Platinum Fitness

added photo of the man that passed away and still was charged a gym membership and wouldn't reimburse his account.

I joined a gym called NY Fitness with my husband. Covid came and my husband got sick with Covid and was in the hospital, made it but was put on many medications. After a few months we decided to cancel our membership because he wasn't feeling well on this new medication and couldn't do the workouts even lightly. He spoke to Karl and asked him to end our membership. Karl said he would right away. I was there also and asked Karl if we have to fill out any paperwork. He told us, "No, I'll take care of it right away" A few months later he sent everyone an email telling us he is closing the doors on the 11th (as I can recall) because he sold the gym. Also said in the email that we can sign up with the new company, Platinum Fitness or join another gym nearby, Planet Fitness. The gym was closed down for over a month before the new gym opened.
Turns out Karl never stopped our membership but sold it along with the gym to Platinum Fitness. We didn't know and was never contacted by Platinum Fitness about them having obtained our membership. My husband wasn't well but he said he is doing ok when I asked him if he needed help. He did the bills and never looked at the credit card statements. This wasn't normal for him. At the end of December 2021 he was hit by a pick up truck and died the next day on January 1st 2022.
Two weeks later I got his credit card statement in the mail and saw some odd charges on it. After making calls over 2 days I found that the charges was from Planet Fitness as membership charges.
I spoke to Atle a manager at the gym on the phone and she told me they don't give back membership fees, its their policy. I told her this is a different situation because he died on the 1st of January and you billed a membership fee on the 1st of January (2022) and this is a different situation. She tells me it doesn't matter what the situation is they don't refund membership fees. I asked her a question on if she knew what I had learned about companies giving back only up to 2 months of refunds for consumers issues like this and she just went off like a brat. It upset me and I began hollering back at her and she told me to come into the office to end my membership and sign a paper. In which I did the nest day.
She wasn't in the gym when I was in but a guy was there to get the information from me. We had a conversation in which he disagreed of what Karl had said. He was saying that Karl did tell everyone that there would be a smooth transition on memberships from his gym to the new gym. I asked him if he had that email? Because he didn't say this. So they are lieing to back up their big mistake.
More lies. I had called to first find out who to talk to at Platinum Fitness and spoke to a young sounding guy on the phone that told me to talk to Atle about it. She is the only one that can stop memberships. I told him of the problem that I ran across and he said that they have been getting many calls with the same stories. So Karl pulled a big fraud.
Atle tells me that there was some miss-communication with the start of things but everything they done was perfectly legal! Scamming people and not letting your members know you now have their account isn't legal to me. Also is billing a dead man for a gym membership and not giving the money back legal? It doesn't sound like fair trade to me.
I decided to change our charge card account number because who knows what else could have been having revolving payments that I didn't know about. I'm glad I did. That caused the gym's billing system to send me a personal bill.
I seen on the bill that they have a New York Fitness logo on it and I realized this is just a franchise under another name! I tried to get confirmation on more information and for them to tell me what I signed that they are not required to give my husband back his membership money? But I failed. I sent an email out to ask for the owners name because I have too many questions and I want confirmation on the cancelled membership I just made. Like what date is it really cancelled since you billed me another time? I want it in writing, sent to my house.
This was the customer's service response. "We are not allowed to give out that information." Even though I explained some of why I want him to read my letter and handle the issue. I asked for her last name, I could send my letter to her. She won't give me her last name either. I'm talking to a ghost.
Whatever the setup is with gyms, they are a rip off and you have no rights. I am going to write to the attorney generals office and see what they can do for this situation for me, or trying this website out. At least to warn people of the games the gyms play because the government lets them do it because it's all legal.