Help!! Gym subscription has being going out of my account for 2.5 years - I thought it was cancelled

MamaG_3

Hi,

Can anyone help advice for having £750 of gym fees refunded, for a membership I believed was cancelled.  Today out of the blue I received an email about a problem with this month's payment for a subsciption I though I had cancelled in 2022.

In all the time the gym company have been taking my money I have never had a single email from this gym that would indicate I had an active membership - not one payment receipt, I have never had a membership card, I have never been notified of gym or pool closures (the swimming pool was shut for an extensive time to be refurbished at some point in recent years), I have never had to confirm a renewal.  I had not a single email until today.

My agreement to paying fees would have lasted a month - and I suspect I would have been complaing about that month when I cancelled.  This is how this has arisen:- My childrens school has a gym with a swimming pool. I have never been in the gym in my life - but love to swim and there were 2 or 3 swimming sessions a week on offer that I could attend.  In 2022 I tried it PAYG for a few weeks then filled out a membership form.  Shortly after I did it was the school holidays and they announced pool closures (on social media - under their gym name not the school name) that meant I wouldn't be able to use the pool at all for 2 or 3 weeks - so the monthly fee was a complete waste ad sticking to PAYG would have been much cheaper.  I know that I somehow contacted them to cancel, I really wasn't happy about that first months fees as it was only the pool I wanted to use - it was possibly using their online contact form as they were closed.  I can't find any sent emails from my inbox - but may have deleted them. It's so long ago I don't really remember.  I know I had been in touch though as I was so miffed to have paid £25 for that month to not then be able to swim.

I remember being unsure at the time about this cancellation - so thought I had checked all our statements for a couple of months to make sure no payments were going out.  However the payment was going to the name of the school which our children were at - and not to the name of the leisure company that I was looking for.  As we paid the school regularly to top up the lunch accounts and for trips and books etc we never questioned the monthly payment that was the pool/gym membership.  What can I say - we're both working parents, we're busy, we just didn't think the school name was the gym membership.

We have raised a dispute with the credit card company - they have temporarily refunded 10 payments I think, but there are no guarantees this will be permanent, and is less than half of the total amount 

I feel like an idiot now - can anyone offer any advice?

elsien

Honestly, unless you have more evidence about how you cancelled, I think you might be a loser with this one. “I know I somehow contacted them to cancel” Isn’t going to cut it. 

You don’t get receipts if it’s on a direct debit or standing order, it just goes out until it’s properly cancelled. 

If you didn’t have a membership card, what would be the procedure for accessing the gym and the pool? is that something they should have given you but haven’t?

Grumpy_chap

MamaG_3 said:

Hi,

Can anyone help advice for having £750 of gym fees refunded, for a membership I believed was cancelled.  Today out of the blue I received an email about a problem with this month's payment for a subsciption I though I had cancelled in 2022.

In all the time the gym company have been taking my money I have never had a single email from this gym that would indicate I had an active membership - not one payment receipt, I have never had a membership card, I have never been notified of gym or pool closures (the swimming pool was shut for an extensive time to be refurbished at some point in recent years), I have never had to confirm a renewal.  I had not a single email until today.

My agreement to paying fees would have lasted a month - and I suspect I would have been complaing about that month when I cancelled.  This is how this has arisen:- My childrens school has a gym with a swimming pool. I have never been in the gym in my life - but love to swim and there were 2 or 3 swimming sessions a week on offer that I could attend.  In 2022 I tried it PAYG for a few weeks then filled out a membership form.  Shortly after I did it was the school holidays and they announced pool closures (on social media - under their gym name not the school name) that meant I wouldn't be able to use the pool at all for 2 or 3 weeks - so the monthly fee was a complete waste ad sticking to PAYG would have been much cheaper.  I know that I somehow contacted them to cancel, I really wasn't happy about that first months fees as it was only the pool I wanted to use - it was possibly using their online contact form as they were closed.  I can't find any sent emails from my inbox - but may have deleted them. It's so long ago I don't really remember.  I know I had been in touch though as I was so miffed to have paid £25 for that month to not then be able to swim.

I remember being unsure at the time about this cancellation - so thought I had checked all our statements for a couple of months to make sure no payments were going out.  However the payment was going to the name of the school which our children were at - and not to the name of the leisure company that I was looking for.  As we paid the school regularly to top up the lunch accounts and for trips and books etc we never questioned the monthly payment that was the pool/gym membership.  What can I say - we're both working parents, we're busy, we just didn't think the school name was the gym membership.

We have raised a dispute with the credit card company - they have temporarily refunded 10 payments I think, but there are no guarantees this will be permanent, and is less than half of the total amount 

I feel like an idiot now - can anyone offer any advice?

If you cancelled *somehow* back in 2022, how have you got all the way to 2025 without ever noticing the £25 monthly charge to your account?

MamaG_3

Because the payment was in the name of my kids school, not the leisure company - and it was going out on a joint credit card where both me and my husband would have been topping up the kids lunch accounts to the school with similar amounts so it didn't stand out.

MamaG_3

Oh - and before I signed up for membership I did a couple of months on PAYG to check it would be worth it and the payment showed as to the Leisure company and not to the school on the same credit card.

Aylesbury_Duck

All you can do is try what you're doing, but if that doesn't work, it doesn't sound like you have sufficient evidence you cancelled.  You've said you didn't notice £25 leaving your account every month for 2.5 years because you're busy people.  The same argument might apply to the membership and whether you really did get round to cancelling it, or whether life got in the way.

I may have missed it, but have you actually raised this with the school, or have you gone straight to credit card dispute?

On the plus side, if you can't get all or any of the payments back, you didn't notice the money going out so you're no worse off in that sense.  Nice bonus if you get it back, of course.

born_again

MamaG_3 said:

Because the payment was in the name of my kids school, not the leisure company - and it was going out on a joint credit card where both me and my husband would have been topping up the kids lunch accounts to the school with similar amounts so it didn't stand out.

Well the max you would get via chargebacks is 13 months FCA regulations.

I would be worried here, given the mention of under the same name as lunch accounts. That something goes wrong & a chargeback is done against them.

Exodi

MamaG_3 said:

In all the time the gym company have been taking my money I have never had a single email from this gym that would indicate I had an active membership - not one payment receipt

The ICO is very strict on preventing companies sending unwanted emails to people. If you didn't sign up to 'marketing emails' or the like, then it sounds like the gym has acted correctly by not barraging you with unsolicited emails.

None of my subscription providers email me randomly, or send me payment receipts for payments taken by CPA. Really the way to police this would be scrutinising your statement regularly, rather than relying on subscriptions to send non-optional urgent service announcements.

MamaG_3 said:

I know that I somehow contacted them to cancel, I really wasn't happy about that first months fees as it was only the pool I wanted to use - it was possibly using their online contact form as they were closed.  I can't find any sent emails from my inbox - but may have deleted them. It's so long ago I don't really remember.

My wife similarly deletes emails and I warn her of the potential of these sorts of scenarios.

You claim you 'somehow contacted them' but also mention 'it's so long ago I don't really remember' - how do you challenge the gyms inevitable response that you did not cancel?

MamaG_3 said:

I remember being unsure at the time about this cancellation - so thought I had checked all our statements for a couple of months to make sure no payments were going out.  However the payment was going to the name of the school which our children were at - and not to the name of the leisure company that I was looking for.  As we paid the school regularly to top up the lunch accounts and for trips and books etc we never questioned the monthly payment that was the pool/gym membership.  What can I say - we're both working parents, we're busy, we just didn't think the school name was the gym membership.

Presumably they were taken as separate payments though? You also mention it was a joint account so both you and your husband had visibility of this and never noticed?

You can imagine the reaction to not noticing for several years on a forum like this, where most people could probably tell you their DD/CPA's to the penny and every outgoing is accounted for. Or that you were too busy to notice for three years.

FWIW, I don't think there is any strength in the point you're implying that the mistake has, in part, been caused by the CPA being set up in the schools name. It's not uncommon for CPA/DD's to be set up with the description being a hodgepodge of numbers and letters, particularly for policies.

MamaG_3 said:

We have raised a dispute with the credit card company - they have temporarily refunded 10 payments I think, but there are no guarantees this will be permanent, and is less than half of the total amount 

I'm surprised they've refunded 10 payments (though note you say it's temporary at this stage).

We see this issue on occasion and the gyms stance is relatively straightforward - you had access to the gym for the period of your membership, whether you used it or not is your prerogative and you 'not noticing' you had a membership is irrelevant.

MamaG_3 said:

I have never had a membership card

Maybe you could explore this point, though the obvious counter to this would be that (presuming you need one to use the gym) you would have been provided one should you have ever asked.

Sorry if I come across as a bit harsh and that's probably not what you want to hear - but I've seen a fair few threads with this issue, and they nearly always go the same way.

Out of interest, have you spoke to gym? It reads as if you immediately opened up a claim with the CC issuer against them, which would be unfortunate as the simplest solution would have been to at least ask them if they'd be willing to to come to some form of agreement (though actually,  it might have been a waste of time as it sounds like you are seeking a refund in full).

born_again

Presumably they were taken as separate payments though? You also mention it was a joint account so both you and your husband had visibility of this and never noticed?

As it was a CC, there is no such thing in the UK. Only acc should be checking the account & balancing the payment. Then checking with additional cardholder what payments they made.

sheramber

born_again said:

Presumably they were taken as separate payments though? You also mention it was a joint account so both you and your husband had visibility of this and never noticed?

As it was a CC, there is no such thing in the UK. Only acc should be checking the account & balancing the payment. Then checking with additional cardholder what payments they made.

My husband was an additional holder on my credit card. He had online access to it. 

Jami74

Have you spoken to the gym/school to check that they think you are still a member? Just in case they knew you cancelled but for some reason didn't cancel the payment. And if you are still a member, make sure to cancel properly with them so they stop trying to take the money.