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?

Hello Everyone, Last year May i had joined Fitness First on a corporate discount because it was close to work and I had one near to my house as well. It was great until my job has moved me to a different location. After a few weeks of not going to work out I thought, well let me go to the one that`s close to my house. Without any warning, it was closed down. No signs, no explanations, nothing. So, now I have no Fitness First in a 45 minute radius around me. So, I went to one of the branches and asked what to do and why it was closed down. They said they didn`t known. They also advised me that I am unable to cancel my membership because I am within the 12 months period. So I contacted customer services and they say due to the riots they had to and it not their fault so they cannot cancel my membership within the 12 months Here`s the correspondence below. Could someone please advise me on what to do? My first e-mail to them! sent 02.02.2012., before this one I had sent one to the actual branch on 12.01.2012 which i got a response for 2 weeks later after a reminder from me!!!! "Good Afternoon, My name is ...... and I am a current member of Fitness First at Paternoster Square in London. When I first joined Fitness First I was excited about my Platinum membership because it meant convenience for me.I could go on a regular basis because it was next door to my workplace and I also had one nearby to my house. The location of my work has recently changed and I now work close to my home which is in CR0 7EW. Recently I have found out that your branch in West Croydon (where I had been previously) has been closed down for unknown reasons. I could not find any information on your website regarding this and nobody at the gym seemed to know anything about it. The closest Fitness First to me now is in Streatham which is about 45 minutes away from both my work and my home and it is a black label club. I always enjoyed my time at Fitness First and I have recommended you to others who have since signed up for a membership however due to that fact that you have closed down the closest gym to me I have no choice but to cancel my membership. I have had some correspondence from Vinny Durrant from my branch and he explained that I am still in my minimum period therefore I cannot cancel my membership. As I have explained above I did not wish to cancel it however it is impossible for me to attend because Fitness First have closed down the nearest branch to me without any prior warning. I regret the situation however I do not wish to pay for something that I am unable to use due no fault of my own. Therefore I would like you to stop my membership with immediate effect. Please confirm in writing that it has been done. I will continue to recommend your gym to my friends. Thank you! Kind Regards" This is their first ever response from customer service which came back the same day: Dear ........... Thank you for your recent email, unfortunately Croydon Fitness First was forced to close due to the recent riots in London. As discussed with my colleague Vinny Durrant we are unable to cancel your membership inside the first 12 months. Currently the nearest clubs to your location are: Beckenham - 2.9 miles - BR3 1NZ Purley - 3.0 miles - CR8 1AA If I can be of any further assistance please do not hesitate to contact me. Kind regards Jordan Hopkins Member Services, Fitness First Clubs Ltd, Fleets Point Business Centre, Poole, Dorset, BH15 3SS. Tel: 08444122661 Fax: 01202 493234 My second e-mail to them: Dear Jordan, Thank you for your prompt response. Thank you for explaining what had happened to your West Croydon Branch. I have checked our journey times and transport and unfortunately both those clubs that you mentioned are way out of my reach. I do not drive so it means I would have to take public transport. I live at .................. Please feel free to check that it takes at 40-45 minutes to get to either of those clubs. I understand the conditions of my membership but I am certain that it is my consumer right to cancel it due to the fact that it is not possible for me to use your services. I also understand that you might not be in the position to cancel my membership it that case I would like to speak to someone who is. As I have mentioned it before I have enjoyed coming to the gym which means that if my circumstances change I will be rejoining. I sincerely hope that you do not wish to make me pay for something I am not able to use due to no fault of my own. Thank you! Kind Regards No response since 03.02.2012 so i e-mailed them again today! Dear Jordan, Since my last e-mail sent to you on 03.02.2012 I have had no response from Fitness First in regards to my query. An other sum of money has also been taken out of my account on 01.03.2012 which indicates that you not only ignored my last message but have done nothing about it since. I have now contacted the Consumer Action Group UK and kindly asked them for legal advice. I have not cancelled my direct debit due to my contractual obligations, I will not so until we come to an acceptable conclusion. I have also tried to take your advice of going to a different branch but despite all my efforts it is not possible for me to that due to long journey times, as previously explained. Therefore, once we come to a conclusion and I receive my legal rights advice from The Consumer Action Group, I will be seeking refund for at least the past 2 months of my membership, of course I am happy to pay for the 1 time entry fee for the Clapham Junction Branch I attended a couple of weeks ago. I have now decided that I will not be recommending your services to anyone from this point on and I will be warning my colleagues regarding my tortures in regards to your customer service methods. Kind Regards can anyone advise me on the above please? Thank you! Szilvia

Hi all, Well, i joined fitness first back in august 09' and took out a 12 month contract. i worked out for just over 4 months and had to leave due to breaking my arm, notified fitness first of this and they asked for proof from GP which i sent directly to head office. no news for a week then a letter about missed payments. i called and they said they had not recieved the letter. after a while i then recieved a letter from C.A.R.S. Debt collection demanding £204, How? I am completely torn to peices over this and i am loosing focus of other important things like college and family. I really need help on how to deal with this, could someone please give me some advice. Thanks alot. P.S i am 17 years old, i signed up while i was 17 years old and the parent signiture of my contract was forged, i was not made aware of this when i signed the contract.

Fitness First wont stop taking money from my bank account even though I have paid all their (unfair) exit fees. They agree that my contract is finished and that they shouldn't take money.I have already dealt with them xxxxxx the membership money after the membership was terminated - this was a couple of months after they should have stopped taking money. Now it is many months after the contract was terminated and they are taking money again. It is not a system or clerical error because they dont do it every month, only now & then.I believe it is deliberate theft which relies on people not keeping close tabs on their bank statements.

Hi, i'm new to this but i'm in desperate need of help and i hope theres someone here that can. about a year ago, i cancelled my membership at fitness first. i sent them an email (via the website as they have no contact email address) and a letter informing them that i will cancel my membership. i did not receive any correspondence. I let another month come out of my account and then cancelled my direct debit. about a month later i get a phone call from fitness first telling me that i did not let them know about my cancellation and i still owed them a month of fees. which i obviously disputed. with them not willing to admit that i gave them fair warning, and me taking blame for something that i hadn't done wrong, we could not reach an agreement. they passed on my debt to a third party debt recovery company (C.A.R.S). after speaking to them, i told them that i did not owe that money but they persisted to hound my via telephone and mail, calling me at whilst at work and even early in the morning. on average, i was getting a call a day from them, as well as text messages, for the last year. I stumbled on this article bbc.co.uk/news/business-12622318 which gave me hope. however they have now issued me with a formal debt notice and have given me 7 days to pay the full balance (£68.25). I know its nowhere near the amount in the article, and i can afford to pay the debt, but out of principal, i feel i am being bullied into paying a debt i do not owe. Is there anything i can do? Please help.

hi guys! ok so my initial hello doesn't quite show how annoyed i am, but i've been having problems with FF and C.A.R.S... After around 3 or 4 months of joining(although, being a great fitness freak i didnt actually go ONCE!) Fitness First, i decided i would cancel my account with them! before i go on i would like to add some background info; -when first signing up with them, the salesman, who is no longer there(although i know who he is) was a really good help...at first. I stressed many times with him AND his manager that i could not pay via direct debit and couldnt be charged monthly on it due to lack of funds. So after alot of his and my own time we managed to sort out me being able to pay CASH each month. Now he told me he NEEDED a debit account to put on there for security purposes but not to worry as i would be paying cash anyway. YEAH RIGHT. after i gave im my direct debit account number (stressing once more the fact of it not being involved) they agreed to let me pay by cash each month, to no avail. on the day i was due to pay i was charged an extra £20 on my direct debit(putting me into overdraft on a non-overdraft allowing account. GREAT. i made a little complaint to the receptionist who i paid in cash, but didnt take it further, im not that confrontational, farrrr too laid back. Moving on, this continued for the months after and so i cancelled my account with them. Now i am recieving the INFAMOUS C.A.R.S letters and though reading upon other posts (i dont understand anything about debt collections and the set laws and "acts" around collection...) i am still confused as to what my options are. I am pretty angry and want to refuse to pay them legally (The payment is £241.65) as i feel they have been taking advantage of me. That applies for both FF and CARS. I also spoke to a lady on the phone from Cars and se said it was not FF business anymore it is theirs and they want their money! I would appreciate any help available, Thank you for your time peopleeee

I recently joined Lewisham's Fitness First and was told that if I visited the gym 20 times in the first 8 weeks I would be refunded the £50 joining fee. Once I had worked out 20 times (in the first month) I asked for my refund and was what told that the gym manager handles all refunds. It took over a month to get the gym manager to submit the paper work to Fitness First's head office, he lost the paper work several times. I have still not received a refund and its been 3 months now. I have given up talking to the lewisham branch as he gym manager is always a on lunch break. I called Fitness First's head office, and they told me I would receive the refund in the next 5 working days. Its been a long five days now. Has anyone else had the same problem?

Hi there. My contract with fitness first was signed on ( 20.03.10 ). And I would like to cancel it. Reason why I want to do it? First of all, I'm working in DFS... I'm lifting 100kg beds every day (All day long) and it's so obvious that I don't want to go to the gym after work. I do work 6 days a week ( Mon - Sat ) and on Sundays usually having a day off but I don't want to go to the gym on Sundays too as I lifted heavy stuff already 6 days. Also, when I joined Fitness First, I lived not too far away from it, but now I have to travel by bus to the station, then 15min walk to another station then 30min by train and then 15min walk again. Witch takes insane amount of time and money to get there. Any suggestions of what to tell them so they cancel my membership would be appreciated. Thanks.

Hello there, This is my first time posting so please bear with me. Basically, on the 14th January this year i made the unfortunate decision to become a member of Fitness First. To cut a long story short, after a few months I realised what a crappy environment it was and decided to get outside more. So.. I wrote a letter of cancellation and just cut my direct debit off. A little while letter the letters started. I ignored them. Turns out now that i signed a 12 month contract and i owe CARS £313. I sent them the attached letter (which i took from a suggestion of another member on a different thread) and have now received one back with a copy of my contract attached and further demands for my money. Ok, here are my issues as i obviously dont want to pay this back. 1) The contract was never explained to me in the first place. I know its he says/she says but the sales guy literally just said "yeah mate just sign this for the direct debit and I'll get your free gifts sorted". He was clearly rushing me and i just went ahead and did as he said. 2) Fair enough i was fooled into getting into a contract but surely they cant be charging me for a years worth of service they're not even going to provide me with? - For one, i was promised 2 free personal trainer sessions and that they would contact me about them after joining. Funnily enough they never did this. I really dont want to pay this bill on principle. If i have to i will offer the lowest repayment possible but i want to fight these con-merchants all the way. Advice for the next steps for me to take from some of you wiser people would be most appreciated. Thanks! P.s. They seem to have totally skipped over the point that i wrote a cancellation letter in the first place. I didnt get proof of postage so can i assume they 'misplaced' it? cars.doc