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Hi there,
Apologies for the long post, but I was wondering if anyone could advise me on where I stand with this.
I signed up to a gym membership at an independent Muay Thai gym in London on the 22nd May 2024. I had plans to relocate from the UK to another country and I told them I had every intention to cancel the membership, and they still insisted that I go ahead and sign the contract, on the basis that I can cancel within the grace period. The guy at the desk told me that I had until the 16th June to cancel, so I emailed them on the 13th June to request the cancellation, and was told that I could not cancel as I had already passed the 2 week grace period. There was no explicit mention of 2 weeks when i signed up, just that I had until the 16th to cancel.
The first payment was due on the 16th June, naturally I went to cancel the direct debit before this day, but when I logged into my online banking, I could see no evidence that a direct debit was active - there was nothing to cancel, I presumed that they made a mistake upon setting it up. They did notify via text that my payment had failed, but that was the only communication i received from them.
I also never received a copy of the contract I signed from them. It was signed digitally, and naturally you would expect a gym to pass on this critical information in some sort of welcome pack email.
Fast forward to November - I suspect fraud has been committed on my banking apps, 2 payments were taken on the 18th and 20th November, £334.35 and £60. I had no idea who this entity was, as the name on the payment had no similarities to the name of the gym, so I called my bank and told them that they were fraudulent transactions, and the funds were credited back to me. A couple of weeks later I start receiving emails from the gym, and the name on the transactions tied in with the correspondence on the emails - these were the first communications via email I have received from the gym, and it was a reminder that my payment for the month was overdue. They didn't notify me that my account had gone into arrears and that they would be taking these payments from my account.
Since then, there has been some back and forth between myself and the gym, I have been trying to resolve this, but have found them to be unresponsive.
They told me that the payment failed (even though they already took the money from my account) - and that I need to pay the remaining £394.35 in order for my membership to be cancelled. (side note: could there be truth in the payment failing? Can banks reverse transactions suspected of fraud and automatically take the money back from them? - I didn't call the bank until a couple of weeks after the money was taken without my knowledge)
I then requested the contract, as I hadn't seen it once (hence why I was reluctant to part with any money). After 2 further emails of me chasing for this information, they finally sent it last week (around 1 month later from the original request), after apparently needing to get the contract from a third party, which seemed odd.
there are a couple of stipulations that I'm concerned about:
'YOU UNDERSTAND AND AGREE THAT SHOULD YOUR MEMBERSHIP FALL INTO ARREARS, THE ACADEMY HAVE THE RIGHT TO CHARGE THE
DEBT ONTO YOUR NEXT DIRECT DEBIT COLLECTION, OR CHARGE YOUR BANK ACCOUNT WE HAVE ON FILE AS SOON AS IT GOES INTO
ARREARS'
'IF YOU NO LONGER WISH TO CONTINUE TRAINING FOR ANY REASON. YOU MUST GIVE 1 MONTH NOTICE BEFORE YOU CAN TERMINATE THE
CONTRACT, BUT ONLY AFTER THE CONTRACT/AGREEMENT EXPIRES, YOU CANNOT CANCEL YOUR CONTRACT DURING IT’S TIME PERIOD'
The latter means that my request for cancellation on the 13th June wouldn't have been valid, and I would have to wait until the 4 months has expired to be 'able' to cancel.
So yeah, I feel like I have been royally stitched up. I know that I should have taken more care regarding this when initially signing up, but I was under a lot of pressure when moving so it wasn't really a big concern for me. I used the gym a total of 2 times, and have physically been out of the country since 18th July, so I haven't been able to access the gym almost the entire time my membership has been active.
Any advice is much appreciated. I'm not sure where I stand legally, I don't want to give them a dime but will accept it if I have to.
Apologies for the long post, but I was wondering if anyone could advise me on where I stand with this.
I signed up to a gym membership at an independent Muay Thai gym in London on the 22nd May 2024. I had plans to relocate from the UK to another country and I told them I had every intention to cancel the membership, and they still insisted that I go ahead and sign the contract, on the basis that I can cancel within the grace period. The guy at the desk told me that I had until the 16th June to cancel, so I emailed them on the 13th June to request the cancellation, and was told that I could not cancel as I had already passed the 2 week grace period. There was no explicit mention of 2 weeks when i signed up, just that I had until the 16th to cancel.
The first payment was due on the 16th June, naturally I went to cancel the direct debit before this day, but when I logged into my online banking, I could see no evidence that a direct debit was active - there was nothing to cancel, I presumed that they made a mistake upon setting it up. They did notify via text that my payment had failed, but that was the only communication i received from them.
I also never received a copy of the contract I signed from them. It was signed digitally, and naturally you would expect a gym to pass on this critical information in some sort of welcome pack email.
Fast forward to November - I suspect fraud has been committed on my banking apps, 2 payments were taken on the 18th and 20th November, £334.35 and £60. I had no idea who this entity was, as the name on the payment had no similarities to the name of the gym, so I called my bank and told them that they were fraudulent transactions, and the funds were credited back to me. A couple of weeks later I start receiving emails from the gym, and the name on the transactions tied in with the correspondence on the emails - these were the first communications via email I have received from the gym, and it was a reminder that my payment for the month was overdue. They didn't notify me that my account had gone into arrears and that they would be taking these payments from my account.
Since then, there has been some back and forth between myself and the gym, I have been trying to resolve this, but have found them to be unresponsive.
They told me that the payment failed (even though they already took the money from my account) - and that I need to pay the remaining £394.35 in order for my membership to be cancelled. (side note: could there be truth in the payment failing? Can banks reverse transactions suspected of fraud and automatically take the money back from them? - I didn't call the bank until a couple of weeks after the money was taken without my knowledge)
I then requested the contract, as I hadn't seen it once (hence why I was reluctant to part with any money). After 2 further emails of me chasing for this information, they finally sent it last week (around 1 month later from the original request), after apparently needing to get the contract from a third party, which seemed odd.
there are a couple of stipulations that I'm concerned about:
'YOU UNDERSTAND AND AGREE THAT SHOULD YOUR MEMBERSHIP FALL INTO ARREARS, THE ACADEMY HAVE THE RIGHT TO CHARGE THE
DEBT ONTO YOUR NEXT DIRECT DEBIT COLLECTION, OR CHARGE YOUR BANK ACCOUNT WE HAVE ON FILE AS SOON AS IT GOES INTO
ARREARS'
'IF YOU NO LONGER WISH TO CONTINUE TRAINING FOR ANY REASON. YOU MUST GIVE 1 MONTH NOTICE BEFORE YOU CAN TERMINATE THE
CONTRACT, BUT ONLY AFTER THE CONTRACT/AGREEMENT EXPIRES, YOU CANNOT CANCEL YOUR CONTRACT DURING IT’S TIME PERIOD'
The latter means that my request for cancellation on the 13th June wouldn't have been valid, and I would have to wait until the 4 months has expired to be 'able' to cancel.
So yeah, I feel like I have been royally stitched up. I know that I should have taken more care regarding this when initially signing up, but I was under a lot of pressure when moving so it wasn't really a big concern for me. I used the gym a total of 2 times, and have physically been out of the country since 18th July, so I haven't been able to access the gym almost the entire time my membership has been active.
Any advice is much appreciated. I'm not sure where I stand legally, I don't want to give them a dime but will accept it if I have to.
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