DW Sports Fitness Gym cancellation

A question about : DW Sports Fitness Gym cancellation

Hi all

Sorry if im posting in the wrong section.

My partner signed up to DW Sports Fitness Gym in Belfast back in December last year. His contract was for six months. We made the payments by direct debit and never missed a payment. in the seventh month, he called to cancel his membership. They told him that they couldn't accept a cancellation over the phone and that he'd have to call in person to cancel. He was happy to do this as he just worked around the corner from the gym. He called in person, cancelled the membership, got a recipt (which he still has) for cancelling.

A few weeks later, they called him up and asked why they did not receive this month's payment. My partner explained that he had cancelled his membership and that he'd called in person and done this. The manager said that she had no record of the cancellation but would investigate and revert to him. We didn't hear any more from the gym until today.

He had a voice message on his personal mobile phone number from some company saying that he had to pay a sum of money for unpaid direct debits and the cost of hiring a solicitor to reclaim the funds. We have the cancellation receipt, we don't owe them any money - how can they do this?? It's not our fault that their lack of organisation means they lost his cancellation form.

They refuse to accept anything we say. How can i resolve this issue without having to pay solicitor costs?

Best answers:

• Must...refrain...from....making...libellous....com ment.....about.....Dave.......Whelan.......
• No letters yet - just phonecalls - and on that matter, are they allowed to distribute his personal mobile phone number to a seperate company to call him without his consent? Isn't this in breach of privacy policy.
  I'd understand if he breached the terms of the contract but he didn't.
• That third party companies may be contact to recover funds in the event of a breach of contract. But he doesn't owe them anything and he hasn't breached contract. They believe he has because they have lost the details of his cancellation.
• I am currently in a very similar situation with DW Sports Fitness where what you are told at the gym/what you have done does not seem to matter to the debt collection companies who are extremely rude and don't even seem to want to allow you to explain the situation. I have done everything that I have been told to do to only be ignored to written emails sent to DW and then have phone calls at work demanding money. Will never join this gym again and will not recommend to friends for so many reasons that I won't bore you with them.
• Are you certain that there was a notice period for the cancellation? Eg even though he had a certificate of cancellation for X date he had to keep paying for X + 3months.
  Not saying this is the case just worth considering whether they do have an argument before taking a firm line with them.
• The question of whether or not DW was within its rights to pass on your partner's phone number to an agent depends whether or not the cancellation was made in keeping with the contract that you originally signed. When you joined DW the contract you signed gave DW permission to do this. After a correctly completed cancellation DW no longer has this right after midnight on the last day of month 6. As such the problem would appear to lie within the details to your cancellation. Normally with a fairly good and reputable company like DW you should have given them a written cancellation before the end of month 5, thus giving DW one month's notification of the cancellation and in writing, as likely explained within your original DW contract. You cannot make some form of over-the-desk cancellation at a gym or phone shop etc WITHIN month 6 or 7 in the hope that the over-the-desk action will somehow negate the above contract cancellation terms. This personable action will not prevent you from becoming liable for paying for months 7 or 8. That would be your legal position - however - you do not appear to be asking DW WHY the over-the-desk cancellation that you think you have made in month 7 - with some kind of receipt - has not, in DW's view, been a correct cancellation. This info is key and your first starting point - and you need to ask DW this question. (Also note - this may be a misunderstanding and you may be in the wrong. At the point when you made the over-the-desk cancellation the staff may not have realized that you were actually in mth 7 at that point in time - you may have a simple misunderstanding in which the staff may have assumed that you were working to your one month contract cancellation notice as specified in your contract - the staff may have naturally assumed that you were still within month 5 of your original contract at the point when you made your cancellation in month 7, not having realized that YOU had not read the cancellation procedures within your own contract or that you were on some kind of wishful thinking mission because you forgot or neglected to cancel in mth 5. In any event you need to clarify the problem with DW - the collection agency will only be working to legal document orders from DW and be in no position to help.
• Old thread I know, however,
  Myself and my partner are going through something similar currently. I called up to cancel, as per every gym I've ever been a member of. I was old to write in or visit. I did both. During my visit I was asked to wait for 10+ minutes until i eventually was late for work and hard to leave, which I explaied to the lady on the desk. Perhaps I should have left more time, this was certainly a time-consuming hoop-jumping experience/challenge I was not expecting.
  It turns out they did not receive my letter and only e-mails are accepted. I did not find this out until I received an angry e-mail. I replied instantly. Apprently I must reply to a different address to the one received from.
  I have now done this and awaiting response.
  We have honoured our 12 months, we have been members for 2.5 years and never missed a payment.
  I had a very pleasant membership but THIS IS NOT A GOOD COMPANY TO DEAL WITH WHEN LEAVING.
  THEY TRULY EMBODY THE NEGATIVE CLICHY OF MAKING IT VERY DIFFICULT AND EXPENSIVE TO LEAVE.
  I have gone from would recommend to a friend, to unfortunately cannot possibly recommend to a friend.
  Bad PR, bad word of mouth, I will positively spread my bad experience as far as I am able - yes possibly childish - but that is the feeling I am left with for the first time in 10 years and 5 different gyms companies.
  Rant over, many thanks,
  Nick
• Hi I have been away working and cancelled my membership with DW sport by email and letter. Got back to a letter from debt collecting service to say I owed Two months and administration fee. I gather I am not the only one to have problems with this. As someone has said will never set foot in DW sport again. They don't seem to take any notice of letters of emails and having worked in a foreign country since October am more than 10 miles away...........any more people had the same problem!?!?!
• Old thread I know, but since a few people have commented recently I thought this might be helpful to some:
  Membership Commitment
  You can cancel your membership after just 6 months. Thereafter, you can cancel your Annual Membership at the club by giving one full months notice in writing to the club, full settlement of your obligations being the sum paid in advance or the monthly instalments payable up to the end of the notice period. All members will be issued with a receipt which must be kept as proof of cancellation.
  (from the DW fitness website, terms and conditions page. I'm a new member so I can't post links...)
  In other words, even if your contract only lasts 6 months, you will have to pay for 7 months, and you must give notice as soon as your 6 months is up! :S
• Can you give notice any time ater the 6 month period or does
  it need to be exact, I am assuming for example if i have a 6 month
  contract if i cancelled in 9 months i would pay for 10?
• Actually you can end up paying for more than that.
  I want to cancel my membership from tomorrow (I was told I have to call in personally - which I would have done anyway). However as my payment day is 1st of the month, my cancellation notice period is from 1st February to last day of February.
  I said to the girl over the phone that this is not a months notice - or even a full months notice -then, but she was too dense to understand what I was getting at.
  Anyway I cancelled my DD so if they try to claim anything above that they'll be out of luck.
• surely they have to take notice when you give it they cant hold you to the above lol,thats way more than a month?
• I've had a similar experience,
  for the 2+ years that I was a member at DW my impression was excellent, I never wanted to leave.
  But then Uni came about, so I was forced to freeze my membership, which at first went without a problem.
  Then, while I was home over Christmas, due to various reasons, I couldn't use the facilities; because of which I did not have time to re-freeze my account before going back to uni.
  I received a phone call asking for payment, at which point I explained the situation.
  What I heard back seemed all good, apparently it was 'not a problem' to re-freeze my account over the phone and it was 'all sorted'.
  Then I noticed that DW had still been taking payments, out of a limited supply of money I used for food (being a student this is already low enough).
  So I proceeded to phone up DW and ask about this, to which I was told "i can't deal with this, ring back on ... and speak to ...". Which I did, to then hear the same thing, so to preserve my money I cancelled the DD.
  After being barraged with calls, I finally managed to get back in contact with DW.
  I explained the Whole situation, to which I was told "i can't deal with this, ring back on ... and speak to ...".
  As exams and such are now approaching it slipped my mind, and it didn't help that DW had stopped calling me completely.
  I have now been sent a similar letter, demanding court appearances, fines, etc. and this just happens to be two weeks before my exams start.
  Has anyone had any luck resolving similar issues?
  i.e. can I stop worrying and concentrate on work again?
  This is really stressing me out, any reply is greatly appreciated.
  Thanks
• Exactly the same story for me. took out what I though was a 6 month contract in april. Was told by their staff that after six months I could cancel by getting rid of the DD. Well since I moved to Cornwall I found that it became impoasible to get to one of their gyms especially being in the armed forces. I cancelled the dd, Somehow this is now a 14 month contract. Then they phoned me up saying I owed them Ј34 or something. because the guy on the phone was extremely rude and pushy I hung Up. Later they sent me an email demanding money. which I replied that I wanted to cancel properly and asked for 2 things: the address in which to send a letter of cancellation notice( which is absolutely bonkers that you have to give them a months notice to leave.) And I also wanted their account details.
  Rather than give me the address and account t they put me straight through to a debt collecting company and this year I received a letter threatening to take me to court and saying I owe Ј160. naturally I phoned the company up saying that Sent an email requesting dw gyms details and that nobody replied. the debt company said my account was on hold and owed nothing and that they were waiting on a reply from dw sports. I called dw sports rather than let ARC clowns ruin things further. dw sports said they would settle the matter for just under Ј40 if I came in person.
  Today I've come in person. They refused to acknowledge my wish to cancel and said I'm in arrears since Nov 2014 and that to cancel I would have to pay Ј220 plus an admin fee.
  So now I'm going to ignore them until they eventually drown in a tidal wave of bad press and angry customers.