A council has been forced to apologise to customers frustrated after some online payments for fitness classes, swimming and sports bookings were taken out of banks but not credited to accounts for the services.

Hambleton District Council said it is still working to sort it out and has no date yet when it will be resolved.

The Zest online app was supposed to be a sports facility in your pocket for customers, allowing people to make bookings on the go, check schedules, get news and push notifications for all the latest offers, but since March there have been ongoing issues.

The Zest team which runs leisure services across Hambleton with leisure centres at Stokesley, Northallerton, Thirsk and Bedale put a statement on its website this week.

It said: “We apologise that the online payment issues we have been experiencing, caused by the new regulations introduced in March 2022 where all online card transactions have to now go through the process of 3D Secure, are still not resolved.

"We are still working with our software payment provider as well as our Leisure Management System provider to try and identify the problem and get this resolved, unfortunately this is taking longer than expected and at this time we have no date of resolution.

“Cashless transactions from your cashless account will still work online and all card transactions either in site or over the phone are working as normal. Therefore please phone or visit reception to top up your cashless balance that you will then be able to use online.

"We recommend until further notice that if you are experiencing a problem or have experienced a problem recently that you refrain from trying to book and pay online for activities, memberships and topping up cashless balances. If you think a transaction has failed do not repeat the process before contacting reception to check if it has worked or not.

"It is also worth noting that if your bank does not have your up to date contact details this may cause the transaction to fail as they cannot do the final element of the new 3D Secure checking process. We will update you on the payments issues as soon as we have been informed of any changes or the issue has been fixed.

"We have been advised by our payment provider that when the additional 3D Secure information has been entered, the process to authorise the payment needs to complete and may take some time. Please refrain from using the click here prompts and wait for the sale to complete.

“We will update you on the payments issues as soon as we have been informed of any changes or the issue has been fixed.”

Customers had reported ongoing problems with the online leisure site with money going out of bank accounts and not being credited to their accounts for booking swimming and other fitness classes.