Monticello Community Center

I am a single mom with two children ages 16 & 20. My 20-year-old son wanted to join the community center. I was told he needed his own membership and that we couldn't have a family membership despite living in the same household since he is not in college. He was not allowed to be part of my membership. He is an adult, but I was paying his membership fee. The community center did not have him, an adult, sign a contract. When he cancelled his membership, they charged my account a $50 cancellation fee and they reported that it was stated in the contract. However, he didn't have a signed contract. They refused to waive the fee and proceeded with an automatic withdrawal of the funds out of my account. When I joined the community center 15 years ago, it was a community focused facility that actually cared about its members. Now they are a money-making machine with terrible equipment in the gym.

Initial Business Response /* (1000, 5, 2015/09/04) */
In the interest of good customer service, we often provide our rental customers the ability to reserve a room over the phone. Often these are time sensitive rentals and we do not want a customer to miss out on a date that they want to...

reserve..
We review all information with them over the phone, take payment, and then send out the agreement with the understanding that we now have a verbal contract with this customer.
This way of doing business is particularly important to the customer since September and October are highly desired months for wedding receptions. So reserving quickly was important.
The couple contacted us on December 18th (a month and a half later) that they wished to cancel their reservation. Our policy is to refund half of the full cost, which the customer at this point had only paid half of the full cost, and if we are successful renting the room for that same date then we refund the balance.
We were not able to rent the room for the same date and since we only had half of the payment, we did not refund anything to the customer.
Initial Consumer Rebuttal /* (3000, 7, 2015/09/08) */
(The consumer indicated he/she DID NOT accept the response from the business.)
We did not have a verbal contract we did not sign the written contract therefore my husband and I request a full refund. If we are not refunded the total amount of $740 we will be taking legal action against MCC. I will add that the customer service I received from MCC was very unfriendly and rude the entire time. I will be writing about my experience with MCC on different wedding forum websites and will make sure others in the community know the terrible customer service experience we've received. Without a written contract and not returning our money to us, MCC is wrong in their actions toward us.
Final Business Response /* (4000, 9, 2015/09/09) */
I am astonished at the malicious comments from Ms. [redacted]. She was provided good customer service. We would prefer to not associate our business with a person who behaves in this manner. So if Ms. [redacted] will provide her Discover card number to me, Kitty [redacted], I will refund her.
The Attorney's for the City will be looking to see if there are any libelous statements posted by her anywhere on the internet.
Final Consumer Response /* (2000, 14, 2015/09/22) */