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  1. Published on: 03/10/2016 06:01 AMReported by: roving-eye
    Gym users have saved around £37 million and can switch the leisure centre they use much more easily, following work by a competition authority.



    The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) urged all gyms to check their contract terms were fair and lawful under consumer protection law, after the High Court ordered Ashbourne Management Services Limited, a gym management company, not to use certain unfair terms in 2011. The case was opened by the OFT following complaints from consumers who had signed lengthy membership contracts which they could not cancel.

    Following a further investigation by the OFT in 2013, 6 other gym operators agreed to give members better cancellation rights and make their contract terms easier to understand and 20 more gyms were warned to review their terms and conditions and ensure that they were fair.

    The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), which has taken on some of the OFT’s consumer enforcement powers, has now evaluated the impact of the OFT’s work and found that around 750,000 gym members have directly benefited from the intervention, and issues raised by consumers about gyms have fallen significantly since 2011.

    John Kirkpatrick, CMA Senior Director responsible for the evaluation project, said:

    We are pleased that the evaluation has confirmed that many gym-goers now enjoy a significantly better experience than they did before the OFT started investigating in 2011. Contracts are now usually for no longer than 12 months and they can be cancelled in circumstances such as when a member moves away from the area, loses their job or cannot use the gym because of injury.

    Our evaluation has shown that the approach taken by the OFT has secured lasting change in the sector, brought benefits to consumers and can be applied to future work by the CMA. These consumer benefits were worth around £37 million over 3 years in the gyms investigated by the OFT alone, and we think there are wider benefits to gym users across the sector.

    The OFT’s intervention has also been followed by innovations such as the rise of ‘pay-as-you-go’ memberships, as the £2.7 billion-a-year sector competes harder for the existing 8.75 million currently active gym members in the UK.

    The CMA is committed to ensuring that contracts do not unfairly lock in consumers or prevent them from switching providers, and has worked with a number of sectors including cloud storage, wedding and event venues and higher education to improve terms and conditions.

    In addition to sector-specific guidance in these areas, the CMA has also produced short and simple guides aimed at helping consumers and businesses to understand their rights and obligations under consumer law.

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  3. cotton man says:03/10/2016 08:09 AM
    Now if she was my personal trainer i would soon be fit for anything, or not!


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