Harlands charges Places Gym

Penelope_Gib

I gave Harlands (acknowledged) 45 days notice cancelling my 12-month sports membership and cancelled the last direct debit payment, due on the 31st August. I paid this on 26th August by credit card over the phone. I expressly asked for clarification that there were no further costs or fees left to pay and that, as I had cancelled my membership no further costs were forthcoming. This was confirmed by the customer services staff member by phone who said: "No, you have nothing more to pay." I have now been emailed by Harland with a demand for £20.
"Harlands collect payments on behalf of Places Leisure Dorking Sports Centre. Collecting payment via Direct Debit is

what you agreed to, in the Terms and Conditions of your agreement when you signed up for your membership.

We have previously written to you about your membership without getting a response. As a result an £ 20.00

administration charge has been added to your account, and the amount you owe is now £ 20.00.

We appreciate this may have been an error, so we've made it easy for you to pay what you owe using one of these

options:

Option 1: Visit Payflex, our secure online payment portal: www.payflex.co.uk

Enter your reference number and Date of Birth to find your membership and follow the instructions to make a

payment and replace your Direct Debit details.

Option 2: Call our Membership Team on 01444 221052 *

Our lines are open 8am to 6pm Monday to Friday. Thank you.

To avoid extra charges, please pay the amount owed and replace your Direct Debit details before 13 SEP 22. If you

are unable to pay the total amount by this date, this debt may be passed to a debt collector."
I have confirmation of ending my membership on 22nd July: 
Dear Ms Gibbins,

Thank you for your email. My name is Lorraine and I am part of the Places Payment team here at Harlands.
I’m sorry to hear you are wishing to cancel your membership. I have set your contract to non-renew, your final payment will be debited 30/08/22 for an amount of £34.00 and you will have access to the facilities until 29/09/22.
Once your membership has been cancelled it will remain open as a ‘Pay As You Move Membership’ which will allow you casual access to the centre as well as 7 days advanced booking via the Places Locker App and Website.
I would like to say thank you for being a member of Places Leisure and I hope you enjoyed our classes and facilities. If anything changes in your personal circumstances, we hope that you would choose us again.
I have written to the letter writers as they appear to have not acknowledged my credit card payment but would like some advice on how to counter what seems to be an attempt at extortion. 

Manxman_in_exile

I know that in that email from "Lorraine" at the Places Payment team that she appears to be acknowledging your cancellation and that you will have nothing further to pay after your final payment of £34 on 30 August, but - despite that - are you absolutely certain (1) that you gave the required 45 days notice and (2) that you have paid everything that you owe them and that nothing is outstanding?

Having said that, the letter claiming that an amount is still outstanding looks odd to me.  It seems to say that because you still owe them money that they have added an additional admin fee of £20 to your account, and that you now owe them a total £20.  That suggests to me that before they charged you the admin fee that you didn't owe them anything at all  I'd ask them why they've charged you the admin fee when you obviously don't owe them anything - according to their own letter...

Penelope_Gib

Thank you for your reply here. I am sure that I gave the correct notice and equally sure I paid all outstanding payments. I have also checked their payflex payment options which include paying by debit or credit card as I did. I will make your point to them because I am mystified that after receiving payment from me they want £20 for not receiving it via direct debit. 

born_again

Wonder if the £20 is because the DD failed & that is the charge for that.

Best option call them & see what they say.

Ath_Wat

It's unlikely Harlands are going into the extortion business for £20.

What's far more likely is that because you have done something other than what the system expects and is set up for - that is, paying your final instalment by credit card rather than allowing the DD to go out - something has not been updated and the normal operations for a failed DD have automatically been set in motion.

As I work with systems like this, I generally won't try and do anything even slightly unusual unless there is a very pressing reason, as the chance of having to waste time sorting it out later are too high.  This applies even if a customer service operative has told you that it will be ok; for one, they often can't be sure and for two, they or someone else might forget to do whatever it was they have to do.

Your immediate course of action is simply to email or call back, tell them what happened, and see what they say.