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- Rich161's review
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| Value for Money | 2.7/10  |
|---|---|
| Reviewer Rating | 2.3/10 |
| Overall Rating | 2.6/10  |
By Rich161
on 22nd Jan 2008
| Value for money | 0/10 |
|---|---|
| Overall value | 0/10 |
 Rich161's recommendation | |
Didn't action my cancellation letter and now it's going to court.
I left the Mill Hill area in May of last year and, being a busy person, completely forgot to cancel my Virgin Active membership, so that the May, June and July payments went out of my account. I phoned to cancel the membership on 3rd August and was advised I needed to write in before the 17th, to enable cancellation to be made prior to the direct debit being collected.
Again, being a busy person, I missed writing in before the 17th deadline so I allowed the payment at the end of August to go out. I finally rallied in September, wrote a letter to cancel my membership, and sent it recorded delivery on 14th September, cancelling the direct debit with my bank at that time.
However, the cancellation was never actioned by Virgin Active. They tried to take the September payment, obviously failed, and then sent an automatic collection letter. I telephoned the number on the letter, explained I'd written in to cancel and was told not to worry, things would be resolved.
They then tried to collect a further payment in October, failed again, and the matter was passed to their collection agency. After another letter from ARC I explained all of the above, received sympathy from the first person I spoke to, who could immediately see from the chain of events above that I'm not pulling a fast one, trying to evade payment etc. But.. still no cancellation of the fees.
It has now been passed to the legal department and the amount I allegedly owe has ballooned from '£144 to '£384. Again, being desperately busy and unable to spare the half day or so it will take to try to dig out the recorded delivery receipt, I have yet to prepare a full defence. I also have the "properties" section of the MS word cancellation letter I wrote, which shows the letter was drafted on 14th September. Ah, said one of the staff, that only proves you wrote the letter, not that you sent it!
I also have phone records showing I made the call to Virgin on receipt of their earliest collection letter. I certainly wasn't phoning to talk about the weather.
My main anger with all of the above is that I have been completely criminalised over this. I mean, why would I risk getting a CCJ and being credit blacklisted if I didn't feel that I was in the right? Over '£144? It would never be worth it. They don't seem to understand that the reason I am fighting them is because I am speaking the truth. If I had major concerns over the actual sums involved, how come I let them take 4 months worth of membership fee (May, June, July, August) for a service I didn't use? I can afford the gym membership and I can afford the '£384, I don't want to pay it because I know I wrote in to cancel.
So never ever again will I go near the place. And if you are a Virgin Customer and wish to cancel, take a cancellation letter to your gym in person, and stand behind the person actioning the cancellation until you see for yourself that your membership has been cancelled.
I am currently using my facebook account to spread the news about Virgin Active to all of my friends and their friends. I am also doing a flyer which I am delivering to 2500 homes in the viciniy of Virgin Active Mill Hill East, warning people against joining. I am very riled by all of this, and I will do everything in my power to repay the favour back to Virgin. In fact I'm more than happy to spend much more than '£384 on badmouthing them. Thank you for reading this.
Important, please be aware that:
| Helpful | Unhelpful | Agree | Disagree |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
Total Respect: +1
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