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I joined WOW gym in 2003 and joined my boyfriend also on my credit card in 2004. When I joined wow, I signed a contract and agreed to make payments to ABC financial because that was the company that wow chose to collect membership dues through. ABC financial has scam after scam, and I felt violated by wow since I came to get a gym membership, not intending for wow to give a company like ABC financial the opportunity to continuously scam me by making excess charges to my account. This is what ABC was doing and according to them this was legal and was actually in my contract that I signed with a wow in front of a wow supervisor who never bothered to inform me of this. When my credit card (like all other members' credit cards) expired and I automatically got a new card in the mail and activated it, it had a new expiration date. This is a normal occurance with credit cards and no other company I have ever dealt with has penalized me for it. The numbers are the same... only the expiration date has changed. That month and every month after, ABC charged my account an extra 20 dollars... so my statement would have a 39.99 charge (19.99 dues plus 20.00 fee). Now, my boyfriend's membership fee was doing the same thing. Our billing dates were different, so ultimately my card was being charged two additional 20.00 fees per month for several months. ABC wanted to do nothing about it since they say I agreed to the terms in my contract. I still don't know if that is true. Also, randomly throughout the year this extra 20.00 fee would show up the same way. ABC told me that I had insufficient funds at those times. Surprisingly,I actually could prove that on those specific dates, there was plenty of money in my account. The way that they finally corrected my account made no sense and I got so frustrated and gave up. I have spoken to others who have had this problem. See, the purpose of the fees is because a business cannot collect money due when it is due, but ABC always collected the money just plus 20.00. And when my card expired, the reasoning behind the penalties was that they couldn't process the transaction. But they did process the transaction but added 20.00 extra on both memberships each month. When I moved, I canceled both accounts on my credit card and both WOW and ABC financial scammed me out of 2 months dues as well as last month (which was already paid) for both my membership and my boyfriends. Any person reading this should beware of both companies... they do not do fair business. Their only corporate contact number is a voice mail, and so far, nobody has returned my calls. If this has happened to anybody else, I would be willing to take action as a group.
WOW uses shady tactics and you have to wait too long to use their bottom of the line equipment and the dumbbells are too big, they should stick with the old fashion. Also, if i want to cancel my membership they should let me. I also dislike that WOW's juice bar supplies creatine (cheating supplement) for only 1.00. The staff and owners should encourage a person to get big or in shape a proper healthy way.
I completely agree with you - both these companies are completely unprofessional, and are out to scam anyone for as much as they can.
I have had a similar issue with them:
I signed a year contract, paying $20.oo a month. When the year was up, I moved in with my fiance who owns a house. When I called to cancel my membership, since the closest WOW gym is about 20 miles from my house, they practically treated me as if I was a slave to them and would not be able to cancel without paying a ridiculous amount of fees.
First, they said I needed to have a lease in my name, which isnt reasonable since my fiance owns his house.
Second, they said I needed to get a new drivers license with the new address. Since I travel weekly for business this would be a big production and would most likely take months to do, since I would have to rearrange my schedule and take off. Since my license doesn't expire until 2009 I don't feel this is fair. In the meantime I would get charged by ABC for as long as it took me to come up with the license and sent it to them.
I asked if they would accept a confirmation of the move from my employer or if they would accept any credit card bill.
They said no.
Third, they said I can only cancel if the move puts me somewhere outside of 30 miles from the gym. Now this point I feel is absolutely INSANE. What if I wasn't satisfied, but still remained in the same location? This is where the feeling of being a "slave to the gym" comes into play.
I do not think this is legal, and I am going to talk to a lawyer about it.
Fourth, the only way to cancel would be to provide this information by mail, to Arkansas. They need you to give them 30 days notice - meaning 2 more payments. Which, since I closed my bank account, equals the 20 dollar charge plus an additional charge of 20 dollars each month.
Needless to say the person I enrolled with only told me that I would have a sign a cancellation form and settle any outstanding debt to cancel with the company. That is obviously not the case.
When I called ABC Financial they were extremely rude and didn't care at all about my situation.
I was lied to by this company, mistreated, and I feel totally victimized!
I plan on calling the Attorney General's Office, and filing a lawsuit against WOW and ABC Financial.
Anyone planning on joining this gym better plan on being a slave to them for life. B/c you wont be able to cancel the membership without paying a LOT of money.