CBC Blindsides Fitness Industry
On Monday September 20th 2010, the Canadian fitness industry was blindsided by a negative news segment from the CBC’s National program.
A fitness facility in Canada was accused of charging previous members a fee even after they had canceled their membership. According to the segment complaints such as these are amongst the top five consumer complaints made to the Better Business Bureau, regarding the fitness industry in Canada.
The news story also indicated that complaints to the Better Business Bureau have risen over 400% since 2004. Based upon their statistics there were 654 complaints lodged in 2008 against individual fitness facilities. However what the segment failed to consider is that this number only represents 0.0001635% of the total of number of members within the Canadian fitness industry. When looking at the whole picture, there is only a small percentage of complaints in comparison to the total number of fitness club members in Canada.
Unfortunately this story is only the tip of the iceberg insofar as CBC Marketplace has conducted a three month investigation and survey called the: Big Gym Ripoff , which is airing on their premier episode on January 7, 2011.
Currently FIC is endavouring to work with Marketplace to ensure that a fair and balance approach is taken for their coverage. Given the sensitive nature of this story, FIC would ask that fitness clubs and club owners contact FIC directly on this issue if they have concerns and not to approach Marketplace or comment directly on this story.
For more information contact:
Brian Gilbank
Executive Director
Fitness Industry Council of Canada
bgilbank@ficdn.ca
780.732.5020
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October 3rd, 2010 at 4:45 am
I am pleased as usuual to see FICC and Brian Gillbrank coming to our defense on these important matters. The fitness club memberships can be a tough committment to get people to honor. We have always focused on maintaining customer satisfaction to the point we many times reimburse and sacrifice time and money to keep others happy. On our contract agreements we have our members initial the portion of the contract stipulating at the end of year they will give us 30 days notice written notice with intent to quit otherwise dues will continue to come out until this stipulation has been fulfilled. We rarely have an issue if anything it tends to be members trying to break there committment because they wish not to pay monthly fee due to there own lack of sticking to their program. All our protocols and procedures are geared to produce members success in their goals, for example trainers free to clients and motivational missing calls by staff within two weeks of clients last visit. As a business owner I have found myself focusing to much on keeping all happy only to sacrifice our own growth due to time and money spent with little consideration to what a business suffers from this lack of honoring an agreement. Sure life gets in the way whether it be a sickness or a loss of job, we understand and work with the situation at hand to keep all parties happy. Creating a healthy lifestyle for one is invaluable especially when the help is offered at such a small cost. In saying this more accountibility must be placed on the client to honor and realize why they joined the facility and what they have committed too. You can”t take a mortgage out from a bank and then say I think I will not pay and walk away from the deal. This CBC article can only make it worse for those who are fair and really do care. How about read the contract fully and then decide whether you are truly are being ripped off.