Advice required for Fitness First "debt"

SirJuicer

Hi all, hope you're well, I'll try and keep this as short as possible.

I signed up to Fitness First gym last year and was using it as and when possible for about three months. I ended up not going to my gym for about a month as I was training at various locations around the country for that period.

Upon returning home I had a letter from Fitness First telling me that I owed them a months membership and I needed to sort it post haste. So I went to my local gym to pay what I "owed" and was told I owed nothing and everything was fine.

A few days later I had a letter from a debt collection agency (C.A.R.S.) telling me I owed Fitness First £294.50 as I had not paid my membership and I had best pay it or court action will ensue etc.

I wrote back to C.A.R.S. informing them of the following facts;

1. I honestly didn't believe I owed anything as in my opinion my membership was still open.
2. Looking at my online banking, it didn't seem as if I'd missed any payments to Fitness First.
3. My membersip was for £26.95 a month on a 12 month contract. So according to them I owed £294.50 / £26.95 = 10.927 months of membership, which is clearly ridiculous.

A few months passed, payments were still coming out of my account, and finally I received another letter back from C.A.R.S telling me that this really was my final warning seeing as I had "chosen to ignore previous attempts at resolving the situation". Funny thing was, even though two further payments of £26.95 had come out of my account, I still owed £294.50.

I wrote back to them reiterating what I had previously said, making a point of how clearly I must "owe" less than I initially did (if I did owe anything at all) as payments had been made, and that I was more than willing to pay this money if they could prove I was in breach of contract.

Again, time passed, they wrote again telling me that this time they really meant what they said and will be taking me to court unless full payment is made straight away.

Again, I wrote back telling them I still wasn't ignoring them (this time via recorded delivery) and saying exactly what I had said before.

They have now written to me telling me that they are no longer dealing with the debt and I should contact the original creditor.

I basically would love some advice as to what I am supposed to do now? It's getting ridiculous that they are ignoring my letters and accusing me of ignoring them. It's also ridiculous in as much as I'd be happy to pay this money if they proved I owe it, but my records really do state that I didn't miss any payments, infact I only stopped the direct debit after it was obvious they weren't going to acknowledge that I money was still being paid.

A side note, and it may not be relevant, but I managed to find my original contract with Fitness First and the actual start date for the direct debits has been completely omitted - surely this contract is null and void then?

Thanks guys.

GeorgeUK

Not sure about that, but you could write to the gym and say that after visiting the gym to clarify if any monies were owed you were informed that you owed nothing. You now ask for written confirmation that you do not owe anything ... then i'm a little unclear as to who was taking payment from your account? Was the membership cancelled? If so i would get confirmation that the membership has been cancelled and ask that you no longer be charged.