ComplaintsforWorld Gym

• Initial Complaint

  10/02/2024

  Complaint Type:

  Billing Issues

  Status:

  Unanswered

  More info

  The location of this gym that I attended in Akron,OH has been closed for roughly a year now. I have email receipts that prove I attempted to cancel my membership before they closed down. For a couple of months after cancelling, they stopped withdrawing membership fees but then after some time passed they started back up. I have been fighting with this company since May of 2023 trying to get out of my membership with them. I've filed claims with my bank, I've contacted the gym headquarters, and I've contacted the new gym that they "merged" with and sold the existing memberships to. Nothing has worked. Yesterday I had to just cancel my debit card so that they can no longer pull money from my account. The worst part is that by the time I noticed the withdrawals, it was too late for my bank to reimburse the lost money. Chase bank told me that they can only go back 3 months, but there are a total of 12, and counting, months of payments withdrawn. $21.35 every month adds up over time. I just want the shady practices of this business to be brought to light and if I could get the money back that would be amazing too. I know that I'm not the only person to have dealt with issues like this from this gym.

• Initial Complaint

  01/18/2023

  Complaint Type:

  Service or Repair Issues

  Status:

  Unanswered

  More info

  In July of 2022 I thought I cancelled my membership. I was given a single page form which I filled out and gave to the front desk worker. They told me it would be taken care of. I assumed my membership was correctly cancelled. In November I was charged again and then 4 times in December and once again in January for a total of 6 charges of $37.45. After I noticed all these charges the gym manager directed me to their website to report the problem and told me I would be refunded. After contacting them several times he called me and said someone must have “dropped the ball” with my cancellation and that they had no record of it. So I unknowingly paid for 6 months of a gym membership that I didn’t even use because I did everything I was told to do to cancel. Why is it my fault that one of their employees failed to correctly cancel my membership?

• Initial Complaint

  10/05/2022

  Complaint Type:

  Product Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  I've been trying to cancel my membership since this location changed to a World Gym from a Gold's Gym. Now, the first 2 times I tried to cancel, I'd spoken with staff who only felt they needed my name and number on a scrap piece of paper to complete the cancelation. This never happened, and charges continued, each time. I called their manager ****, who expressed that if I'd not filled out a particular form for cancelation, then there was nothing he could do. Why not do your employees know this? Fine. For my 3rd attempt, I filled this form out on April 7, 2022. It was a multipurpose form where I was asked to fill out the top. Apparently, I missed the section where I needed to sign. I can accept that, but what's clear to me, is that if I hadn't caught this, this arrangement was quite acceptable to them, which is insidious for any business. Goodwill, fairness and honesty escapes this establishment with enthusiasm at any and every opportunity. How do literal months go by with 0 intervention? Fast forward to late September, I check my statement, and nothing's changed. I call and speak with someone named Nate, who found my paperwork still on file, unprocessed. He texted me an image of it. He expressed to me that my situation is very common for this location, and would work on it. I think he quit. In fact, check the google reviews for this location; their abhorrent financial practices are a constant. I call a week later, and speak with **** again, who ultimately told me there was nothing they could do, wouldn't refund the money, and called me a **** ******. This strikes me as homophobic, let alone unprofessional. I was able to get my credit card to refund 3 of the latest charges back through July, and they're working on dates prior to then. They're predatory, they weaponize the ignorance of their staff against customers, and then feign further ignorance to dodge and scam customers; old and current.

  Business response

  11/02/2022

  [BBB Transcription via email]

  
  *************************
  1:17 PM (17 minutes ago)
  to me
  
  Hi ********, most of what this guy says is untrue. First of all he hasn't been a member with us since we were Gold's so 
  he couldn't have been trying to cancel for that long. Secondly, I did not or would not call him what he said I did and I don't know how he would have heard it anyway. As soon as I let him know his membership would be cancelled without the cancellation charge but there was nothing we could do about the refund he started screaming at me saying we were worthless and I had no ***** to stand up to my employers on behalf of my customers and he was going to go on a campaign to destroy World Gym *****. 

*Some consumers may elect to not publish the details of their complaints, some complaints may not meet BBB's standards for publication, or BBB may display a portion of complaints when a high volume is received for a particular business. ↩