Recently my wife and I started looking for a karate/martial arts school for or 2 boys (9 and 10 years of age). There are only 2 within a 10-15 minute drive so we started with those. The first required signing a 1 year contract up front and I said no way. My sister had worked with the owners of this school chain (like burger king or McDonalds only they do karate) and said they would likely nickel and dime us to death as well. So I went to the next school. I told the owner that I did not want to sign a contract until I had had a chance to find out if my sons liked karate and if we liked the school. He showed me a beginners program that he said was $80 per month and was month to month with no contract. After the end of the 6 months if we were to continue we would have to get into one or the other programs that had a year contract. I said that is what I was looking for I did not want a contract until I could see my sons were really interested and would stick to the program. He said he understood. I thought all was well and understood. My wife paid for the first month and their equipment. I attended with them when I could but my wife took them most of the time since I was at work when most of the classes were taught. A short time later my wife called me at work and said that they wanted her to sign an authorization for them to withdraw money from our credit card each month since they had a company handle all of their billing. I said ok as long as that was all she was giving them and not signing anything else. Shortly thereafter my wife told me that they had said they would be charging $75 dollars for testing and that testing took place twice a month. We both thought that was outrageous. They had never mentioned this before. My one son also broke his arm about this time. I had not been impressed by the quality of the instructors either. They all had black belts but were very sloppy and of mediocre compared to other black belts I have seen ( I studied karate for a while myself years ago). So I called the studio several times to tell them we would not be continuing or sons classes. I also blocked them from removing money from our credit card. The next week he called saying that he believed my wife had signed a contract. I was quite upset and told he I had specifically told him I did not want a contract and that I had been very clear about that when I had spoke to him. He said he would look it up(acting very innocent of course). We went on vacation the next week. He left a message saying that my wife had signed a contract and he would send us a copy. When we got back we had the contract in the mail. I have scanned it and attached it with names removed. I would like to know the following.
1. Is the contract valid
2. what can I do given the underhanded way he went about getting my wife to sign the contract.
Thanks
1. Is the contract valid
2. what can I do given the underhanded way he went about getting my wife to sign the contract.
Thanks