Advice On Gym Membership Issue Please!

[NicM123]

Having been a member of a gym for some time, my husband & myself decided to freeze our membership for 6months to pay off some credit cards. We did everything as policy says & spoke to the membership manager who confirmed our feb payment would not come out of our account & our membership would start again with the direct debit in 6months. Afew days later i had an answerphone message off him saying they had been unable to stop the payment intime, but had requested a refund from the company that takes the money, sorry for any inconvenience blah blah & we should have the money back in afew days. Its now been 10 days since they took the money from our account. I spoke to the manager on thursday who confirmed the company had replied saying a refund would be processed asap. This confirmation had been given to the gym on the 19th of feb. I have now rang & left 2 messages for this manager to ring me (1 saturday, 1 30mins ago). Getting fed up, as we have a credit card payment coming out tomorrow which will put us overdrawn if we don't get this refund. What would happen if i cancelled my direct debit to the gym after i eventually receive the refund as im annoyed with their service & dont particualrly want to go again after the 6 months. Sorry its abit long winded!

[jd_1984]

Seems unfair.
I assume that you can prove all of the above communications with the manager?
If so, you may be able to further pursue the gym for any future incurred costs as a direct result of them not refunding you as they said they would.
It pays to get everything in writing, and keep it safe!

[tiggerblue10]

It could be that it takes 10 working days for a refund to be processed.

[NicM123]

thanks jd. I have a saved answerphone message from him. Do u know if i would face any issue if i cancelled my direct debit after the refund is given?

[Prudie]

If I'm honest I think you are being impatient. Even if they started to process the refund on Thursday that's not even 3 working days yet, banks can take much longer than that. Give it few more days, although I do understand the stress of the credit payment due tomorrow.

[NicM123]

they told the gym on the 19th they were doing the refund, its for that reason im getting abit fed up. my question is what would happen if i cancel the direct debit?

[bednobs]

it would depend entirely on your contract with them. You can't simply say "you peed me off, so i'm unilaterally changing our contract with you"
What penalties are tied in to the contract if you want to stop it without notice?

[bednobs]

i also think you are being impatient. It also sounds like you are looking for an "excuse" to stop the contract but i don't think them taking longer to process a refund than you'd like is a good reason.

[NicM123]

Thanks for your first post which answered my question. Actually got a grovelling apology off the manager & the refund yesterday, so guess they gym didnt think i was impatient. Matter solved.