Excessive Gym Fees!

Sydneysider on 07/01/2019 - 13:56
Last edited 12/01/2019 - 00:21

Seeking advice from the wise and sage ozbargainers. I was attending a gym paying $68/month in fees. The gym changed ownership and I (wrongly) assumed fees would stay the same. I just looked at my itemised credit card statement for the first time in a year and a half to realise that they’d been charging me $68/week!!! I checked my emails to find that the new management had sent an email notifying me fees had changed. I had just ignored it. I am also no longer with this gym as it shut down but the company still exists.

Is there any recourse I can take?

Thanks in advance for any advice (and also for not calling me a fool for allowing this to happen).

EDIT: Thanks for your advice everyone. Yes, I am an idiot and yes I will be checking my bank statements more regularly from now on. (Maybe not everyday though). I contacted the gym (despite realising I had no leg to stand on) and they refunded me the difference!!! Who woulda thought ?!?! Thanks again for reading and keep ozbarganing.

Sports & Outdoors Gym

Comments

  • whooah1979 on 07/01/2019 - 13:59
    +1

    I had just ignored it.

    You may call your bank and cancel the direct debit authorisation.

  • bobbified on 07/01/2019 - 14:02
    +1

    You haven't mentioned what period of time this has happened over and how long they have been shut down for.

    I'm sure there's a minimum notice period they must give to change the fees (but I don't know what the actual period is).

    If you can't contact anyone because it's shutdown, I guess a chargeback is what you could seek, but no guarantees. And you should be honest with how it's happened because you ignored the notices and you're therefore not completely blameless in this situation.

  • GG57 on 07/01/2019 - 14:03
    -3

    Any recourse? - I doubt it, as they advised you of the change (and thus provided you with an opportunity to cancel etc.).

    "Excessive Gym Fees" - $68/week is probably not overly excessive (depending on the services offered), for those that like gyms.

  • chumlee on 07/01/2019 - 14:04

    Chargeback for the period it shut down til now based on fee for no product/service

  • [Deactivated] on 07/01/2019 - 14:16
    +4

    new management had sent an email notifying me fees had changed. I had just ignored it.

    On what grounds are you seeking recourse? Defective product? Lack of service? Misleading advertising? Deceptive conduct?

    What do you think?

  • HighAndDry on 07/01/2019 - 14:36
    +3

    I just looked at my itemised credit card statement for the first time in a year and a half to realise that they’d been charging me $68/week!!! I checked my emails to find that the new management had sent an email notifying me fees had changed.

    Were you on a contract or a month-to-month?

    If you were on a contract, that's not sufficient. An email notifying you of the change in fees (especially if it was a 4x increase) isn't remotely enough to actually start charging you those fees unless you actually go in and agree. And no, it can't be something like "If you don't reply to this email it counts as agreeing".

    On the other hand, if you were on a month-to-month or week-to-week arrangement… then you continuing to go to the gym basically counts as you agreeing to pay their fees.

  • John Kimble on 07/01/2019 - 14:42
    +6

    I just looked at my itemised credit card statement for the first time in a year and a half to realise that they’d been charging me $68/week!!! I checked my emails to find that the new management had sent an email notifying me fees had changed. I had just ignored it.

    You failed twice here. Expensive lesson.

    How does one not check their statements at least every month?! Not bragging, but I check it online almost daily! Call me paranoid…

    • ihbh on 07/01/2019 - 14:57
      +7

      Call me paranoid

      Paranoid

    • [Deactivated] on 07/01/2019 - 15:03
      +6

      I call you smart

      • John Kimble on 07/01/2019 - 15:20

        There's a first for everything!

      • DEvok on 15/01/2019 - 04:57

        Smart

  • [Deactivated] on 07/01/2019 - 14:43
    +11

    I just looked at my itemised credit card statement for the first time in a year and a half

    It takes 30 seconds a day to check daily banking activity on phone app. Everyone has a spare 30 seconds everyday. You are just paying a lazy man tax.

  • [Deactivated] on 07/01/2019 - 15:23

    Apart from what you should have done, is there more to the story? It's strange a gym quadruples their fees. How much notice did they give after the email. A month or more? If it was instant, Maybe they knew they were going under and tried to suck out all the money out before the closed it.
    But it would be hard to convince the bank that you didn't know for 1.5 years.

  • altomic on 07/01/2019 - 15:25

    what does your original contract state in terms of who the conract was with? and what would happen if the owners changed?

  • Donaldhump on 07/01/2019 - 15:30
    +14

    i check my balance every 10 minutes, only way i can tell where my wife is

  • ausdday on 07/01/2019 - 16:30

    You signed up for a $68/m gym membership shows you are doing well.
    You didn't noticed they changed the price to $68/w shows you are rich
    And you didn't even attend the gym …. hmmm

    Forget it and move on. You can afford it.

  • tsunamisurfer on 07/01/2019 - 16:41

    So your gym was open with it's new fee structure, informed you, you ignored it.

    Now you want recourse for the new fee structure?

    Dafuq?

  • serpserpserp on 07/01/2019 - 18:32
    +3

    My question is, how do people miss ~$200 extra coming off the credit card a month?

    OP: you have no recourse.

    • Merlict on 21/01/2019 - 11:27

      If you don't notice that much money missing you're either rich or stupid. Maybe both!

  • winhhh on 08/01/2019 - 09:18

    You're a fool

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