Posted on 06/15/2009 5:09:04 AM PDT by Dr. Marten
Gold's Gym in Oxnard, California won't stop billing Molly's brother for membership, even though both he and his mother have repeatedly sent the gym copies of his deployment orders to Afghanistan. Two months later, the gym claims that it has "misplaced" the deployment orders, and is still billing for services Molly's brother can't use.
Molly writes:
My brother signed up for a monthly membership to Gold's Gym a few months before he deployed to Afghanistan. At the time he was told that he would not have a problem terminating his membership when he deployed. Before he left for Afghanistan he brought in a copy of his deployment letter to Gold's Gym and was assured that his membership would be terminated while he was abroad. After his first month in Afghanistan, my brother realized that he was still being charged for his gym membership. He asked my mom to assist him with the matter so she faxed and mailed additional copies of his deployment letter to both the Gold's Gym in Oxnard and to Gold's Gym's financial office. These additional copies of his deployment letter were "misplaced" and 2 months later he is still being charged for a gym membership that he cannot use! What a pitiful way to treat our servicemen and women.
The gym appears to be violating California Civil Code §1812.89(b), which gives anyone the right to cancel if they move more than 25 miles from the gym.
(b) (1) Except as provided in paragraph (2), every contract for health studio (Ed. Gyms count as "health studios," along with any place that provides "instruction, training or assistance in physical culture, body building, exercising, reducing, figure development and other similar skills.") services shall contain a clause providing that if the person agreeing to receive health studio services moves further than 25 miles from the health studio and is unable to transfer the contract to a comparable facility, such person shall be relieved from the obligation of making payment for services other than those received prior to the move, and if such person has prepaid any sum for health studio services, so much of such sum as is allocable to services he or she has not taken shall be promptly refunded.
If the gym is billing a credit card, Molly's brother can also file a chargeback and ask the bank to refuse all future charges.
Overview of California's Health Studio Services Contract Law: Legal Guide W-10 [California Department of Consumer Affairs]
See tagline.
I believe AOL follows a business model like this.
May need to cancel the card or close the bank account to make it stop. Though I hope Gold’s is embarrassed into doing the right thing. Bally doesn’t do this by default; it has a yearly membership.
My friend can attest to this (AOL...or Eh-oh-HELL). He had to close his checking account to stop his subscription. Even then, AOL got pissy about it and sent some angry calls/letters trying to collect. Fat chance boyos.
In Omaha, we have a putz GG owner who once tried to stop a community rec center saying it would cut into his business.
Indeed they do! I had to have my bank go after them several years ago. Thankfully, I was able to get all of my money back.
Back in the late 90s I had a dial up account with MSN.
I canceled the account and then three months later they started billing me again. I tried to log on but their servers told me I was not a member but I still was getting billed. When I tried to contact Microsoft they told me that since my account was over three months canceled I had to contact their History Department and that the only way I could contact them was via fax.
After sending them a fax eight times with no reply and getting a second charge on my Mastercard I had to cancel the card and get the charges reversed.
I had a membership to a gym some years ago that I had stopped making use of. In order to get them to cancel my membership and stop taking the monthly withdrawls from my account I had to go to their office in person and sit through a high-pressure sales-type pitch (”Don’t you want to continue to live a healthy lifestyle?”, etc, etc) and sign several documents before they would cancel it. Gyms aren’t really in the business of providing work-out facilities - they’re in the business of selling memberships, preferably to people who won’t make use of them too often.
Good think the markets crashed or we’d be subsidizing “collateralized gym membership bonds” too.
good thinG, that is.
See tagline.
FAXed them a termination letter, or rather a termination letter to the company that handles their membership dues.
Got a Past Due notice two months later.
Calls and FAXes still had them send the account to collection.
Finally went down to the Gold's Gym where the membership was taken out and saw the manager.
Asked for his name and the name of every employee in the place. Checked the spelling of the names. Named them all on a Small Claims law suit.
No more problems.
Had to do the same with an alarm company that said I could not cancel as they had automatically renewed me for three years.
It's amazing what one can accomplish is Small Claims Court.
I don’t allow auto withdrawals for anything.
Alltel was very pleasant and efficient about suspending my son’s service while he’s in Iraq, of course I was standing there waiting while the guy keyed it in and talked to main customer service to make sure he did it right.
Yep, they are the reason I never allow it anymore since they kept charging disputed amounts and actually wouldn’t even tell me how much they were going to take out. The bank told me the only way to stop them was close the account (they couldn’t stop an auto payment unless they knew the exact amount). This was many years ago. I don’t trust any company actually lol None of them ever bill exactly on the day they say they will either.
When my father died, AOL required a certified copy of his death certificate before they would cancel his account.
This just made the local paper in Oxnard yesterday. I used to be a member of the gym, but couldn’t stand the people working there. No big surprise they did this.
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