Fuel Fitness & Nutrition, Inc.

Fuel Fitness has adequet equipment and machines, but the machines are filthy. I doubt they ever get cleaned. The cup/phone holders are gross. The TVs have not worked for days now. This happened once before. I was told, they'd be working today. That was 4 days ago.

The desk help sometimes acknowledge you, but usually don't look up from their iPhones.

My family and I are looking for other gym options.

Review: I became a member at Fuel Fitness, Helena in 2011. In that year they never sent me my membership cards despite the fact that I called numerous times. I was unable to use the facility so I found a new facility and waited out my year contract. In June of 2012 my year long membership obligation with Fuel Fitness was up. I called in early June 2012 and spoke with a women I asked that they please cancel my membership. She asked why, and I explained the situation. She apologized and said no problem I will cancel that for you right now. I then asked if I needed to come in and sign anything, she told me no. She then explained that we may have missed the cut off for June and I might be charged, but I would no longer she the charge automatically debited from my account starting in July. This past while reviewing my bank statements I realized Fuel Fitness has been charging my account $39.00 for the last 10 months. I called and spoke with the desk manager and ultimately the accounts manager. They offered a free membership but obviously I'm not interested in that. I simply requested that they return my $390.00. After a week of run around they have decided that they will return $108 to my account. That is there bottom line.Desired Settlement: I would simply like the remaining $282.00 that they owe me.

Business

Response:

[redacted] is claiming that she

called in and requested for her membership to be canceled and that our employee stated that she would do so.

Our staff is trained, as well as it is our policy that we must receive a

written cancelation. We have never received [redacted]’s written cancellation

request, therefore we did not cancel.Also, [redacted]’s year was not fulfilled until 8/1/2012, therefore her last payment would have been made in July 2012.

Consumer

Response:

[To assist us in bringing this matter to a close, you must give us a reason why you are rejecting the response. If no reason is received your complaint will be closed Administratively Resolved]

I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID 9511992, and have determined that this does not resolve my complaint. For your reference, details of the offer I reviewed appear below.

When I called in June the customer service reprentitive did state that the payment had probably already been taken for June, and I was accepting of that. During our phone call in June I specifically asked if I needed to come and sign anything, I was told no. When I called and spoke with [redacted], the store manager, on April 12th I explained the situation to him in depth, he apologized and then told me he would cancel my membership right away, effective that day. At the end of our conversation I again asked him if there was anything more I needed to do to make sure that membership was canceled he told me no. When I spoke with account manager [redacted] on April 19 she assured me that in fact my membership had been canceled via my phone conversation with [redacted] on the 12th. When I asked her about the discrepancy between the supposed policy and the fact that [redacted] had canceled my membership via the phone call, [redacted] was unable to give me a clear except that [redacted] was training as a manager so he might have access to do that. However, clearly there is no defined policy, and clearly the availability is there to be able to cancel memberships. I am willing do disregard June's dues, making the total owed to me $243. Also I would like some clarification as to if my membership has truely been terminated or if there is still something I need to do.

Regards,

Business

Response:

IN REGUARDS TO [redacted]'s request to be refunded her money- Our staff is trained just as our contract states in Terms of Membership number 6 and 7;

6. The member may terminate their membership after expiration of terms by notifies the club in writing or registered mail.

7. Unless the member terminates their membership, the membership will be automatically renewed on a month to month basis. The member will be obligated to pay monthly dues; regardless of whether they use the club, until 60 days after the club has received written notice of termination.

Our employee would not inform Mrs. [redacted] that her membership would be canceled over the phone. We need her to fill out our cancelation form and she would need to come in to our facility to do so.

Attached is a copy of our terms of membership.

Consumer

Response:

[To assist us in bringing this matter to a close, you must give us a reason why you are rejecting the response. If no reason is received your complaint will be closed Administratively Resolved]

I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID 9511992, and have determined that this does not resolve my complaint. For your reference, details of the offer I reviewed appear below.

The fact of the matter is the Fuel Fitness staff did in fact cancel my membership over the phone, nearly a year after the initial request. Clearly their staff is not trained correctly. It was not only the initial staff member that told me that they would cancel my membership, it was a "manager" that finally canceled it, and a billing supervisor that confirmed the cancelation. The charges have now been stopped. Please explain to me how I would need to cancel my membership any further with Fuel Fitness. It is sad to know that what I thought to be a local trust worthy business, is not. Fuel Fitness is obviously willing to loose several quality customers over $360. In my eyes, and in my practice it is not about the money, its about doing whats right for the people you serve. Fuel Fitness should want to return my money simply based on the fact that I never used their service with in the year. Weather it was the fault of their untrained staff or not they certainly have record that I did not use their facility (because I did not know I was paying for it). This is not the first complaint of this nature nor will be the last.

Regards,

Fuel Fitness seems like a great place to join when you first sign up. You go through the traditional tour of the gym and the locker rooms. Then you are told about the different plans that you can join whether it be the yearly plans (1 or 2) or the monthly plans. When signing up for the monthly plan I told Fuel that I need to be on the month to month plan as I knew I would not be there for a year or longer. I talked to [redacted] (the Owner), about my situation. [redacted] told me that all I need to do is fill out the top part of the contract with my personal information and sign at the bottom. [redacted] then told me to not worry about all the writing in the middle part because that was just for people who signed a contract. So when I called [redacted] to cancel on 3/29 I figured I would be charged for the full month since my card was charged on 3/28. [redacted] told me over the phone that is not a problem and he was going to cancel the membership. Then to my surprise I was charged on 4/23 for a full month. I called Fuel on 4/26 to discuss the issue of being charged again and [redacted] said he would have a manager call me. On 4/26 at 2:36 I talked to [redacted] about what [redacted] said to me about not worrying about the middle part of the contract since that was only for members who signed a contract. All [redacted] could do was read the closeout contract (which I did not sign) and keep repeating himself over and over while not listening to anything that was being said. I even said that’s fine if you want me to pay a full month you can charge me for the nine days difference from the time I gave notice until the full month was up. [redacted] stated that they don’t ever pro-rate the exit fees. However the funny thing is they sure would pro-rate the starting fees. [redacted] stated that he would get back to me on Monday 4/29 regarding this issue. It has been a week since this has taken place and not a follow-up phone call to let me know what was decided. Overall the gym is ok. It is a Small gym with inexperienced management with no people skills. Often the majority of the staff works out during some of the busiest times. Normally this would not be an issue however the size of the gym makes it difficult for paying members get in a full workout. The staff will take up a lot of time on equipment as they talk to members and answer phones. The lack of professionalism in Fuel Fitness was very disappointing and it leads me to give this gym a 2 star rating as it was a convenient place to workout relative to where I worked.