Island Sports Club Inc.

Review: I have become a member of Retro Fitness Gym in May of 2012. When I signed up for membership they were running a 2 months free with your contract promotion.When I signed up for membership I was told that it would be a 1 year membership. I was managing my membership through a dedicated Retro Fitness website that has a tab called "My agreement info - membership details". In that tab there's a field "Auto Renew", which was indicating "none." (I have screenshots of the website and the page)My membership was supposed to expire on May **, 2013. In the beginning of June I called the gym to make sure that I don't owe them any payments.During that call I was told that my membership auto-renewed and that I will be charged 2 more monthly payments of $19.99 and one more "lock-in your fee for life" payment of $29.Turned out that on the website there was buried a copy of the contract which has an auto-renew clause. I pointed out that I never signed a paper contract, that I never saw that clause and that the "Agreement Info" page of the website stated that there was no auto-renewal. I was told that the gym would look into the situation and call me back.I never got a call back. I called them back myself and let them know that I was recording the conversation. Their tone immediately changed and they said that I would have to pay all the extra fees.When I asked them why the website was stating that there was no auto-renewal, they started lying that it didn't and I was wrong. I told them I had a screenshot. They had nothing to say.I tried contacting the gym through their [redacted] page. They again told me they'll get back to me, which they never did.Desired Settlement: I want the fee of $19.99 for the month when I was not a member refunded and I want to not be charged again

Business

Response:

Dear [redacted],

As the owner & operating manager of my club, I personally handle any and all customer service discrepancies. Having said that, I have never received any communication from [redacted].

What I've recently learned is that [redacted] was directing his calls to our billing agency, ABC Financial. They have documented all conversations with [redacted] & accurately enforced our policies. As [redacted]'s membership contract indicates, his membership auto-renews to a month-to-month and nowhere does it state at he had two complimentary months.

When [redacted] decided he did not want to continue his membership, he contacted the corporate Retro Fitness [redacted] page instead of calling or coming into my location. (This does not seem like the most efficient or logical way to do so in my opinion). Nonetheless, corporate got in touch with me and I looked up [redacted]'s account, saw he was set to be cancelled (with full facility access until this time) on August [redacted] of this year. Based on my findings, this seemed resolved and I never learned of [redacted], 'not receiving a return phone call from me' until your letter.

To this day, [redacted] still has never left a message or called my location- the facility where he previously worked out, knew the staff, etc., yet he took the time to contact you and potentially negatively impact my business...very unfortunate.

Thank you for taking the time to learn about things from my end and should you need additional information, please let me know.

Kind Regards,

Consumer

Response:

[redacted]

At this time, I have not been contacted by Retro Fitness Glen Cove regarding complaint ID [redacted].

Sincerely,