Do I have any recourse here?

[arroh]

Last February I joined a local health club,signing a contract which enabled the company to withdraw a monthly fee from my account. I used the club for two months, after another three months I called the company and requested that my membership be dicontinued and withdrawals from my account stopped. They were extremely friendly and offered to put my membership on an indefinate hold, if in the future I wished to return I could just restart my membership. About thirty minutes later they called me back and said after pulling my file they noticed that I hadn't used the club for three months and when and if I chose to return, I could ask for a three month credit. This January the business was sold and the new owner sent out bulk mail flyers informing members of the changes and what new things were happpening. Tucked in the middle of this was a notice that all on hold members had three days to contact them before their checking accounts were debited. I admit that I did not read the entire flyer as I thought it was your basic new owners/new programs flyer. When I did realize what was in the flyer, (long after the three days), I wrote to the owners and informed them that I was not coming back and that I had followed the previous owner's policy and felt they could not debit my account. They did debit my account causing my checking account to be overdrawn that week and a fee charged to me. After contacting the bank I was told I could put stop payment on the specfic amount for future withdrawals, (for a fee, of course), but they were unsure what legal recourse I had noting that I was not the first to call. I tried contacting the business and ended up writing a letter to them asking for my money back plus the bank fee. They have basically told me that the former owners did not follow the national guidelines which did not provide for "on hold" memberships and since I did not cancel my membership in writing they had every right to collect on my account. Do I have any legal recourse? I live in Pennsylvania.

 

[JETX]

By putting your account on 'indefinite hold' and not drawing on your account for that period, the gym voided the draft acceptance that you had made. Then they reinstated the draft without your permission.

1) Send a certified RRR letter to the local office (copy to National). Advise them of the indefinite hold and subsequent cease of draft privileges. And their unilater reinstatement of draft without permission (their throwing an insert into a blanket mailing is not sufficient). Respectfully demand a full return of all moneys drafted from your account.

2) Then write another letter to the bank (certified RRR). Advise them that they had allowed an account draft(s) to go through without your specific permission and that this is a violation of their fiduciary responsibilty. Respectfully demand that they credit your account for the fees created due to their failure. [Also, you do NOT need to pay a fee to stop a draft authorization. Any demands for 'stop fees' from the bank is a blatant attempt to pad their bill. They are bound by your state banking laws, and the most important principal is that it is YOUR money and they are required to comply with YOUR wishes.]

If you do not get satisfaction from them, you will probably have to go to Small Claims (your above letters will help you show your intent to the court).