It’s crunch time for unfair gym contracts

I just cancelled my D/D as I came into financial problems, I did get many threating letters but nothing came of them. I just though I it did go to court I haven’t used the gyms services so why should I be forced to pay for something which hasn’t been received??

I have recently moved a quite considerable distance from the David Lloyd gym I was a member of for more than 2 years. When I cancelled previously (disatisfied with children running about in the gym) I was told I could cancel with a month’s notice. After having signed back on within the termination period and using the gym for a further 4 months I have needed to move for my work. There is a David Lloyd in the area I have moved to however my membership cannot be transferred so if I sign up with them I will be paying double membership. I was then told that when I move it will be 3 months termination so having moved 40 miles away I am still paying 3 months gym membership plus the portion of the month until the day in the month I am allowed to give notice (nearly 4 months total).

As an aside I find it funny how gyms can instigate a price increase that is active from the following month after notifying members but if you should disagree with the value of the increase you can give notice of three months still being duty bound to pay the increased costs for the 2 months since the noticifcation of the increase.

Gyms make most of thier revenue from customers who sign up with good intentions then don’t go, so place absolutely no strain on the resources of the gyms. Also when gyms do become overcrowded as the Bushey gym did on Mondays there is no contracturally binding owness on the gym owners to ensure that there are enough facilities for fee paying members to be able to use the gym at any time within the stated opening hours. When I enquired about the possibility of making more gym facilities available in preference to under-utilised tennis court floor space as I was struggling to find free gym equipment to use, I was told David Lloyd is a raquet club not a gym if you dont like it go to a different club. The evidence of the packed gym and empty tennis courts said most of the members using the facilities had signed up for the gym but there is no way as a fee paying member I could ask for the gym facilities to be made sufficient to support the number of people using them. The terms of the contracts gyms issue us are definately loaded in favour of the corporate entity not the individual.

I can understand that gym owners will try to hold on to these revenue streams (money for nothing!) for as long as possible but for goodness sake surely they cannot be allowed to tie people into ever more contstrictive commitments on thier ability to train thier bodies with no common sense applied to the fact that people may be restricted from making use of facilities for reasons they cannot control e.g. pregnancy, injury, moving etc. This service is specifically only useful to healthy individuals living in proximity to where the service is being offered.

The choice of gyms should not be a ‘life-choice’ with no hope of parole, tying people for up to 2 years into a contract they may not be able to pay for, delivering services that may be substandard or that the contracted party may no longer be able to use. It seems however that every major gym chain has developed it’s own extremely ‘one-sided’ contract terms because there is no legislation in place to stop them. Like the financial services industry I feel that the gym sector should be given instructions to regulate itself or a issued with the ultimatum that it will be regulated and abitrated independently.

I am concerned about an 88 year old lady who joined a gym for exercise therapy in August 2012, at a cost of £45 per month for a 12 month period, to help with her arthritis. After 2 months, it became clear that far from helping, the exercising was actually exacerbating her condition, to a point where she was finding it difficult to walk. She has 2 replacement hips, 2 replacement knees and arthritic shoulders. She decided to terminate her contract and cancelled her direct debit, having paid for 2 months and attended the gym on 5 or 6 occasions during those two months and also obtained a letter from her GP to confirm that it would be best for her to stop exercising at the gym. The credit agreement company would not accept the GP’s letter as sufficient evidence and requested a letter from a Consultant, who discharged her care back to the GP in 2007, so the GP wrote again and included a copy of the correspondence from the Consultant at that time. Yet, still the lady is receiving demanding letters stating her arrears are £135 and her total debt is £450.
The letters she is receiving are causing her much distress and also now that she is in much more pain with her movements, she really needs the money to help with her care, which she can ill-afford.
I am astounded that any company can treat an elderly lady in this way and will not release her from her obligations and am actively researching what can be done through the Citizens Advice Bureau, Office of Fair Trading and Financial Ombudsman Service but am wondering if Which? can also offer any advice or assistance. I have told her to speak to the local newspaperor her MP but she would not welcome the attention.