Just checking back in. I sent the following on 2 September, they signed for it on 3 September: Dear Mr Avery, I write in reply to your letter of 28 August which was sent to my previous address. My membership to Fitness First was cancelled when I moved away from London and could no longer use the gym in Crouch End, nor was there a Fitness First gym near to my new home. My details should never have been passed to Harlands. Furthermore, I did not receive notice from Fitness First that the gym in Crouch End was changing hands, nor that my bank details would be passed to Harlands. Harlands therefore had no right to collect money from my account and I am entitled to claim these funds back under the Direct Debit Guarantee. I would therefore be grateful if you would confirm in writing that the amount owed to Harlands is nil and remove my details from your records. I would appreciate a written reply within ten working days of this letter which I have sent by recorded delivery. If I do not hear from you, or if you persist in harassing me with SMS messages, recorded telephone messages and written demands for payment, I will report this case to the Office of Fair Trading. Today is the tenth working day since they received my letter and I have had no reply. I'm off to Google 'how to make a complaint to the OFT'.

Letter written, just trotting out to the PO to send it RD now... Will let you know what I get in reply.

And lo! There came a badly written letter from CRS... We have been notified by Harlands you have put in an indemnity claim for £24.95, that they had collected from you by Direct Debit on 1 May 2013. This has had to paid back to your bank therefore, you have incurred a £25.00 administration charge. ... Should we not hear from you within the next 10 days, we shall have no alternative but to take further action to recover the balance. What do I do now? I've had nothing from Fitness First. Edit: the letter is dated 28 Aug. They're writing to my old address, which still has mail redirection set up on it.

I had a feeling this wouldn't be the end of it! I'll keep you posted, thanks!

Hi, just checking back in to say I sent the letter at the weekend and my bank have already refunded the money. I haven't had a reply from them yet, but presumably that's in the post. What happens next? Is that it? Will CRS leave me alone? I haven't had a text from them since Friday... Thank you again for all your help with this!

Hello again, It seems I've been paying £8.95 to Fitness First since 1/8/12. This is the deferred fee I mentioned earlier, or 'freeze' as they call it. I have paid this to FF up until 1/4/13. There was then one payment in May of £24.95 made to Harlands. In order to get the dates for the FF payments, I have just had to call them. As part of the security check, they asked me for my postcode, which they still have as my London address, so they never bothered to change it. I definitely called them to tell them of the new address though - as I think I mentioned further up string, the girl I spoke to was new and so bad on the 'phone that I had to ask for a manager. Clearly, she didn't actually change my address. I don't know where this leaves things, but I feel like a monumental fool for not getting this in writing Claire

Yep. I have neither record nor recollection of any notification. And they definitely had my address from when I moved away from London because that's where they sent the recent letter to (I have mail redirection set up to my current address).

Hi Slick, Thank you for your offer of help - I really appreciate it. Unfortunately, I can no longer find any of the documentation for the membership I took out with FF, just the membership card. When I tried to cancel the membership, I called the gym direct and spoke to someone behind the desk. I remember they were utterly useless and I had to demand to speak to a manager. FF had some sort of arrangement where you could kind of defer your membership if you found you couldn't use the gym for a while by paying a lower fee for those months and then paying your usual membership fee when you wanted to start using the gym again. The first person I spoke to set this up for me (which was clearly not what I wanted), then told me it was irreversible! I agreed with the manager to continue paying the rest of the membership as I didn't know any better, but I didn't want to defer any part of it. Since my first post, I've double-checked my online banking. I cancelled a Direct Debit in May to Harlands because at the time, I had no idea who they were. I knew I hadn't set up any new DDs at the time so I assumed it was fraudulent. As this was in the midst of a house move, I completely forgot to call my bank to find out any more about them. Now of course, I know who they are... Looking back, it looks like FF went on collecting the deferred membership fee (£8.95 a month) until April and then Harlands started collecting the full membership fee (£24.95) in May. I don't know if this changes anything? I would be very willing to pursue this. I process Direct Debit payments for my day job and I know the DD rules - they're in clear breach of the DD agreement as I wasn't told about the changeover to Harlands and I wasn't told that the amount would change. I have to ask though, what happens if I do follow through with court action and lose? One final thing, in the blind panic when I first opened the letter, I called the CRS number. They were closed so I left a message. They are now texting me (both to my mobile and my landline, though I think I only gave my mobile number...) to ask me to call them. I assume I continue ignoring this? Again, thank you for your help. Claire

Wow. Thank you for replying. Having read a bit more around this forum, these people are clearly little better than crooks. I feel like a fool for having paid the end of the FF contract, but I'm hopping mad now about the letter. Will compose complaint letter when I calm down a bit. Although calm feels a long way off right now...

Hello! At the beginning of 2012, I joined my local Fitness First. Later in the year, I moved house away from the area and to somewhere without a Fitness First nearby to which I could transfer my membership. I contacted the gym to give them my new address and to discuss terminating my membership. I was told I couldn't get out of it as I'd signed for a year and we agreed that I would continue making the payments until the year was up and then my membership wouldn't renew. Fast forward to July 2013. Having moved house again, I was checking my list of Direct Debits a nd noticed that nothing had been collected by Fitness First since April 2013. Assuming the membership had now expired, I cancelled the Direct Debit. Yesterday I came home to a letter from CRS stating: We've been employed by Trugym for Women - Crouch End as your membership remains in arrears d espite previous letters being sent to you. As a result of this, our fees totalling £125.86 have being (sic.) added. Therefore your account balance now stands at £375.46 It turns out that the Fitness First I was a member of turned into Trugym in April. I never had any correspondence to inform me of this and I have not had any previous correspondence to inform me of any arrears. Annoyingly, all my dealings with Fitness First (telling them my change of address etc) were on the 'phone. What do I do now?