Disagreement with my gym over membership

02jhanso

I’d welcome any thoughts on this situation. 

 My gym membership expired in January. I approached the team and reinstated my membership which is deducted out of my salary each month. At the end of March they contacted me to say that due to an error on their behalf, they have not collected any money for the last 3 months and will be collecting 3 months' worth of payment. 

 

I have explained to them that this error is entirely on their side and I did everything feasible to ensure the details given to them are correct, therefore they need to accept liability. My budget is very tight, and I purposefully have my gym membership taken out of my salary so that I can carefully allocate my remaining salary to other priorities. For them to allow 3 months to go by without addressing this error and then chase me for a large amount of money is unacceptable. This money has already been allocated elsewhere and to gather funds for a mistake which is entirely not my fault will put me in financial difficulty. 

 

Having discussed this with the membership team, they refuse to waiver the outstanding amount owed and will block my gym access until it is paid. Do I have any grounds to fight this or am I obliged to pay the outstanding amount?

elsien

Short answer is no you probably have no grounds to challenge although you could ask for a repayment plan given the delay in collecting payment was theirs. 

You have had use of the service after all and it’s not realistic to expect it for free. 
 

If your budget is so tight, did you not wonder why you had more money than usual for 3 months? It must have been a large extra amount of money given that you’re saying it’s a large amount to pay back?

Mr.Generous

Pay up or find a new gym. You use the service who do you think should pay?  You could equally say it's though no fault of theirs that you spent the money elsewhere. I agree it''s a pain but see if they will agree a payment plan where you pay a bit extra  each month to catch up.

MattMattMattUK

02jhanso said:

I’d welcome any thoughts on this situation. 

 My gym membership expired in January. I approached the team and reinstated my membership which is deducted out of my salary each month. At the end of March they contacted me to say that due to an error on their behalf, they have not collected any money for the last 3 months and will be collecting 3 months' worth of payment. 

 

I have explained to them that this error is entirely on their side and I did everything feasible to ensure the details given to them are correct, therefore they need to accept liability. My budget is very tight, and I purposefully have my gym membership taken out of my salary so that I can carefully allocate my remaining salary to other priorities. For them to allow 3 months to go by without addressing this error and then chase me for a large amount of money is unacceptable. This money has already been allocated elsewhere and to gather funds for a mistake which is entirely not my fault will put me in financial difficulty. 

 

Having discussed this with the membership team, they refuse to waiver the outstanding amount owed and will block my gym access until it is paid. Do I have any grounds to fight this or am I obliged to pay the outstanding amount?

You are obliged to pay for the membership, you have no legal grounds to not pay.

TadleyBaggie

Did you not notice the gym payment hadn't been taken? My opinion is they are entitled to request the missing payments.

born_again

If your budget is tight. Did you not notice the lack of debits to them in your wage & alert them to the issue?

They are entitled to the money. If you block them taking it, then they can take you to court for the funds. How would your employer view that?

While it is their error, you might be able to use that to split the shortfall over the remaining period of contract. To make life a bit easier for you. But arguing that as their fault they are not getting the funds, as such is not the tack to take. 
You need to be nice, or they will simply take it all at once.

In effect they have 6 years to take the funds, even when it is their error.

eskbanker

02jhanso said:

My budget is very tight, and I purposefully have my gym membership taken out of my salary so that I can carefully allocate my remaining salary to other priorities. For them to allow 3 months to go by without addressing this error and then chase me for a large amount of money is unacceptable. This money has already been allocated elsewhere and to gather funds for a mistake which is entirely not my fault will put me in financial difficulty.

I agree with other posters that you're not going to be able to pin this on the gym, but would question just how careful your allocation and budgeting activity is if you don't notice this money not being taken and choose to spend it elsewhere, especially if everything is as tight as you say?

screech_78

This is not a disagreement. They have made an error and they are well within their rights to rectify that error. 

You owe the money. You can try and negotiate so that you could pay in instalments but there isn’t any other way around it. Given your budget is so tight, how could you not realise? I assume you did and thought you could get away with it though. 

tightauldgit

02jhanso said:

I’d welcome any thoughts on this situation. 

 My gym membership expired in January. I approached the team and reinstated my membership which is deducted out of my salary each month. At the end of March they contacted me to say that due to an error on their behalf, they have not collected any money for the last 3 months and will be collecting 3 months' worth of payment. 

 

I have explained to them that this error is entirely on their side and I did everything feasible to ensure the details given to them are correct, therefore they need to accept liability. My budget is very tight, and I purposefully have my gym membership taken out of my salary so that I can carefully allocate my remaining salary to other priorities. For them to allow 3 months to go by without addressing this error and then chase me for a large amount of money is unacceptable. This money has already been allocated elsewhere and to gather funds for a mistake which is entirely not my fault will put me in financial difficulty. 

 

Having discussed this with the membership team, they refuse to waiver the outstanding amount owed and will block my gym access until it is paid. Do I have any grounds to fight this or am I obliged to pay the outstanding amount?

Obliged to pay - although as others have said they may be willing to negotiate paying back in installments as a goodwill gesture. 

You had the service and didn't pay for it - the fact you spent the money elsewhere doesn't change your liability

sheramber

if you had paid twice in error would you expect to have it refunded?

You must have noticed that your take home  pay  was more than it should be.

Grumpy_chap

The best the OP can hope for is to pay the back payments over a period of time.