LA Fitness Extraneous Fraudulent Billing Ripoff Dishonest Cheat Fraud Plano Dallas Texas

Oh, trixy, trixy LA Fitness. How you managed to woo me into your web, only to cheat me out of $111.22. Sure, that isn't alot of money or anything, but at this point: It's a war of attrition. I'm going to win, because well, seriously, they ripped me off. As a warning to others out there: Don't do business with LA Fitness, they'll rip ya off. Once again, part of the beauty of the internet is that I can tell everyone about it happening pretty easily. Huzzah to communication to the masses I suppose.

On 11/26/2005 I wandered into the brand new South Plano LA Fitness gym. So new, it didn't actually even open for like two weeks. Nootch. Regardless, I wanted a gym close to my house with an indoor pool. Alex, your average smarmy, slimy salesman showed me around the place and I dug it. Fantastic, I'll take it, sign me up so I too can become part of the mindless-eplipticalling masses. Some monthly dues and a one time membership fee of $226.22. Oh man, and I can pay $115 now, and the $111.22 by February 1st? Fantastic. Charge it, I'll put it on my Credit Union Debit Card. (With a Visa logo, for the record)

A couple weeks go by, the gym opens, and on one of my ventures to the land of sweaty-soccer-moms and big-scary-bodybuilders, the friendly sixteen year old at the front desk mentions there's a balance of $111.22 on my account, the other part of my membership fee. Knowing full well that it's only the middle of December and I still have a month and a half to pay the tab, I decide well, I might as well just pay it off now, I can afford it.' *shrug* You know what sixteen year old, charge it to my Credit Union Debit Card. (Same one, with the same Visa logo) Of course, I complain when apparently the oh-so-wise-and-knowledgable sixteen year old does something to botch my the whole getting a receipt' problem, but since it's charged, it's easily trackable through my Credit Union's online banking system. (Full disclosure, my Credit Union is now a bank: Viewpoint Bank) Really, for the most part, receipts are so archaic these days anyway, but that's another subject. So, all is well and good in the land of Nod; I sweat to the boom-boom-boom-tiss music and enjoy my time at the gym as much as humanly possible.

Around the middle of January, Alex, the smarmy salesman, calls and leaves a message on my voice mail while I'm in class. He's just making a friendly call to remind me that $111.22 is due by the end of the month. No problem says I, I return the call to the number he provided and leave him a brief message stating I already paid the money to the gym early. Aren't I such a good consumer? It never really crosses my mind again, until I notice a charge from LA Fitness for $111.22 on my debit card, dated February 2.

Alright, no big deal, I'll just call the gym and ask what's up. I've worked handling credit card transactions before, I know it's pretty easy to d**k up sometimes, and not terribly hard to correct. I call the gym, immediatly, on Feb 2nd actually, to inquire about the extra charge.

Right off the bat, whomever answers the phone is less than pleasant, she's too busy at the moment to look up my member number so she can look up my account. Cool, no problem, I can find it myself. I explain my situation again (because three minutes was way too long for the busy gym desk person to remember a couple sentences I guess), and she says: oh, you'll have to talk to Alex, but he's at the McKinney store now, I'll take your number and have him call you. As much sense as that makes, I realistically have little reason not to believe her, so I give her my number and leave it at that.

Then a week passes, then two. Alright, well apparently there's something rotten in Denmark, so I go to the gym and ask to speak with a manager.

First, the manager assures me they did not bill me twice for the same fee. Then he pulls up my account and says: Oh, well I'll be. He's looking at the screen and tells me the date of the two payment transactions. Here's a charge on Dec 16, and here's another on Feb 2. Well, hmm. Then he asks if I have receipts. He's sitting there, looking at HIS records of when (and if) I paid, and asks for receipts. I explain their printer was down when I paid in person, and the second charge was auto-drafted. But before he can give me that: Oh, well, if you don't have a receipt bs, I tell him I can get transaction records from my Credit Union no problem.

So, I go home, dig out my bank statements and take them to LA Fitness the next day. The manager (who was kinda an a*****e) makes copies of them, then informs me that the local gym actually has zero to do with billing, and it'll have to go to the corporate office. Well, alright. I guess that makes sense since when they charge my credit card it is listed as LA Fitness, Irvine CA. No sweat. They'll take care of it.

Weeks pass. A month passes, no word. The manager at the gym keeps saying it has to go through corporate - no phone number is given, nothing. LA Fitness has been holding my $111.22 hostage for quite awhile now, so I do what any broke consumer-done-wrong would do: I file a complaint with the Better Business Bureau. I sit and wait, growing increasingly irritated.

Eventually, I do win this battle with the evil fitness empire. In early April (Hey, only 2 months!) after the extraneous charge was made to my credit card, BBB sent me an email letting me know that LA Fitness realised the error of their ways and would contact me and refunding my account shortly. LA Fitness never contacted me, but a couple of days later, my debit card was indeed refunded. Consumer victory. Ah, but how short victory can be. On April 10, my debit card was once again charged $111.22 by LA Fitness. You've got to be kidding me.

This time I have my BBB report complete with contact information for anything else pertaining to my issue: Aylin Medina (972) 964-5916. Sweet, no problem; I call and leave a message. No response. I call and leave another message, again, no response. Okay, well, enough of this dicking around: I'm taking it to my bank and Visa. F*** these bi***es, I've tried to resolve this for long enough. I go to my bank and explain my situation. Jackass at the bank doesn't understand that I've been charged three times now (and refunded once) for something I only should have paid for once. The extra charge is April 10, 2006; give me back my money oh ye of Visa Zero Liability Fraud Protection. The problem may take 2-3 months to resolve. Well, It's already June by this point (Because really, I very seriously did try to resolve this before it got to the point of getting nasty credit card people involved), so LA Fitness has already taken 4 months to not resolve it. Hey, I may have the money by Christmas I think.

I leave the matter up to my bank (formerly my Credit Union), and inform I'm going to basic training at the end of July. If they have an issue, they'll need to call the Red Cross. My bank sends me a letter dated August 3rd (but postmarked August 29) saying LA Fitness sent them a copy of my contract, where I said I'd give them $226.22 and provides my bank (or Visa, whomever is actually handling it) information for the transactions dated 11/26/05 and 2/2/06. Apparently whatever jacka** was looking at the paperwork and my bank records completely missed the charge in December.

We'll ignore the fact I clearly stated information regarding the initial illegitimate charge, the BBB complaint, refund, and second erroneous charge in my complaint to my bank when I filed it. Case closed, they won't refund my money, because when they reviewed the case, I owed the money and LA Fitness collected it. Somehow the fact that I paid twice completely eluded them.

So, I get the letter while I'm in Missouri, at Basic Training. Not much I can do about that now then, eh? Not to mention that it's the end of September before the letter even reaches me. I call my bank's customer care line at the bottom of the letter and am told by the representative: I need to go into a branch office to resolve this. Fantastic, the nearest branch is only seven-hundred miles away, and I'm sure my drill sergeant would be down with me just road tripping back home.

Fast forward to October 6th when I get home from Basic. I go into my bank, patiently explain the entire situation to the very friendly banker (with a trainee) even, and he submits a second fraud report to whomever handles these things. (It sounds like my bank reviews it, then sends it to Visa) A week passes, and the same friendly banker calls me and tells me Visa won't even review my case because it's been over 60 days since the charge was made. I cannot believe this series of events, it's gotta go down as some of the worst customer service ever, on every front.

Reina
College Station, Texas
U.S.A.

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STOP! ..before you think about using the Better Business Bureau (BBB)... CLICK HERE to see how other consumers were victimized by the BBB's false or misleading information. Don't be fooled! It has been reported, when there are thousands of complaints and other investigations underway by authorities, the BBB has no choice but to finally give an UNsatisfactory rating to a BBB member business that is paying the BBB big membership fees every year. When a business is reported that is NOT a BBB member, BBB files WILL more likely show an UNsatisfactory rating, then reportedly shake down that company to become a member of the BBB. One positive thing about the BBB is, either way, if a business has an unsatisfactory rating with the BBB, you can be sure, the business is bad. But what about all those BBB member businesses that had complaints filed against them? Consumers never get to hear about them. What about the BBB advertising to the public? Is this a false and misleading perception they are giving about consumer confidence when dealing with a business? Click here to understand more of what consumers and business alike are saying about the BBB. You decide. ..Remember. The BBB membership is not earned, it's paid for!