Celebrity Fitness Scam

~ Originally posted on Facebook. Feel free to share the post and spread the word.~

We were told by a self-proclaimed person in charge at Celebrity Fitness 1Utama that we can "make all the fuss (we) want" about this matter. Since we have nothing to lose, here we are making a "fuss".

To mark our year with a positive start, three friends and I decided to join a gym. In mid-January we went to Celebrity Fitness to enquire on how to join and become a member. Now one would think that they will have their prices clearly stated in black and white, but no. They have nothing of the sort and we ended up having to negotiate for hours on the amount to pay for their monthly membership fee, with their sales representative – Maggie.

When we were about to sign the contract of agreement, we noticed a clause on the contract saying that "Celebrity Fitness has the right to increase the membership fees without prior notice". At that point, we decided not to sign and asked Maggie about the clause, which all of us clearly disagree with. She verbally promised us that there will be NO increase of membership fees, and even mentioned that even if the fee does increase, it will not affect any new member signing up this year. To further convince us on how sure she is on this matter, she told us that since she works in the gym, we could always go to her should any matter arise, and she would help us solve it,.

That was a month and a half ago.

Yesterday, when my friend and I went to the gym, I wanted to pay my gym membership fees for March. I was told by the girl working at the payment counter that my membership fees had been increased! Needless to say, my friend and I were puzzled. Immediately we requested to speak to Maggie.

When we asked her about the price increase, she said it was because of the increase of government tax. As much as we would like to believe her, the ruling to increase the government tax had already been implemented and started on January BEFORE all of us signed up. Yet, she did promise us that there will be no increase of membership fees. Moreover, the increase of government tax is just 1% but we were asked to pay 4%-5% extra monthly, of what our current monthly gym membership is right now.

After a slight negotiation with Maggie, I asked to speak to the branch manager or a person in charge of the branch. However, she told us that she is the biggest of ranks in that branch, and impolitely told us that we will have to "go to Jakarta because there are no managers or the likes in Malaysia."

When we question her about what that we can do, she told us bluntly that we can make all the fuss we want, but we will still have to pay the amount they are asking for, and started a lengthy speech saying that ALL fitness centers in Malaysia are increasing their membership fees. However, when I asked a colleague of mine who is a member of another gym center earlier this morning, she told me that she hasn’t heard of such a thing from her gym center.

We also questioned Maggie how many times they can/will increase the price in a year; she kept quiet. When we told her that we wanted to cancel our membership, we were told that we will have to pay a penalty of RM400 if we wanted to do so. She also reminded us that the contract we signed clearly states that they are allowed to increase our membership fees without prior notice; contradicting to what she promised us verbally when we refused to sign up for the package a month ago.

I wonder how many other unknowing consumers have they tricked into signing up using this tactic, and how many have kept quiet and just pay whatever the fitness center is asking them to pay from time to time. I know verbal contract is a valid contract. But right now, she is in-a-way backing away from her words and forcing us to pay the amount, which might increase again in the not-too-distant-future!

Since we were so nicely asked by their self-proclaimed person in charge to make all the fuss we want, we hope that this message will manage to reach everyone out there and be aware that Celebrity Fitness is scamming people in such a way to join their gym and ‘extorting’ money out from its members. The price increase of a few ringgit is not the main issue here, but the way they are doing business is.

If the "real" person in charge is reading this, we really do hope to hear from you: On why the sudden increase of price; on your staff who gave us empty promises and scammed us into signing up; and how you can compensate us.

On the other hand, if there’s anyone out there who knows what we can do about this, and how can we go about doing it, please do advise.