Company in liquidation + refunds

[wombatron]

So a company that I purchased a membership with has gone into liquidation, thus rendering my membership useless as it's foreclosed.

The email I've received is saying they cannot offer compensation due to the liquidation process, nor are the obliged to. Feel pretty upset at the amount of money I've placental to not be able to use it!

Anything I can do?

I don't know the legal position on this but I can say of the 2 gyms I had a membership for that went into liquidation I couldn't get a penny back at all and I don't know anyone that did.

As I understand it they go into liquidation because theres just no money left and they sell the assets they have to pay off outstanding debts or they defaulted on a loan/payment and theyre being forced into liquidation to pay back the money they owe.

You probably wont get your money back. If you are lucky an alternative provider (in my case another gym locally) may take pity on you and offer you a discount if you join them instead.

If they'd gone into administration, then you could have been added to the list of people they owed debt too (although you'd be behind all major companies, banks, landlords so even then, you wouldn't get anything) and with administration, but with liquidation, they are not trying to pay off debts and stay afloat or anything. They're selling off any and all assets before the company becomes non-existent. If they do decide to pay some debts, you would again be at the bottom of the list so there's really not anything you can do.

If you paid with a visa or MasterCard, you could try asking your bank for a chargeback. No idea if it would work with a company going under but worth a call to your bank to see.

If you paid by cc and it is 100 or over you are covered by s75 of the consumer credit act. Call your cc provider and tell them you want to make a claim. If paid on debit card, ask the provider for a chargeback. The chargeback is discretionary though so if they refuse follow the complaints process to the ombudsmen.

As others have said, if you paid by credit card and the total amount is over £100 you can get the money back from your credit card provider even if you only used your credit card for a small part of the payment. So if, say, your membership cost £150 and you paid a deposit of £5 on your credit card, paying the remaining £145 in cash, you can still claim the full £150 off the credit card provider.

If you paid by debit card you may be able to get a chargeback but this will only be for the amount paid by debit card.

If you paid in some other way I'm afraid it is unlikely you will get anything back from the company. As they are in liquidation they have to pay off their debts in a strict order laid down by law. You are an unsecured creditor which puts you near the bottom of the list.

How did you pay for your membership?

As PP have said, if you paid with a credit card then you may get some money back.

If you have a direct debit set up, have you cancelled it?

Ah yes I did, I paid via American Express! I will give them a call.

To be honest, I'm owed about £75 and whilst I'd like it back it's not really the point I guess.it's the shit way they did it, announcing an investor pulled out at the last minute and they had gone into liquidation. They took my £150 and a week and a half later closed down - they must have known by then surely they were in trouble. I'd have happily paid half that and had a guaranteed 2 weeks and known about it.

Instead I called them Tuesday to discuss a Wednesday class, booked it, then at 2pm the next day they cancelled all classes at the branch I used for the rest of the week. I thought that it was due to snow

Thanks for your help. I will call Amex!

American Express are fantastic with this sort of thing, they will definitely be able to help you, but please update us and let us all know how you got on.

they must have known by then surely they were in trouble

Not necessarily. If they were expecting money from an investor they may have believed they were ok until that investor pulled out. Or they might have been trying to trade their way out of trouble, in which case they wouldn't want to say anything that undermined confidence in the business and hence stopped people buying anything from them.

American Express were very helpful! They have frozen the transaction so I don't pay for it for now and have all but said they will likely pay it back to me themselves if they cannot recoupe costs from the other party (unlikely!).

Yes I get what I mean about undermining their business, but the other branch is still open- I'm guessing this branch is part of an umbrella? Either way... it's a shame as I was really enjoying going.

Thanks to all for suggestions and help!

That probably means it is a franchise operation so each branch is an independent business and they aren't under common ownership. That would mean it is possible for an individual branch to go into liquidation while other branches continue trading.

Yes @prh47bridge that's what I assume also. Thanks for your advice on this