I also signed such a contact once. Why some people or companies or acties so difficult when it comes to money, I don't know. If you stop using a service, you can stop paying for it in my view.

When you signed a contract with this gym, did you provide them with a blank cancelled cheque showing your bank, branch, transit number and account number? If you did, then they would have set up an automatic monthly withdrawal. Each time that they attempted to withdraw funds from the account, there were either insufficient funds available or you had closed the account. In either case, because no funds were withdrawn, their bank charged them a NSF charge of $35. In addition, they probably set up a separate account for automatic withdrawals so that they could trace these withdrawals more easily rather than including these funds in their general bank account. Obviously, there is a monthly maintenance fee of $20 for which they are requesting reimbursement. Without seeing your contract, I cannot comment on it. However, there may be a clause in the contract that authorizes them to automatically withdraw funds on a monthly basis. That is why I said in my previous post to read and study the contract. Otherwise, it's impossible to know what you did or did not agree to.

If my assumptions are correct, please confirm on this post. If my assumptions are incorrect, then possibly you could explain how these charges were incurred. Assuming no further details were provided on the Statement of Claim, is it possible that they have served the wrong person? Sixty-five NSF charges ( assuming they are monthly ) covers a period in excess of 5 years. Did the gym ever attempt to contact you either by telephone, e-mail or snail mail? It makes no sense why a business would attempt to automatically withdraw funds from an account for over 5 years before realizing there was no hope of collecting. It speaks volumes as to how they operate their business.

Awaiting your comments and observations.

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Educating one Consumer at a time

The statement of claim states that there was an auto renewal clause, and they are requsting 65 NSF fees of $35 (they didn't have cheques or access to a bank account) and 65 charges of $20 for semi-monthly account fees.

When you join a gym, it is customary for you to sign a contract setting out among other things the term of the contract, the monthly or annual fee, the date when such fees are due and payable, additional charges for late payments or NSF cheques and automatic renewals. Most contracts will state that the term will automatically renew unless the member cancels the automatic renewal IN WRITING.

I would suggest that you review your contract and more specifically the clause that deals with the automatic renewal provisions. If you do not currently have a copy of your contract, contact the gym and request a copy. Determine when the automatic renewal was due. The gym may be attempting to sue you for more than one renewal period or may be suing you for a current renewal period.

Please report back on this website the EXACT wording in the Statement of Claim ( Form 7A ). Then, I will be in a better position to explain to you how to proceed.

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Educating one Consumer at a time

I received a Form 7a for a debt going back to 2006. I registered with a gym (for a one year term) paid in full and went for about 6 months, but then my workload increased and I was working very long hours. I stopped going to the gym. I specifically requested a one year term and no auto renewal.

Now there are suing me for an auto reneal of a one year term, and NSF cheque fees for cheques that went NSF (there were no such cheques) The payments they reference are for the "auto renewal" term. In fact, I paid cash when I first joined.

Isn't the statute of limitations 2 years in Ontario?