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Comments:
hi.my contract with ff ends in july.i have had breaks due to illness.they now say this extends my contract but i cannot find this in my contract.also i have sent a letter in from my hospital re appt for reassessment by physiothepy and this apparently isnt enough they want 'doctors letter' again this is not in my contract.has anybody had these problems?
My son is being hounded by Fitness First and CARS. He joined, along with mates when a £10 offer was on, not realising the implications.He has no money and is unable to pay, having joined at 17. I wrote to FF, saying that he joined without my permission, and Head Office wrote back, saying that I had signed!! I was not with him, so could not have done..they asked me to send a sample of my handwriting!! My son cancelled his Direct Debit several times at his bank, but each time Fitness First started it up again and took the money...surely this can't be legal?? He has now changed banks and we are awaiting the next phone call...
I'm about to cancel my membership with fitness first. Basically I signed a contract in feb 07 for a min of 3 months. I am still being charged each month but rarely attend the gym anymore.
Just wondering if I have to still give them a months notice seeing as my 3 month contract was over in april 07. Or will they still charge me for next month aswell?
You need to read the contract before you sign it - if you sign any legal binding contract you would read it before you put pen to paper - same thing applies. I read evry single small print before I sign anything that is using my personal information and bank details... from a BT contract to a child minder contract. Why would you sign something you dont no anything about??
I worked for FF, however, I have also been on the receiving end. For Tim on line, if your sister didn't receive a membership card, they haven't considered her a member - that would be my argument to get all my money back, as i recently have, because I wrote a letter to the CEO of FF. The staff at club level have sales targets daily and the pressure is to get people to join - or lose your job! Same for General Managers. However, the main reason for getting you to join for 12 months is a) to get you into a healthy regime and b) it's guaranteed money for FF. Other health clubs are the same, they're just not so blatant! Good luck.
I joined in May last year wanting to get fit with my partner. We both signed 12 months contracts. A couple of months down the line, my partner fell ill with epilepsy so could no longer attend the gym, and as I was carer of him we cancelled our direct debit and sent a letter and a copy of hospital letters to prove our situation. My partner's membership got cancelled but they couldn't cancel mine. I refused to pay- I stood my ground as its unfair I have to stay with my partner to care for him! Numerous letters were sent to me and phone calls harrassing me to pay. Everyone in the call centre is so rude. One girl slammed the phone down on me!We were getting these phone calls from 8am!!! I wrote 2 complaint letters with no response.
I have now written my 3rd letter complaining about their BUPA healthcheck. We paid £80 for me and my partner. We attended once, then when booking another appointment our personal trainer Teri was fully booked. I called her 6 different times trying to book an appointment with no sucess- and she wouldn't let us see another personal trainer! We want this money back!
This has got to be the worst company ever!
They have sent the Debt Collectors on me and now I have been asked to pay for the whole of March because they received my letter of cancellation in February. I got fed up with them re: payments they can't take out and blame my bank.
1. Their phones lines are always busy! Couldn't pay for January just before I left for my holidays. Got back, Debt Collectors on my back with an extra £25 admin fee!
2. Wrote to complain and to cancel my membership
3. Didn't get an ackowledgement of cancelletion but the usual letter asking me to pay up my monthly membership fee.
4. They do not promote all typs of fitness, it's all about profit!
5. Seems like each gym has their own policy and membership fees.
6. Changing rooms are dirty
7. Showers drip......!!! very bad quality.
8. They tried to conn my friend with high membership fees.
I suggest people contact this person whose wants to do a research for a TV show ( I think) and tell her your story: aimee@flametv.co.uk
Surely there must be some law to help us.
We should not let companies like this get away with conning people.
My wife & I joined joined Fitness First Cheltenham about a year ago. I took out a trial 3 month membership before signing up for a full 12 months. At the time I signed up for the full 12 months I discovered that they had put the prices up by over 10%, on the premise of upgrading to a 'Platinum club' - this appears to mean absolutely nothing other than giving them an excuse to increase the prices. We are now coming to leave and have discovered that a months notice period is required, something that we were never told at the time.
Oh my god, after reading all the stories on this, about fitness first has made me regret joining them.
They have been taking payment from my sisters bank account but she hasn't even joined the gym or signed anything, I mean how can they do this. She only simply contacted them after I joined to find out how much it would be for her join as I am a student and she is not, and the lady took her bank details from her and told her to come into the gym and then it will finalize it, as she would have to sign up for her membership, but my sister said to her that she isn't sure if she wants to join yet and will let her know, but because she took her bank details they made payments to her credit card and took a DD from her bank and are still trying to take payments. This is such a con, the lady did not even tell her that they will take any payments, as my sister said she would get back to her as she was not sure at the time if she wanted to join, nor did the lady give her a membership number or neither did she receive a letter to inform her that she has joined. As I was a member at the gym, I told a member of staff that she did not want to join and so did my sister. My sister has contacted them in many occasions about this but they're not dealing with it at all or resolving it. The gym is a bloom in joke. They told me she wouldn't get her admin fee of £35 back, but I told them that she did not even agree to join. I have contacted head office and they're all brainless and cant be bothered at all to do anything. My sister cant even record a complaint at head office because you need a membership number to do this, which she obviously does not have because she hasn't joined the gym.
I think I'll have problems canceling my 3 month contract, I can just imagine it now. The staff are so unfriendly and cant be bothered at all, but when they want you to join they put on they're fake smiles and act as if they gym is so great, and start taking payments out of your bank, but when you have a problem they just cant be bothered at all. I would advised no one to join fitness first they're a rubbish fake gym that don't care about you, all they care about is conning you into a contract so they can keep they're run down, rubbish, service gym open another few days. I hope they go out of business.
A question was asked, but I can't see if it has been properly answered. Has anyone actually had the baliffs round or been taken to court over not paying the money that the gym says we owe? I have paid for my full 12 months, but because I changed my price plan half way through, this started another 12 month contract - which they failed to tell me. I am paying for the 12 months and that is it. No more. Are they really going to come after me for the money?
I wrote a while back about my situatuion with fitness first, this is how it stands now: after speaking to a rude woman from head office i was told to go to my local citizens advice bereu and get a financial statement to prove i was no longer employed, i did this early january, filled it in and sent it off. this statement showed that i can clearly not afford to pay the robbing swines at fitness first the remainder of my fees. i sent this letter off a good 5 weeks ago, and believe it or not, i still havn't heard from my friends at fitness first, big shocker!im hoping that they have just decided to let it go after nearly 6 months of harrassment...but this is ftness first were dealing with so can't be sure, no doubt i will recieve yet another letter off CARS sometime soon...
fitness first is the worst company ever. I have just turned 18 and decided to join with my mate to get fit. We only took out a 3 months contract because we wasnt sure if we would enjoy it. It cost me £30 to join, and then £29.95 a month on wards. After paying for 3 months I cancelled my direct debit as my contract was over, and then I recieve letters and txt messages saying I have not paid my membership for the 4th month. I only had a 3 month contract I kept stressing to them! But aparently, you have to send a letter in a month before your contract ends to ensure u dont get any futher payments. How stupid, I was not told this? so now I get stupid people from head office, reading the same script to me down the phone, with no brains of their own, telling me if i do not pay more charges will be added onto my account. I will not be paying fitness first, as I have not even used the gym for the time they are charging me for!
WOW! I wish I came across blagger before I joined Fitness First.
I can duped into joining, though I agreed to only 6 months. Of course they signed me up for 12, although they kept saying it was 6. So when I tried to cancel after 6 months, they refused.
It was nearly impossible to get in touch with them to cancel my membership. I have an appointment today, but I doubt it will go too smoothly.
Their customer service is pathetic. The facilities are shocking too. The toilets were always dirty and there was never any soap.
If you're reading this, avoid joining this dodgy company at all costs!
soon after joining I was informed they would be taking an extra payment of £10 to cover the cost of new lockers..Trying to leave is very difficult and I'm still battling my way with that. The facilities are not good and maintenance of equipment is poor. The staff have no interest in the customers...I will not be going back.
Please beware of Fitness First contracts! They did not give members proper notice of the closure of Nottingham Fitness First and treated their members badly. They do not respond to letters, emails etc and completely ignored questions raised by members. I would not recommend this company in any shape or form. All they want is your money.
I was trying to discover if there were people out there, who had similar experience to myself at fitness first which led me to find this site. I used to, or according to fitness first, still belong to the gym at Thomas Moore Sq in Central London.
I too have had bad experiences with this centre.
The facilities are appalling!! Last year in the middle of winter there was no hot water in the showers for weeks!! Also, they were constantly trying to renovate the gym at the members inconvenience. Not only that, but the staff members would whinge about the poor service offered through this facility. Needless to say, this went on for ages and I finally lost patience. I mainly run outside anyways so I decided to cancel.
When I rang the head office about cancelling the membership they couldn't find the paper copy of the contract. In their computer system they claimed that I was on a 12 month contract that I did not remember signing. Since they couldn't find the contract that never existed in the first place, they said that I could terminate my membership immediately. I cancelled the direct debit on my online banking and didn't think anything else about it.
About a month later I started receiving text messages telling me to ring them. They claimed I didn't cancel my membership and that I owed them a months membership fee. I explained the situation to them and asked them to get back to me. No one did, so I rang them. We chatted for a while about the details of what happened and they said they would get back to me. No one did!! I forgot about it thinking they realised their mistake.
A few months later I received a call from a debt recovery agency claiming that I owed fitness first 3 months membership fee!! I explained to them what happened and asked them to produce a singed copy of the 12 month contract and get back to me. Of course, no one did!!
I then recieved two calls in one day, one from the gym and another from a debt recovery agency. I rang the gym and the person who had rang me was busy. They said he would ring me back. Guess what? He didn’t ring me back!!
I then received another call from the debt recovery agency, different person. I explained again what happened. She was very empathetic and promised me she would get back to me despite the fact that no one else had. Guess what!! She did not ring me!!
What a nightmare!! I believe the chaos and poor service at this gym is reflective of the diss-organisation at head office. I wish it was possible in this country to charge companies with harassment because that's exactly what I see this as being.
Disaster first struck me in September. I’d been paying temporary membership to Fitness First Finchley for two months, and had just taken out another month’s worth. I kept thinking I was only in the neighbourhood for a short while more, and so when I found I was going to be there for several months more, I tried to upgrade my membership to take care of this. This wasn’t possible. It was less than forty-eight hours since I’d bought my third month of temporary membership in a row, but I was told I’d have to wait until it ran
out before I could change over to a three month membership. It seemed to me like a fairly simple matter of an upgrade, but it was, mysteriously, outside the realms of Fitness First policy. It cost me almost forty quid extra because this option was unavailable. The reason, it turned out, was that Fitness First does not keep computerised records of its temporary members, so there are no records to amend. Any other (cheaper) kind of membership can be upgraded, but not when you pay the premium for temporary membership. So I paid more money for a membership that provided me with less service, which left a really bad taste in my mouth.
So after this third month of temporary membership was over I went for a new three month contract. It strikes me that it is not very well named, since when I read the small print I saw that it required a month’s cancellation notice or the membership billing would continue forever. This alarmed me somewhat since I had taken out an identical membership in Fitness First Cheltenham in March, which I used for three months and then left town. I didn’t remember cancelling it. Had I really been paying for double membership all these months I’d been in Finchely paying over the odds anyhow because of the high rate of temporary membership?
I asked the staff to find out. This took a while as since the Cheltenham branch was only a year old, they didn’t have the number for it. In fact, they didn’t believe it existed for a while because it wasn’t on the list of branches they were using. But eventually they called head office. A call was made to Cheltenham and I had indeed been paying double. Naturally, I was a little upset. I was already a little upset about not being able to upgrade my temp membership, but now I had clearly wasted some serious money, at least three hundred pounds more. At a conservative estimate, I had wasted £340 by this point, on top of all the money I’d paid for services I could actually use.
Stephanie, the manager at Finchley, overheard there was a problem and when she heard my story she issued me with a special membership card that would “keep you covered until your membership gets transferred”. I asked the person who’d helped me with the membership form (until I read the small print) whether my membership was being transferred. He assured me that it was.
It felt great. Stephanie had recognised that here was an injustice that needed to be sorted out immediately. How true! She was in tune with what I wanted and needed and, more importantly, had clearly already paid for, one way or another. I had given an extraordinary contribution to Fitness First’s coffers, I deserved extraordinary service. And right on cue, as soon as the matter was referred to her, that’s what I got.
For four days this worked fine.
Yet, despite Stephanie’s assurances that this would “keep you covered until your membership gets transferred”, that is not what happened. As soon as I tried to use this card when Anita, the person in charge of membership, was on the front desk, she took it from me, wouldn’t return it and said I couldn’t use it. She justified the discrepancy between what Stephanie had said and what she was doing by saying that I should have moved quicker to sort out my membership, which, for some reason, still needed transferring. I said that I’d been told my membership was being transferred already, but she said this was not the case and insisted I was the one at fault here.
I was in a hurry, had to dash, feeling awful anyhow and made it clear that I didn’t much want to come back to the branch and be unable to use the facilities, as Anita explained was now the case. She told me that when I returned I would instead have to fill out a form and wait for membership transfer. I said that I didn’t want to come to the gym if I wasn’t going to be able to use the facilities and asked instead for a phone number.
But when Anita gave me a phone number I didn’t much trust the look in her eye. So I asked point blank if calling this number would in fact allow me to sort out my membership over the phone, forcing her to admit what she’d known to be true all along:
“No.”
So why give me the number if it wasn’t going to help me? It was clear why I was asking for it, I had only been discussing my membership and nothing else. It became clear to me that Anita wasn’t trying to help, she was just trying to get rid of me so I’d be someone else’s problem, an attitude that I’ve found to be all too prevalent at Fitness First. There was no room for misinterpretation, she could not possibly have assumed that I simply wanted ‘a’ telephone number for the fun of it, my intention was crystal clear.
It was an unpleasant, frustrating experience, coming as it did on top of several other unpleasant experiences in dealing with Fitness First, and I’m ashamed to say that I stormed off in a huff. Yet I saw a silver lining here: if this card was supposed to tide me over until my membership could be transferred and was revoked because I hadn’t dealt with it over the weekend, then it seemed logical that it couldn’t take more than four days for my membership to be transferred.
Alas, someone hadn’t been straight with me. When I came back four days later to pick up my card and was informed that my membership would take up to three weeks to transfer, and in the meantime, guess what? I still couldn’t use the gym.
So I gave it another three whole weeks, just to be on the safe side. I returned to see if my membership had come through yet and was informed that I hadn’t requested it and would have start over again. With a sinking heart I realised that while I had, in what seemed now to be the very distant past, once upon a time been reassured that my membership transfer was going through, Anita had indeed told me that it wasn’t. I had tried to sort it out, but my frustration with her, the fact that I was in a hurry and my terrible sadness at the suicide of a Fitness First trainer I knew (I don’t mention his name out of respect for his family) had meant that I’d given up before I managed to get my membership transfer sorted. So I was told that in another three weeks I would be able to come back and use the gym.
But I had already been out of the gym for almost a month, paying for a Fitness First membership elsewhere but unable to use it. It was horrible, ghastly, but because I saw that I’d made a mistake, even if it came after mistakes by Fitness First, it just wasn’t worth trying to fight it. I decided to cut my considerable losses (about £410 pounds spent on unusable membership) and simply cancel my Cheltenham membership and start a new one in Finchley. Of course, this being December now, I knew that I would have to pay for December in Cheltenham, which hurt like hell since I hadn’t been there since June, but such is life.
If only it was that easy. As I filled in the forms (for the second time) in Finchley it occurred to me that if the dates were tricky, I might end up having to pay for January in Cheltenham as well, and there was no way that I was going to pay double for two more months, this whole fiasco having cost me a small fortune already. So I asked Anita if there was any danger of this, saying that I didn’t want to take out a membership in Finchely until the danger had passed.
Anita assured me that everything would be fine. Today was the cut off day for December’s cancelling membership, but a call to Cheltenham would sort it out. I watched Anita make the call, but the results made me suspicious. Anita got hold of someone who would pass on a message.
At any other organisation I would assume that this was good enough. However, by this point I’d learned not to trust Fitness First and suspected that this was just prelude to further pain. So I made a call to Cheltenham myself.
“Hi, I’m Benet Simon,” I said to the same woman in Cheltenham, who had answered the phone to Anita, “I’m calling about my membership.”
She immediately hung up on me, as my itemised mobile phone records show.
So I called again.
This time, she explained in a tired and impatient voice that she’d already told Anita that she would pass on a message. I stressed the importance of this. She assured me that once someone who could help was at work, I would receive a call. Her tone was rather rude and she had already hung up on me once, so I didn’t get the feeling that she was
reliable and decided not to get my membership at Finchley until she had passed on her message and I had received my call assuring me that I would not have to pay for January in Cheltenham. It would waste more of my time, but better that than waste more money.
This whole scene happened in the morning. Should this matter reach small claims court, as seems increasingly likely, the phone calls from my mobile phone will appear on my itemised bill and show that they were both made within minutes of the call that your records will show Finchley branch called Cheltenham.
My call from the membership people in Cheltenham never came, so I called Cheltenham again after five in the afternoon, and was put through to someone who could deal with membership. They looked on their computer and told me the time to cancel my membership so that I wouldn’t have to pay for January had now passed. I was going to have to pay.
I explained that he should have received a message. He hadn’t, wasn’t prepared to look for it, and didn’t seem to believe me because he wasn’t prepared to do anything except charge me more money. I said that I wasn’t going to stand for this, I had done what was necessary, had even called twice to double check that I’d done what was necessary, and it was the incompetence of Fitness First that was raising the amount of cash I’d wasted from £410 to a little over £460. He didn’t care. I said that I would be instructing my bank to refuse to pay, and he assured me that the debt collectors would be set on me once this happened.
To try and avoid this, I even offered to get the super expensive platinum membership at Finchley, which I wouldn’t be able to get much out of because Finchley doesn’t have a pool, just so that I would qualify for membership in Cheltenham and would, in that fashion, hold a valid membership for Cheltenham in January. I was told that since the computer would count me as two people with two separate memberships, that wouldn’t help me, I’d still be liable for my original membership next January and I’d still be a target for the debt collectors.
I was also told that someone would call me to discuss this further and that my membership would now, finally, be cancelled.
Guess what?
I was charged for January, no-one called me back and when I called my bank, they told me that the standing order was still running and it was all set to pay for February.
I've sent this complaint into Fitness First, although I'm not optimistic, seeing all the other complaints that haven't been addressed.
But I'm encouraged that there are enough people annoyed with their polices to form an effective leafleting campaign. More on this later.
It is definitely a relief to hear from so many other consumers (a number of whom are a similar age to me!) who have had the same problem as I have. I joined Fitness First in late 2006 in a bid to impress my then-girlfriend; I was told that I would be signing up for a 12-month contract but that I'd be able to cancel my membership at any point by simply phoning in (which was good, since I was off to university in a different city in 2007) I was minding my own business, 'working out' and such when I suddenly had what seemed to be an allergic reaction. I quickly left and contacted my doctor, he told me that I obviously had the reaction due to heat sensitivity on my part; something which is apparently not uncommon. I rang the gym and told them about my problem and that I would need to cancel my membership to prevent this from happening again. They said it would be fine and that I needed to visit the manager in-store, which I attempted to do, every day of the week for a fortnight or so, but every time I went in, I was told that the manager was unavailable. They did tell me, however, that they would be able to suspend my account for a small monthly fee of £7, which I agreed to. They did not, however, tell me a day on which this suspension would end. All of a sudden, I noticed full membership payments being taken from my account, and rang the gym in disgust. I finally managed to speak to the manager and she told me that they should have given me a receipt and a date on which the suspension would end, I was given neither! She then used the excuse that it wasn't the gym's fault that this had happened; to which my immediate thought was that it wasn't my fault either! I told her about my medical problem, and she simply laughed, something which simply infuriated me further. I cancelled my direct debit (which I was told by a number of sources that I have a right to do) and have recently received a C.A.R.S. letter saying that I owe the gym money. I can assure you I will never deal with Fitness First ever again, and hopefully neither will anyone else. With any luck they'll get done for misconduct and shut down. Hah!
Absolutely everything discussed about Fitness First confirmed. My experience with one of Fitness First is one of deception, out and out lying, and complete disregard. (Also beware of Personal Trainers who take you in a huddle and tell you to keep their special rates and engaging them personally a secret - the reality is that Fitness First does not hire personal trainers at all - they have to solicit their own work)
Signed up for 3 month contract - It was for just a three month course ALSO I told them I was leaving the country at the end of three months - even though annoyed at Used Car Salesman 101 pressure sales tactics used ( 'I'll just check with my manager out the back' etc), the facilities and the deal was good - however they illegally deducted a higher amount from my account than agreed, and only offered to refund it with a free gift. After relocating now being chased by CARS as yes indeed they had signed me up to a 12 month contract!! even though a) they knew I was leaving and b) they didnt bother to inform me.
Once I finally read the contract I was told by staff at the club not to worry about it - now of course this 'cannot be confirmed'. The customer service and complaints procedure is non existant - have had no contact or return phone calls from the manager of the club in the first instance regaring my complaint about the illegal direct debit deductions, nor from Fitness First head office who advised they would get back to me, and didnt, once I rang to complain about the CARS action.
Based on below, it is gratifying to know that I am not the only one. I would be great to know indeed if anyone has ever tested this in court, but I for one am absolutely refusing to pay any further fees and intend to take this further. I will keep you posted.
I am so relieved to read all the bad comments on this website I felt like I was the only one to recieve such an awful service from fitness first! I am 18 and first joined in March 2007, i was also under the impression that the contract was not a 12 month one...I paid monthly up untill August 2007, as I got into university and have moved into another city and am no longer unemployed or able to go. After cancelling my direct debit with fitness first I have recieved a number of letters from CARS and most recently Courtlink Ltd threatening court action and a bailiff coming to my house if I do not pay the full 12 months which comes to £114. All these letters i have recieved much later than the letter is dated and too my old address, although I have informed them of the change on a many occasions. Both myself and my dad have written letters to fitness first head office and CARS months ago and still await a reply. On the occasions I have rang CARS and fitness first they have adivsed me to visit citizens advice and pick up a 'proof of loss of income' form, on doing so i was told by a lady working there that she had never heard of such a form and they had no right to ask me for this..prooving how clueless and useless fitness first actually are. I would not advise anyone to join this gym it does indeed SUCK!
Fitness First are by far the worst gym i have ever been duped into joining! Firstly the slimey sales girl had me thinking i was getting a good deal by apprently having no joining fee and the first month free (this was advertised outside)i still had to pay about £50 on the day i joined as some sort of admin fee! Then she led me to believe that the deal i was getting would be for 3 months only and if i wanted to continue i could. I didnt want to be tied down to a 12 month contract as most people dont! What she didnt tell me was that i had to cancel the contract with one months notice before ending me supposed 3 month contract! I therefore have been paying £50 a month for something i didnt even know i had. They are very quick to rush you into signing thinking you have got a great deal and fob you off with a poxy free bag and towel without actually explaining the terms to you. Some people dont understand what they are actually getting themselves into and it is not fair to do that to people! When i called the club which by the way is a poxy little thing in Brighton, the manager didnt have no sympathy whatsoever and told me i signed the contract so its my fault. Then i called the head office who again had no sympathy and told me the same thing! Thanks for duping me into something i didnt understand and taking my money! Dont join this gym it is worst ever and they all have disgusting attitudes towards their members!
do not ever join fitness first, me and my wife joined and they was great until you signed the contract and then they did not want to know anymore. it took me three months to get my membership badge, then down to circumstances me and my wife had to cancel the direct debit and we had a letter saying that we owed them x amount of money. when i phoned to explain my reasons for cancelling it was like talking to a robot on the other end of the phone there was no compassion at all all he culd say was that the debt would be passed on to a third party !!
Has anyone ACTUALLY been taken to court or had goods taken from bailiffs yet as a result of refusing to pay for their service? I have just heard from C.A.R.S, never had a letter from them or from Fitness First to tell me I owe them anything (altough they probably just have my old address anyway). I absolutely will not pay them for something I havent used, I was told it was a 3 month contract, turned out to be 12 months, called the gym, told them I have cancelled the direct debit and won't be needing to use the gym anymore and they didn't tell me to do anything else on top of this. Most people on this site seem to have been threatened with Bailiffs/Court Action but has anyone actually experienced it yet?
Just an update regarding my Fitness First membership. I cancelled my direct debit as I had cancelled my membership giving more than enough notice and Fitness First decided to debit my card anyway for this month's payment (illegally I might add, as I had already cancelled correctly). After I got my solicitor involved they have agreed to terminate the contract and they are refunding me this month's payment. I would suggest that anyone having problems look at the BBC Watchdog website for further assistance. They are still the worst and most underhand company I have ever dealt with.
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Comments:
Just wondering if I have to still give them a months notice seeing as my 3 month contract was over in april 07. Or will they still charge me for next month aswell?
helly1960 at 19th Mar 2008, 02:28PM
I have now written my 3rd letter complaining about their BUPA healthcheck. We paid £80 for me and my partner. We attended once, then when booking another appointment our personal trainer Teri was fully booked. I called her 6 different times trying to book an appointment with no sucess- and she wouldn't let us see another personal trainer! We want this money back!
Fitness First has been taken to court many times!
join my facebook group and they will send you all the details
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=11453552596
They have sent the Debt Collectors on me and now I have been asked to pay for the whole of March because they received my letter of cancellation in February. I got fed up with them re: payments they can't take out and blame my bank.
1. Their phones lines are always busy! Couldn't pay for January just before I left for my holidays. Got back, Debt Collectors on my back with an extra £25 admin fee!
2. Wrote to complain and to cancel my membership
3. Didn't get an ackowledgement of cancelletion but the usual letter asking me to pay up my monthly membership fee.
4. They do not promote all typs of fitness, it's all about profit!
5. Seems like each gym has their own policy and membership fees.
6. Changing rooms are dirty
7. Showers drip......!!! very bad quality.
8. They tried to conn my friend with high membership fees.
I suggest people contact this person whose wants to do a research for a TV show ( I think) and tell her your story: aimee@flametv.co.uk
Surely there must be some law to help us.
We should not let companies like this get away with conning people.
They have been taking payment from my sisters bank account but she hasn't even joined the gym or signed anything, I mean how can they do this. She only simply contacted them after I joined to find out how much it would be for her join as I am a student and she is not, and the lady took her bank details from her and told her to come into the gym and then it will finalize it, as she would have to sign up for her membership, but my sister said to her that she isn't sure if she wants to join yet and will let her know, but because she took her bank details they made payments to her credit card and took a DD from her bank and are still trying to take payments. This is such a con, the lady did not even tell her that they will take any payments, as my sister said she would get back to her as she was not sure at the time if she wanted to join, nor did the lady give her a membership number or neither did she receive a letter to inform her that she has joined. As I was a member at the gym, I told a member of staff that she did not want to join and so did my sister. My sister has contacted them in many occasions about this but they're not dealing with it at all or resolving it. The gym is a bloom in joke. They told me she wouldn't get her admin fee of £35 back, but I told them that she did not even agree to join. I have contacted head office and they're all brainless and cant be bothered at all to do anything. My sister cant even record a complaint at head office because you need a membership number to do this, which she obviously does not have because she hasn't joined the gym.
I think I'll have problems canceling my 3 month contract, I can just imagine it now. The staff are so unfriendly and cant be bothered at all, but when they want you to join they put on they're fake smiles and act as if they gym is so great, and start taking payments out of your bank, but when you have a problem they just cant be bothered at all. I would advised no one to join fitness first they're a rubbish fake gym that don't care about you, all they care about is conning you into a contract so they can keep they're run down, rubbish, service gym open another few days. I hope they go out of business.
I can duped into joining, though I agreed to only 6 months. Of course they signed me up for 12, although they kept saying it was 6. So when I tried to cancel after 6 months, they refused.
It was nearly impossible to get in touch with them to cancel my membership. I have an appointment today, but I doubt it will go too smoothly.
Their customer service is pathetic. The facilities are shocking too. The toilets were always dirty and there was never any soap.
If you're reading this, avoid joining this dodgy company at all costs!
I too have had bad experiences with this centre.
The facilities are appalling!! Last year in the middle of winter there was no hot water in the showers for weeks!! Also, they were constantly trying to renovate the gym at the members inconvenience. Not only that, but the staff members would whinge about the poor service offered through this facility. Needless to say, this went on for ages and I finally lost patience. I mainly run outside anyways so I decided to cancel.
When I rang the head office about cancelling the membership they couldn't find the paper copy of the contract. In their computer system they claimed that I was on a 12 month contract that I did not remember signing. Since they couldn't find the contract that never existed in the first place, they said that I could terminate my membership immediately. I cancelled the direct debit on my online banking and didn't think anything else about it.
About a month later I started receiving text messages telling me to ring them. They claimed I didn't cancel my membership and that I owed them a months membership fee. I explained the situation to them and asked them to get back to me. No one did, so I rang them. We chatted for a while about the details of what happened and they said they would get back to me. No one did!! I forgot about it thinking they realised their mistake.
A few months later I received a call from a debt recovery agency claiming that I owed fitness first 3 months membership fee!! I explained to them what happened and asked them to produce a singed copy of the 12 month contract and get back to me. Of course, no one did!!
I then recieved two calls in one day, one from the gym and another from a debt recovery agency. I rang the gym and the person who had rang me was busy. They said he would ring me back. Guess what? He didn’t ring me back!!
I then received another call from the debt recovery agency, different person. I explained again what happened. She was very empathetic and promised me she would get back to me despite the fact that no one else had. Guess what!! She did not ring me!!
What a nightmare!! I believe the chaos and poor service at this gym is reflective of the diss-organisation at head office. I wish it was possible in this country to charge companies with harassment because that's exactly what I see this as being.
out before I could change over to a three month membership. It seemed to me like a fairly simple matter of an upgrade, but it was, mysteriously, outside the realms of Fitness First policy. It cost me almost forty quid extra because this option was unavailable. The reason, it turned out, was that Fitness First does not keep computerised records of its temporary members, so there are no records to amend. Any other (cheaper) kind of membership can be upgraded, but not when you pay the premium for temporary membership. So I paid more money for a membership that provided me with less service, which left a really bad taste in my mouth.
So after this third month of temporary membership was over I went for a new three month contract. It strikes me that it is not very well named, since when I read the small print I saw that it required a month’s cancellation notice or the membership billing would continue forever. This alarmed me somewhat since I had taken out an identical membership in Fitness First Cheltenham in March, which I used for three months and then left town. I didn’t remember cancelling it. Had I really been paying for double membership all these months I’d been in Finchely paying over the odds anyhow because of the high rate of temporary membership?
I asked the staff to find out. This took a while as since the Cheltenham branch was only a year old, they didn’t have the number for it. In fact, they didn’t believe it existed for a while because it wasn’t on the list of branches they were using. But eventually they called head office. A call was made to Cheltenham and I had indeed been paying double. Naturally, I was a little upset. I was already a little upset about not being able to upgrade my temp membership, but now I had clearly wasted some serious money, at least three hundred pounds more. At a conservative estimate, I had wasted £340 by this point, on top of all the money I’d paid for services I could actually use.
Stephanie, the manager at Finchley, overheard there was a problem and when she heard my story she issued me with a special membership card that would “keep you covered until your membership gets transferred”. I asked the person who’d helped me with the membership form (until I read the small print) whether my membership was being transferred. He assured me that it was.
It felt great. Stephanie had recognised that here was an injustice that needed to be sorted out immediately. How true! She was in tune with what I wanted and needed and, more importantly, had clearly already paid for, one way or another. I had given an extraordinary contribution to Fitness First’s coffers, I deserved extraordinary service. And right on cue, as soon as the matter was referred to her, that’s what I got.
For four days this worked fine.
Yet, despite Stephanie’s assurances that this would “keep you covered until your membership gets transferred”, that is not what happened. As soon as I tried to use this card when Anita, the person in charge of membership, was on the front desk, she took it from me, wouldn’t return it and said I couldn’t use it. She justified the discrepancy between what Stephanie had said and what she was doing by saying that I should have moved quicker to sort out my membership, which, for some reason, still needed transferring. I said that I’d been told my membership was being transferred already, but she said this was not the case and insisted I was the one at fault here.
I was in a hurry, had to dash, feeling awful anyhow and made it clear that I didn’t much want to come back to the branch and be unable to use the facilities, as Anita explained was now the case. She told me that when I returned I would instead have to fill out a form and wait for membership transfer. I said that I didn’t want to come to the gym if I wasn’t going to be able to use the facilities and asked instead for a phone number.
But when Anita gave me a phone number I didn’t much trust the look in her eye. So I asked point blank if calling this number would in fact allow me to sort out my membership over the phone, forcing her to admit what she’d known to be true all along:
“No.”
So why give me the number if it wasn’t going to help me? It was clear why I was asking for it, I had only been discussing my membership and nothing else. It became clear to me that Anita wasn’t trying to help, she was just trying to get rid of me so I’d be someone else’s problem, an attitude that I’ve found to be all too prevalent at Fitness First. There was no room for misinterpretation, she could not possibly have assumed that I simply wanted ‘a’ telephone number for the fun of it, my intention was crystal clear.
It was an unpleasant, frustrating experience, coming as it did on top of several other unpleasant experiences in dealing with Fitness First, and I’m ashamed to say that I stormed off in a huff. Yet I saw a silver lining here: if this card was supposed to tide me over until my membership could be transferred and was revoked because I hadn’t dealt with it over the weekend, then it seemed logical that it couldn’t take more than four days for my membership to be transferred.
Alas, someone hadn’t been straight with me. When I came back four days later to pick up my card and was informed that my membership would take up to three weeks to transfer, and in the meantime, guess what? I still couldn’t use the gym.
So I gave it another three whole weeks, just to be on the safe side. I returned to see if my membership had come through yet and was informed that I hadn’t requested it and would have start over again. With a sinking heart I realised that while I had, in what seemed now to be the very distant past, once upon a time been reassured that my membership transfer was going through, Anita had indeed told me that it wasn’t. I had tried to sort it out, but my frustration with her, the fact that I was in a hurry and my terrible sadness at the suicide of a Fitness First trainer I knew (I don’t mention his name out of respect for his family) had meant that I’d given up before I managed to get my membership transfer sorted. So I was told that in another three weeks I would be able to come back and use the gym.
But I had already been out of the gym for almost a month, paying for a Fitness First membership elsewhere but unable to use it. It was horrible, ghastly, but because I saw that I’d made a mistake, even if it came after mistakes by Fitness First, it just wasn’t worth trying to fight it. I decided to cut my considerable losses (about £410 pounds spent on unusable membership) and simply cancel my Cheltenham membership and start a new one in Finchley. Of course, this being December now, I knew that I would have to pay for December in Cheltenham, which hurt like hell since I hadn’t been there since June, but such is life.
If only it was that easy. As I filled in the forms (for the second time) in Finchley it occurred to me that if the dates were tricky, I might end up having to pay for January in Cheltenham as well, and there was no way that I was going to pay double for two more months, this whole fiasco having cost me a small fortune already. So I asked Anita if there was any danger of this, saying that I didn’t want to take out a membership in Finchely until the danger had passed.
Anita assured me that everything would be fine. Today was the cut off day for December’s cancelling membership, but a call to Cheltenham would sort it out. I watched Anita make the call, but the results made me suspicious. Anita got hold of someone who would pass on a message.
At any other organisation I would assume that this was good enough. However, by this point I’d learned not to trust Fitness First and suspected that this was just prelude to further pain. So I made a call to Cheltenham myself.
“Hi, I’m Benet Simon,” I said to the same woman in Cheltenham, who had answered the phone to Anita, “I’m calling about my membership.”
She immediately hung up on me, as my itemised mobile phone records show.
So I called again.
This time, she explained in a tired and impatient voice that she’d already told Anita that she would pass on a message. I stressed the importance of this. She assured me that once someone who could help was at work, I would receive a call. Her tone was rather rude and she had already hung up on me once, so I didn’t get the feeling that she was
reliable and decided not to get my membership at Finchley until she had passed on her message and I had received my call assuring me that I would not have to pay for January in Cheltenham. It would waste more of my time, but better that than waste more money.
This whole scene happened in the morning. Should this matter reach small claims court, as seems increasingly likely, the phone calls from my mobile phone will appear on my itemised bill and show that they were both made within minutes of the call that your records will show Finchley branch called Cheltenham.
My call from the membership people in Cheltenham never came, so I called Cheltenham again after five in the afternoon, and was put through to someone who could deal with membership. They looked on their computer and told me the time to cancel my membership so that I wouldn’t have to pay for January had now passed. I was going to have to pay.
I explained that he should have received a message. He hadn’t, wasn’t prepared to look for it, and didn’t seem to believe me because he wasn’t prepared to do anything except charge me more money. I said that I wasn’t going to stand for this, I had done what was necessary, had even called twice to double check that I’d done what was necessary, and it was the incompetence of Fitness First that was raising the amount of cash I’d wasted from £410 to a little over £460. He didn’t care. I said that I would be instructing my bank to refuse to pay, and he assured me that the debt collectors would be set on me once this happened.
To try and avoid this, I even offered to get the super expensive platinum membership at Finchley, which I wouldn’t be able to get much out of because Finchley doesn’t have a pool, just so that I would qualify for membership in Cheltenham and would, in that fashion, hold a valid membership for Cheltenham in January. I was told that since the computer would count me as two people with two separate memberships, that wouldn’t help me, I’d still be liable for my original membership next January and I’d still be a target for the debt collectors.
I was also told that someone would call me to discuss this further and that my membership would now, finally, be cancelled.
Guess what?
I was charged for January, no-one called me back and when I called my bank, they told me that the standing order was still running and it was all set to pay for February.
I've sent this complaint into Fitness First, although I'm not optimistic, seeing all the other complaints that haven't been addressed.
But I'm encouraged that there are enough people annoyed with their polices to form an effective leafleting campaign. More on this later.
Signed up for 3 month contract - It was for just a three month course ALSO I told them I was leaving the country at the end of three months - even though annoyed at Used Car Salesman 101 pressure sales tactics used ( 'I'll just check with my manager out the back' etc), the facilities and the deal was good - however they illegally deducted a higher amount from my account than agreed, and only offered to refund it with a free gift. After relocating now being chased by CARS as yes indeed they had signed me up to a 12 month contract!! even though a) they knew I was leaving and b) they didnt bother to inform me.
Once I finally read the contract I was told by staff at the club not to worry about it - now of course this 'cannot be confirmed'. The customer service and complaints procedure is non existant - have had no contact or return phone calls from the manager of the club in the first instance regaring my complaint about the illegal direct debit deductions, nor from Fitness First head office who advised they would get back to me, and didnt, once I rang to complain about the CARS action.
Based on below, it is gratifying to know that I am not the only one. I would be great to know indeed if anyone has ever tested this in court, but I for one am absolutely refusing to pay any further fees and intend to take this further. I will keep you posted.
WORSE COMPANY EVER EXPERIENCED
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