Massage Envy DO NOT GO THERE! THEY JUST WANT YOU TO SIGN A CONTRACT. Dothan Alabama

19:42:05

April 30th, 2014

I had been going through a tough time with my son passing away right before the holidays, so a friend gave me a nice gift certificate for Christmas 2013 to help me relax and unwind from all the stress and depression. It was for an hr massage, aroma threapy, with included the tip. I finally got around to using it Wed April 28th, 2014.

I called and made the appt. Gave my name and was asked if I had a gift certificate and I said yes. I was told to come about 15 minutes early to check in. I arrived at 4:45 for my 5pm appointment. I was greeted by a young pretty friendly girl. She handed me sevral pages of paperwork to fill out. I laughed and asked, "Is the doctor in?" I said that because they wanted a boat load of information that I did not feel was relivant to just getting a massage. I checked the boxs that I wanted my shoulder, back, feet and hands massaged.

The paperwork was very detailed asking me how often I got massages and if I could, how many would I get if cost was not a factor. I checked once a month I think. I left my glasses in the car along with all my cash since I was not supposed to need any.  I was having a heard time seeing the paperwork. I was coming for a relaxing time not a test exam. Then, I was asked to follow the receptionist into another room with dim lights and a water fountain which was soothing.

She began to tell me that I could get massages for $39 a month if I signed a contract  for automatic debit. And I could use the massages as gifts to my friends and family or they would roll over if I didn't use them. Also, if i had a surgery, I could temporaraly have my bank stop the drafts for 6 months to recover. I was kind of excited and was thinking this might work for me.

I picked up a magazine and strained my eyes to see the pages wondering why they had that little waiting room on the side with magazines that I couldn't read. Then, a guy came to get me and introduced himself to me.  I was kind of put off a litte because he smelled like a bad locker room. He led me all around the back side of the business with lots of rooms with doors closed back to the front of the bussiness on the otherside. i said, "Wow! We just took a tour and ended up back where we started." He pointed to a room and told me to get undressed to my comfort level and he would be back.

It took me about a minute to undress. I looked at my clock on my cell phone and it was 5:20. I waited about 10-15 minutes more for him to come back. He was very quiet and was rubbing my back in one spot for about 20 minutes and I was about to scream and say, "Can you please move around and stop that one spot?" But I didn't. I wanted him to do what he was trained to do. However, I did ask him a few questions about how long he had been doing that type of work etc... He assured me that he had been a massage therapist for years and worked several locations for Massage Envy.

He never massaged anything but my shoulders and part of that time was with his elbow. His breath smelled and his hands reeked of smelly tennis shoes or something. I would say I got a 25-30 minute massage. I was shocked when he said, "I am going to step out and take all the time  you need getting dressed." I was like???? I pulled out my camera and took a couple pictures of the room. I noticed that he was using hand sanitizer to give me my massage with. No wonder it smelled terrible and burned my skin I thought.  I looked at my cell phone clock and it was 6:05Pm I got dressed quickly and headed towards the door.

When I oened the door leading to the reception area, the massage therapist guy was standing there with a plastic cup full of tap water. LOL! Not with his stinky hands would I take it. I was put off by that a lot. They want big money for half a*s massages and want to give me a cup of tap water! Bottled water is cheap at Walmart I thought.

I told the receptionist that I didn't get my full hour massage and he never massaged my feet or my hands, just my shoulders. She said he must have ran into a problem area that he had to work on and that happens sometimes. Then she had this contract allready made out for me to sign. It had $59.99 a month instead of $39.00. I told her she quoted me something different. She said, "No, you must have misunderstood me. I said if you need more than one massage a month you can get an extra one for $39.00. Also if you wanted to let your mom have one for Mother's day coming up, it would be a $10 processing fee, plus a $12 tip."

I was all hyped up about getting that $39.00 a month contract. Now I am so disapointed. She was like my bff trying to tell me how much my health would improve and how great I would feel and that they had 8 more massage therapist and I could try a few of them until I found the one i liked and wanted to stik with since I was not happy with...forgot his name.

I asked her how I could cancel my contract if something happened financially and I couldn't afford it anymore. She said I would have to send them a letter 30 days before the drafted time so they could cancel my membership. I felt trapped but also wanted to join very much, but now the prices have changed. I just could not think straight.

The receptionist took over my thinking for me and said I should join and use the free massage in the packet they are giving me today and give my mom the gift certificate and that would be the way she would do it. I said, "Why don't we use the gift certificate I have today and give my Mom one from the packet instead? She said, "great! How do you want to tip today? Through what's left on your gift card or you want to leave a cash tip? I said givwe him a tip off of my gift certificate because that was what it was supposed to be for anyway. She said, "Fne. And how much do you want to give him?"  I said," $10 I guess."

She said, " Great. You can use the other $15 towards auroma lotion next time." I asked, "I have to pay extra for the lotion too?" Why didn't he just give me what was on my gift certificate?" She said, "You wrote you ion the paperwork that you had allergies, so we didn't use any lotion." I said, " Can I just think about this?" She said, "The Special offer is only for today. Just look at how much we money you will save compared to a $100 massage." I said, Yea, you're right, I can't afford a $100 a month massage. Let me just sign this and go home and look over it. I can't see without my glasses anyway."

So I signed the yellow highlighted contract for my signiture. Then she wanted me to use the free massage in the introductory package instead of my gift certificate,...again.... but I was adament that I was going to use my gift card because I was just not sure I was doing the right thing and I needed to check it out when I could read the contract which was in very small font.

I went home and got right into the shower. I smellled so bad, I had to shower again and scrub down good before going to bed. I had to wash all my clothes to get that stinky tennis shoe smell out of my environment. it wasn't myy feet because he never massaged them. The more I thought about the incident, the more I knew that I was going to have to drive over 30 miles to and from the Massage Envy store to get out of this contract the next day.

I called ahead and told them I was coming to bring back the paperwork and coupones and everything and I just wanted out fo the contract. I gave the manager all the coupons and paperwork back and I signed the new contract saying I wanted out of the original one. She had the yellow highlighted areas ready for me. She was so sweet that she told me not to worry about dating the contract that she would do that for me. All I had to do was sign in a couple places.

On my way out the door, I thought I don't have anything proving I just canceled my contract,, so i asked the girl if she could please give me a copy. I said, "I looked everywhere on the contract and on the Internet for how long I had to cancel this contract but I couldn't really find the answer in Alabama. She said I had 72 hours. I thought great! I did it in less than 24 hours. Then it hit me. She didn;t want me to date it. She was going to do that for me. Hum.....That just didn't seem right to me considering all the other stuff that went on there. The only time I ever seen a frown on her face was when I asked for a copy of the afgreement. Tomorrow, I am going to my bank and getting them to notorize my copy of the agreement qnd tell them not to let them debit any money from my checking account.

I sure hope this has helped someone because it took me quite a while to write it. God bless and have a great day!19:41:4419:41:46