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Background: In March of 2004, my husband signed me up for a one-year membership at a famous-name gym. He had the monthly dues drafted from his personal checking account. Later, I went in and signed up for the child care facilities, and had them charge the monthly dues on my check card (taking the money from our joint checking account).
My husband was charged as agreed upon for my membership, but no money was getting taken out of our joint account for the child care. In June, I got called into the manager's office. This was not the same manager I signed up with - he had been fired. This newer manager told me my paperwork had been lost. My membership information had been entered into the computer, but my child care paperwork hadn't. In any case, ALL of my paperwork was lost. I had never received a copy of the membership contract - when I looked in my gym folder, all that was given to me was a copy of my personal trainer agreement. The manager asked me to fill out replacement paperwork, which I did. I also asked at that point if they could start taking my membership dues out of our joint account instead of my husband's personal checking account. She said that would be no problem.
At some point that summer, my original child care paperwork had been found, because I was getting double billed for child care. By then, the gym had outsourced the handling of their accounts, so I had to call THAT company. It took me weeks to get that issue straightened out, but I was eventually refunded for the overcharges.
Fast forward to today. I called the company handling the billing just to make sure there was no automatic renewal clause on my contract. I signed up for one year, and I did not wish to renew.
The CSR I talked to told me that my contract was until June, and I had four more payments left, plus child care.
It was immediately clear to me what had happened - when I signed replacement paperwork in June, it was entered into the computer as a NEW one-year membership. I tried to explain this to the CSR. She said she would have to "check into" it. She put me on hold, then disconnected me.
So I had to call back. I waited on hold for almost ten minutes and got a different CSR. I had to go through the whole story again. This CSR told me that all she could do was "research" the matter, and that it would take "AT LEAST" (her words) a week to receive a response for me. I told her that was crazy - I did not want another payment drafted from my checking account on the 20th! I didn't sign up for or agree to a contract extending to June, and I want out NOW.
She told me that she would need my original paperwork as proof. I said nobody appeared to HAVE the original paperwork, and that's how we got into this mess to begin with! She said I would need written proof that the June paperwork was not a new one-year contract or she couldn't do anything. At this point, I was boiling angry.
I called the gym and asked for help handling the matter. I was told that all billing issues are supposed to be handled through the company I had just gotten off the phone with. I explained that I had just tried that. I told this woman the story of what had happened with my paperwork. As soon as I mentioned the name of the original manager who'd helped us get me signed up, she said, "Oh! You'd better talk to our general manager."
I could feel the anger abating somewhat.
When the GM came on the line, I went over the whole story yet again. He looked me up in their system and saw clearly that I was to have a March to March one-year contract. He said he was sorry I'd had so many hassles. He said he would make a phone call, take care of everything, and I wouldn't be billed again.
I was competely mollified. How strange to go from frustrated fury to total relief in such a short period of time. I was so sure it was going to be another situation it would take weeks to solve.
My point? None, really. Just wanted to hear myself talk, so to speak. And to say that I HATE being required to have payments for anything automatically drafted from my account (my health insurance and life insurance providers require this too - I'd rather write a monthly check!). There's just too much room for error.
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