Regus review: Regus day office space

I required a day office in London for a few days this month, and the Regus package looked perfect. I'd gone through the site quite carefully, but had seen that their price packages while advertised as being lower, were actually a bit higher for monthly memberships - fair enough, as they advertise that these can be cancelled at any time I'd expect a premium for just one month. I checked carefully on the site, but even up to taking out the membership there was nothing on what has followed.

I took out a membership for December, and was a bit surprised to see two invoices, however it's my busy season, so I assumed that one of them would be debited from my credit card and it had just been an error.

A big mistake.

A week later I contacted them about the double invoicing. To their credit, they did respond quite quickly. I was informed that because of their billing cycle they charge in advance. So I'd been invoiced for December and January as per their terms of business.

The terms of business are actually quite ambiguous about this as I'd checked them on payment but there must have been two documents, as the one I read was talking more about not using the membership for criminal purposes.. But more importantly, NOWHERE when paying on the screen, did it come up with two line items that I was being invoiced for December and January - it just showed what I owed for December. So the total was for December only, not the two invoices I received for December and January.

Customer services have said that there is nothing they can do about this, I booked on the 2nd of December, and if I'd chosen to cancel on the 3rd they would have made a 'special exception'. Seriously.

This is not as advertised and ambigous at best on the website. It should be quite clearly explained in the joining process, rather than buried under terms of business (which I had looked at but clearly not in enough detail on my mobile phone), as essentially with the monthly package, Regus are asking for two months membership to join.

I asked for the second month to be saved as a credit, so I could book another month when I will be in town. I was happy with the service but not how the contract has been managed. Not a chance..

So now my options are to go to the Competition and Markets Authority (Misrepresentation Act 1967) or Flexible Space Authority. My issue is not with the quality of the office (I was in Spaces who were mostly excellent) but with the onboarding process. The terms and conditions are not accessible until you are at the end of the payment process. I couldn't find them on the site, and on advertising the day office they are not visible anywhere. All I found on the FAQs was that you can't carry forward days, on the day office membership - fine, as I was only using it for one month (I thought).

I am not the first person to complain about this, it appears there are a lot of customers unhappy with Regus process, and given the size of their business they can afford to be more transparent, especially when they highlight the suitability of such spaces to small businesses. This shouldn't be in the small print, it should be at the front of the process, so that people can see what they are paying for and know to act accordingly. This shouldn't be the big thing it is now turning into.