Pick Your Gym Carefully!

I used to be a member of You Fit, a $10.00 a month gym. Apparently, they recently went out of business, because I received a letter from them to that effect, which also added that Family Fitness would be honoring all of their former memberships.

The next credit card bill I received had nearly a $40.00 charge on it from Family Fitness, so, bill in hand, I paid Family Fitness a visit, to inquire about the unauthorized charge.

I asked the Family Fitness manager why they had charged my credit card without my permission, and he suggested that I must have had an annual membership with You Fit.

"No," I explained, "I only had a month-to-month arrangement. I would not have entered into an annual membership, being as I am a sporadic gym user, preferring 4-mile walks around the river, weather permitting."

"Well," stammered the manager, "You must have signed an annual membership with us when you came in."

"Gee," I said, "that's a great theory, but there's just one problem with it...this is the first time I've been in Family Fitness since the switch."

He shook his head and asked for a minute to phone his boss. He explained things to the man in charge of Family Fitness, who apparently asked for some additional time to look into the problem.

"I believe charging someone's credit card without their permission is considered fraudulent," I said. "Tell your boss I'll give him until my next credit card statement to credit the charge back to my account."

As it turns out, I was being overly lenient, because today I received the next statement, and not only had there been no crediting of the fraudulent charge back to my account, a new $10.00 charge had been added.

I still had never used the Family Fitness facilities.

So, with new credit card bill in hand, I headed back down to Family Fitness to speak with the manager. After explaining the situation again to this different manager, he also suggested that perhaps I had signed up for an annual membership with You Fit. When I assured him that this was not the case, he admitted that You Fit, realizing their business was failing, had "misrepresented some things to potential customers," and that it was not the fault of Family Fitness.

"Neither is it my fault," I replied.

"How can we satisfy you?" he asked. (At least this was getting near to how a customer should be treated)

"Credit my account for the unauthorized charge," I said, "and put me on my originally agreed upon $10.00 a month."

Well, this request was apparently beyond his authority to honor.

"Then cancel my membership," I said, and as he began doing so, he informed me of Family Fitness's $10.00 cancellation fee, which he explained would show up on my next month's credit card bill, adding insult to injury.

So, while I don't really have a recommendation for which gym to frequent, I guess I do have a caveat emptor...not all places have their hands on the barbell, giving you a spot...

Some of them have got their hands in your pockets.

And me? I'll be bundling up on cold days, for my walks around the river!