sports direct gym think I owe them £50 (wrongly) and they are taking me to court- please help!

charlotte36902 · 7 February 2020 at 7:55PM

I am a ex-member of the Guildford sports direct gym. I have tried to contact the manager numerous times only to be ignored. I don't know what to do. He has made it impossible to ask any questions or dispute my fee which is infuriating. Basically i had a 6 month contract with a 3month cancellation period (which i didnt realise at the time) so I cancelled in october, continued to pay until december then cancelled my direct debit. My argument is that I didn't understand I had to pay January's fee because I had cancelled my membership in October, so I cancelled my direct debit. I was then contacted in January about my outstanding fee of £19.99 so I contacted the manager to query it on the 8th of January. I emailed him so many times without response- sometimes up to 5 times in a row without any response. If he had responded on the day and explained my situation to me (that I had in fact cancelled in November) I would have happily paid the £19.99 monthly fee I still owe them. But instead he took a month to reply to me racking another £30 of administration fees! Each time I got an email about the fees I would reply, and also email any customer service emails I could find on the internet and also the manger I was previously emailing. I am at a loss at what to do because I have been ignored by everyone I've spoken to. I have extreme social anxiety so I prefer to email rather than call people (as conversations can be hard for me) yet the manager made that nearly impossible. Despite my mental health I did call the gym several times still to no avail. The best I got was an email on the 27th explaining my debt (but all too late as I already had £20 of admin fees) and another email today saying they are going to take me to court!!