Should I ignore this letter (UK debit finance)

In My Humble Opinion
21

To be fair, OP, you are in the wrong. When you cancel anything paid via Direct Debit, you are unwise to cancel the authority until you receive an acknowledgement from the company, and then wait at least 30 (and sometimes 60) days.

There are several reasons for this - one is not interfering with a payment already in progress. Another is to allow any credits to be made for overpayment - if the Direct Debit is not available, there will be costs for cutting a cheque. Finally, you may have to pay a cancellation penalty. At least now (in the UK) the leisure industry code of practice forbids excessive cancellation penalties (down from 3-6 months in many cases to 1-2 months generally).

I was lucky - when I cancelled my gym membership in the UK and continued to be charged, I had the written proof of cancellation, and the payment processor (seperate from the gym) refunded my money immediately.

22

Well, the moral of the story is “don’t sign up for a gym”, really. Go for runs. Get yourself a bike. I mod a UK consumer affairs forum, and we have one guy whose main function is dealing with people who’ve been treated badly by gyms.

What’s odd about this story is that the leisure facility is run by a local authority. They’re not usually so bad as to use an external firm whose main function is debt collection to collect their DDs.

Still, if you committed to a cancellation period, I think you’d be best to honour that and pay whatever is in the T&Cs.

23

I don’t find it unusual - there are companies that do this sort of thing - my council owned gym used Harland’s, which specialises in this sort of payment management. But they were really good and responsive, which I suspect isn’t always the case.

24

I think OP is in the right to block the direct debits. They have to schedule the direct debit ahead of time, and the OP has to cancel right AT the time.

Blocking direct debit is not the same as “funds not available”… And blocking direct debit does not block the refund . (the organization can use the same details to do a direct deposit… thats never blocked.)