Unethical Business Behavior?
In October 2013 I signed up for a gym membership with Boot Camps Australia New Farm, the conditions being payments were to come out on a fortnightly basis and cancellation required a months notice. Due to a change a living address I intended to cancel the membership immediately, however I to date cannot find a copy of the cancellation email I intended to send.
Meanwhile there was no money being withdrawn from my account, and no indication from them that my account was active, I obviously assumed the membership had been properly cancelled. A full 6 months later they withdrew a lump sum of almost $400.
When I contacted them they said my membership was still active and it was due fee's. I asked them why they had not contacted me sooner in regards to the account. They told me I had provided the wrong contact details, however the day before they had sent me a copy of the sign up forms I had provided, it confirmed I had entered the correct details.
After I pointed this out to them, they ignored it and told me they had been constantly trying to withdraw funds from my account. They sent me an email with a list of withdrawal attempts that had supposedly been rejected due to a lack of funds. I checked my bank records and I had funds enough to cover the fees on all of the listed dates, the bank confirmed no direct debit attempts had been made and/or rejected.
Boot Camps Australia has refused to return the money and are sticking to the your membership was active story. Furthermore the owner told me his business could not keep track of every account in their system, I can only assume they don't have an accounting system to give them reports on outstanding debits seems pretty unlikely in today's business environment though.
Unethical business behavior? I think so read more