Bill Rammell’s campaign to get sports company ESPORTA to improve their membership practices won an early success this week when the company confirmed that they will cancel the membership of two constituents who had sought Bill Rammell’s help and support.

In June Bill Rammell first contacted Esporta after being visited at his advice surgery by a constituent who reported that she had faced aggressive advertising and felt heavily pressured into joining the Esporta gym in Harlow. Shortly after that visit another constituent wrote to Bill Rammell seeking his assistance to get the gym membership of her daughter cancelled as she was recovering from a serious illness and was unable to use the facilities.

Both constituents had been in correspondence with Esporta with their complaints but had been unable to get the company to cancel the membership subscriptions despite their circumstances. Bill Rammell investigated the constituents cases and discovered that the company sign people to 12 month membership deals with no “cooling off period”. Complaints elsewhere across the country about the company also suggested that it was very difficult to get Esporta to cancel a subscription even when the circumstances of the resident changed – for example they moved or became ill. Complaints about the company’s membership rules were the subject of an investigation by the BBC consumer show, Watchdog, earlier this year.

Bill Rammell wrote to Esporta on behalf of his constituents asking for their request to cancel their membership to be dealt with sensitively, in light of their personal circumstances, and initially received an unsatisfactory response. He wrote again to the company’s Chief Executive at the end of July urging the company to reconsider and this week received a response from Esporta confirming that they will cancel the membership of the two constituents.

Speaking after receiving the letter, Bill Rammell said, “I am delighted that Esporta have finally agreed to cancel the membership of these two constituents. This will bring them some real peace of mind as they’ve been chased for a substantial sum of money and it’s been quite a distressing situation for them. In the circumstances the behaviour of the company was just unacceptable.”

Bill Rammell concluded, “The company say they have appropriate membership procedures in place and do allow people with particular medical conditions or changes in circumstances to cancel or alter their subscriptions. But since I took up this campaign a number of other constituents have approached me with similar complaints so clearly there are some real problems with their rules and I will be taking these up again with Esporta.”

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