An 18 yr old applied to join Scarborough Gym. She signed a contract, not realising it was for a two year period. Fees were paid by direct debit from her bank account. After nine months, she told them she wished to break the contract. She was given a phone number of a company which handled the contracts and told to ring them and arrange for a release form.
She was given no information about the company, e.g. name, address, just a phone number. She rang the company; they were going to send a release form. Nothing happened. She rang them again and received the same response. After three months, she received a phone call from a debt collector. They claimed that she owed $800, that they had no record of her fees being received. Apparently there had been a change of company handling the contracts. Again, the debt collector gave no company name, no address, no phone number - just a PO Box address.
The girl told the debt collector that her fees had been direct debited and were still coming out of her account. They didn't believe her and wanted to see her bank statements. We advised her not to send them any original documents, just photocopies of statements and suggested she contact Legal Aid if things turned nasty.
Meanwhile, I did an internet search under gymnasiums and discovered that BC Bodyclub managed Scarborough Gym. They also had an email function for customer feedback. I emailed them outlining my concerns and told them I would be contacting a lawyer, if the problem was not sorted.
Within a week, the girl received a phone call from the debt collector. Everything had been sorted, she didn't owe them anything and it seemed BC Bodyclub owed her a refund.
I don't believe it was anything to do with my email as I received no response.
Also I was not the customer, the girl was and their treatment of her and other young people signing the contracts, is to say the least, questionable.
The contracts are not explained fully and they make it very difficult to sort out problems on a face to face basis, by giving as little information as possible.
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