Case receives 331 complaints about California Fitness

SINGAPORE — A total of 331 people have contacted the Consumers Association of Singapore (Case) since last Saturday (July 16) to complain about the recently shuttered California Fitness gym. Some 225 complaints were made on Wednesday alone. These complaints related to getting refunds for membership fees paid or consisted of people asking Case for advice. These complaints related to getting refunds for membership fees paid or consisted of people asking Case for advice .

The complaints began on Saturday when California Fitness suddenly announced that its outlet at Republic Plaza at Raffles Place was “closed until further notice.” Just after midnight on Wednesday, an announcement was made that operations at all of its outlets would cease immediately because the company which owns and operates the gym “does not have adequate liquid resources to continue its operations“.

The Case website now has an advisory telling consumers that those who bought membership packages with the fitness club using their credit card or who are paying by GIRO should contact their issuing bank immediately and ask for a chargeback due to non-delivery of services promised and/or to cease GIRO payment to California Fitness.

“If the chargeback claim is valid, consumers would be able to get back a refund of the money paid,” the advisory said.

However, if the bank has already paid California Fitness in full and is now collecting monthly installments from the credit card user, consumers “may still be liable to make monthly repayment to the bank,” said Case.

The association said it was in the midst of contacting the provisional liquidators, Mr Tim Reid and Ms Theresa Ng of Ferrier Hodgson, and Case would update the advisory accordingly.

Since Wednesday’s announcement that the gym would cease operations in Singapore, some upset members of California Fitness have signed a petition hoping to get a refund on their membership fees while others are talking about taking legal action.

Ms Jerilyn Tan wrote on a Change.org petition on Tuesday that she had renewed her membership just a few weeks ago. The club has “‘cheated’ their members and the public to continue to renew or sign for membership despite being aware that they are closing,” she wrote. “This is deceitful of (C)alifornia (Fitness) to make its members and the public believe that the gym membership they are signing for will follow through.”

The petition was initially set up after the gym closed its Orchard Road outlet in February but the petition gained momentum after the announcement of the closure of the gym’s Singapore outlets.

Writing on California Fitness Singapore’s official Facebook page, a user going by the name of Arti Vinna said that she had paid more than S$4,000 to join the club and had never even used her membership. She wrote that she was planning to file a complaint with the Consumer Association of Singapore as well as the Small Claims Tribunal.

Another Facebook user, Ms Maxine Wong, wrote that she had just renewed her membership in March and had spent S$2,200 for a three-year membership. Calling it the “biggest scam of the year”, she said she planned to file a claim at the Small Claims Tribunal.

California Fitness has not responded to these comments. On its Facebook page, its latest post was about the schedule of an upcoming group exercise session which was posted on Sunday, July 17. The company’s website also has no mention of the closure and in fact, anyone going to the website is greeted with a pop-up window inviting people to join the company as employees. A page asking the public to sign up as members of California Fitness still exists but it leads to the contact details of the club’s outlets at Bugis, Raffles Place and Novena Square, which are now shut.

Mixed in amongst the anger were people who were sad about the closure of the gym. Ms Diane Wu wrote: “Feeling so so so sad. I have been a member since day 1 in year 2000 at Republic Plaza branch. It’s like a second home to me.”

Ms Natalia Nilasari wrote that she had lost S$1,500 but she was “much more upset to lose my 2nd home for 15 years than the money.”

Apart from anger and sadness, some people are making plans to move on. Start-up founder Martin Goh, 38, quickly set up a Facebook group CalFit Exit on Saturday to try to get people together in hopes of getting a group discount from another chain.

“A bunch of us will need to get new gyms and if we can get a people together, we might get group buying power,” he said.

The closed Facebook group had about 470 members as of 11.30am on Thursday. However, only about 140 people have actually emailed him to say they were interested in joining him in looking for another gym, he said.

Mr Goh said that in his preliminary talks with other chains, he has found very little movement on monthly rates. However, he was not disheartened by his finding. “It says they look after their members and that they have a sustainable business model, unlike California Fitness.”

Mr Irving Henson, the managing director of gym The Pit Singapore said: “No matter how you look at it, it’s not good news (for the gym industry as a whole).”

He noted that the closure would mean that the freelance trainer market would probably going to get even more saturated, which smaller and newer gyms might see as more competition.

“Members who just forked out a large sum of money are going to be reluctant to buy a new membership so quickly or readily,” he said.