Harlands Admin Charges

Hi guys,

I recently cancelled my gym membership and stupidly didn't read the website saying I had to give 30 days notice and so also cancelled my direct debit. I have now been hit with 2x £25 charges by Harlands. I've done some research and seen this is a common issue. I saw in this thread: forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=568554 a user had asked for a full breakdown of costs to justify the admin charges so I followed suite and first explained it was an oversight and kindly asked the admin charge be dropped. I then intended (as the email chain does in the linked thread) ask for a full breakdown of costs.

I today received this email in response to my first message to them:

We thank you for your email.

We do regret to inform you in accordance with the Terms and Conditions of your agreement with Xercise 4 less we are unable to remove the administration charge that you are disputing.

One of the Terms of this agreement, which you have agreed to be bound by, is that "if you fail to pay any monies due under this agreement or if any Direct Debit is returned unpaid or any cheque is returned unpaid or if any other form of payment is not honoured for whatever reason, you shall pay us on demand fee of £25.00, which we require to cover our costs of seeking to pursue such payment from you.".

We have attempted to correspond with you regarding this matter to ensure that no further charges are applied, this would have allowed you the opportunity to rectify the matter and to obtain minimal financial inconvenience to yourself. However further charges will be applied if the requests for payment are not adhered to.

May we confirm, £25.00 is the amount deemed by our directors as representative of our costs in dealing with the administration involved with a missed or returned payment.

When we submit for a payment by Direct Debit which is then returned, we are also charged by the bank. The charge also covers the costs we incur to reapply for the payment and the sending of letters to members. The administration charge has been incurred due to the extra work involved to resubmit the payments, the accounting time it takes to process the return and reverse the transaction, the cost of sending a letter and assigning to the database.

Please note to make a payment of your current outstanding balance of £62.79 you are required to contact our offices on the helpline number listed below. Alternatively, you can pay via our online PayFlex portal by clicking on make a payment on the top right-hand corner on our website. Please see below for the link of our website.

To login into Pay Flex you are required to provide your Date of Birth and your W reference number, which is W22126832 please be aware that should you make a payment online this can take up to 24 hours to update on our systems and therefore if access is currently denied to the facilities this may not reactivate immediately.

We do advise if the arrears within your account remain to be outstanding, we will proceed with the default procedure within your account with the risk of further charges being applied and ultimately with further action being taken against you.

Please be advised a charge has been applied to your account, it will be non-negotiable and not up for dispute and therefore any further correspondence regarding the matter will not alter the outcome, as per the above.

Please ensure that this is adhered to before the 7th November. Failure to comply will result in further charges being applied.

We do apologise for any inconvenience that this may have caused.

For all Enquiries Call Harlands : 01444 449033 () Quote Reference : 5803996 /

Office hours: Monday to Friday, 9am - 5pm

Yours sincerely,
Sophie
Harlands

They appear to have preempted my next email and (although vaguely) listed the costs incurred (although one of them is cost for letters sent of which I have received none).

Are there any steps I can now take to get these unfair charges dropped? or do I not have a leg to stand on?

Thanks