract due to notice of 28 days needs to be given. So they now say i owe a further £21.99 which needs to be paid within 14 days or the matter will be passed to a debt collection agency.

For a young student like myself an email like this is very daunting, with thoughts of my credit rating etc being effected.

So ,I would just like to know of my rights regarding this matter. First did they have the right to change the amount in the direct debit WITHOUT any notice given to me. And although i admit i am breaching the 28 day notice but i would argue that they also breached by charging more than the agreed £6.60 and would such a large increase be an unfair term?

I hope to hear back soon, many thanks for taking your time to read this.
Kind Regards,
Charlie

Under the rules of the direct debit scheme, they MUST give you 10 working days notice of any changes to the amounts they are collecting.

Ask them for the details of the notice they sent.

(if they sent it you are out of luck)

If they didn't, ask them for the details of their BACS service user number so you can complain that they are not complaint with Direct debit processing rules to BACS Payment Scheme Limited.

(you should now have their attention).

that will give you leverage on the payment side, but it doesn't sort out the contractual side.

what does your contract with them say about payments and notice?

bris

£6.60 looks like an opening offer, like Sky half price for 6 months etc. We would need to see the T&C's but you can't run a gym for £6.60 a month so look at the terms it will be on there.

George_Michael

The OP could well be correct with their figures.
I don't know if this is the place in question,
https://web.archive.org/web/20161104054537/http://www.thewarehousegym-uk.com/
but it shows the price at £6.60 per month, down from £21.99 (which is what the OP is now being charged) and there is no reference to the £6.60 rate only being for a trial period.

lambandfox

Hi sorry for the late reply. No where in the T&C's of my contract did it say that the offer was introductionary or anything along those lines. Part of the terms do say however- "***** will give the member written notice of any such [price] increase 1 month before the proposed date". Interestingly enough on my original contract I've got to hand it also says: membership fee ( re-occurring)- £6.60 DD.

This said I would argue they've breached their own contract by simply failing to give me notice of such price rise?

lambandfox

I would also like to thank everyone who has posted so far you've all been very helpful.

da_rule

Two points to go at them with, the first is the direct debit notice mentioned above. The second is that it appears they were already in breach of the contract by taking more than the agreed amount. You were therefore just trying to mitigate (limit) your losses that were arising out of their breach by ensuring that they couldn't take anymore money.

wealdroam

Building on the Direct Debit issue...

As indicated above, the Direct Debit Guarantee states:

If there are any changes to the amount, date or frequency of your Direct Debit the organisation will notify you (normally 10 working days) in advance of your account being debited or as otherwise agreed.

It also says:

If an error is made in the payment of your Direct Debit, by the organisation or your bank or building society, you are entitled to a full and immediate refund of the amount paid from your bank or building society.

Speak to your bank about a full and immediate refund of £15.39 under the DD Guarantee.

Riggyman

How the !!!! is this "urgent"?

shaun_from_Africa

Riggyman wrote: »

How the !!!! is this "urgent"?

Possibly because the OP is a student with limited income and the fact that they have been told that if it's not sorted out with 14 days then it will get passed to a debt collector.

This might not be urgent for many people but for someone who might just be starting out in life, the prospect of being chased by a debt collection agency could be extremely worrying.