Does anyone know the legalities on this:
Dh and I belong to a gym (which we hardly use but intend to and all that ...) Anyway when we joined up it was pay monthly, no contract, can cancel the direct debit to cancel any time and re-join any time (dh has these terms in writing from when he last asked to cancel, he then optimistically rejoined!)
At some point the gym was bought out, no change of terms was sent for our agreement.
Dh just cancelled his direct debit (as advised to last time he wanted to stop) and just had an email stating that the direct debit had failed so the 'debt' of £16.99 has been passed to a debt collecting agency along with an admin fee of £20 as per the terms you signed up for on joining (NO!!) but this payment can be settled here (they sent link).
But surely they cannot change the terms of our arrangement without telling us or getting our agreement?
Also, this has triggered me to look at my monthly payments and it seems every other month they take the usual £16.99 from me but every alternate months they take £19.95 (which is no price for any package on their website just an random price, my price was £16.99 too!)
Been on their website now and it's all changed to '12 month subscriptions' now, but we would never have joined on those terms! Can they really just unilaterally change your terms and tie you in like that?
Also, are they allowed to send the payment plus admin charge straight to a debt collecting agency on the very day after the payment failed?
I thought there was a procedure to follow, such as reminder invoice then if you don't pay (or communicate a dispute to them, which we wish to raise) then they a warning that they are going to take the further action if not settled by xxxx date and then finally it goes to debt collector or small claims court etc? Is that not right?
None if it seems right to me! Am I wrong? Shall we pay it or not?