Thread: Customer Service - A Misnomer

G'day All,

A number of years ago, when I had worked in my then newly acquired job and was positive about things and life in general I joined a local gym in Bundaberg. Within the month I was told that I was employed by mistake and that the manager had made a spur of the moment decision to employ me. The thinking was that it would be more economical to employ a local person than to fly in fly out people from the company's Brisbane base. It turns out that it was not so I was surplus to the company's requirements. This was after I had resigned from a full time permanent position with the Australian Public Service in Canberra. As a result of my 'surplus state" I was unemployed within three months of my arrival back in Bundaberg. Lesson One: when things seem too good to be true - they indeed are.

So since Bundaberg after two consecutive years of floods had the highest unemployment rate in Australia I was unemployed a lot of the ensuing three years.

Throughout this time I still had to pay gym membership otherwise I would be severely financially penalised and even with options such as having someone else take over the contract I would still have to forfeit hundreds of dollars. It was cheaper for me to keep making the monthly payments while I only had the dole for an income. Being long-term unemployed did not wash as a reasonable excuse with the company as a reason to cancel the contract.

In January I contacted the gym to find out how many more payments I had left before the contract ran out and I could cancel membership. Luckily I also contacted the company contracted to collect payments and catch-up on defaulters. So I let the financial controllers know in advance that I would be contacting the gym to cancel my membership.

When I contacted the gym in January I was informed that I had to arrive at the gym in person before the final payment was due to come out. I had to present them with a written and signed letter stating my intention to cancel my membership. As my final membership was due to come out on the 24th of March I presented myself and the previously described letter at the front counter. I was informed by the male staff member that they could not accept the letter of cancellation until after my final payment had come out. I was in fact told that it "was illegal to accept the letter. Nor could they hold on to it until after the final payment was taken out".

So today I presented my letter to yet another staff member who accepted my cancellation. Then I was informed that because I had made the final payment outside of their 30 cancellation period I would have another month of fees taken out of my account on the 24th of April.

Now as you can imagine I was far from happy about this because their second staff member told me it was "illegal" to accept my cancellation until after the final payment had been received.

I had made contact with three different staff members and was given three totally different stories. Then they were going to financially penalise me because of their own ineptness. No I was, "not happy Jan!"

I then sent an email to the gym's financial brokers outlining what had happened. I also included my email to them sent back on the 20th of January stating that I intended to cancel my gym membership in March.

Luckily within half an hour the financial brokers contacted me back stating that because I informed them of my intention to cancel back in January there would be no further withdrawals from my account.

I can only state the absolute incompetence of the gym in Bundaberg. Yes there are more than one of them here. One of them is full of incompetent staff who are total rip-off merchants.

So to end my vent - customer service between a certain battery company in Bundaberg and a certain gym - Customer Service in Bundaberg is a Misnomer. "Customer service - what customer service?"

Again - sorry for the vent I think my pulse is settling back down now.

Kind Regards
Lionel

I have never been a member of a gym, although I do believe in moderate exercise, such as walking etc.
Your thread had me thinking about the Gym Industry and how competitive it is, within the suburb I live in there are three (that's right three) gyms operating, one of them is one of those 24 hour places, another is a place for women and the other is just a general gym. One wonders how they stay in business.