I am extremely disappointed to have to leave this review, but the way this studio operates is unacceptable. I tried out the free class after moving to the area from 1,000 miles away because I work remote and knew no one in my new town. I wanted to meet people, have a reason to get out of the house, and get involved in a healthy habit. Of course part of the intro class is them trying to hard sell you their most expensive package, which is expected. After that, they called and texted me NON-STOP. I was interested and seriously considering joining, but it was borderline harassment.
Ultimately I did end up joining, which is $200 per month. This wasn't really in my budget, but I wanted to give them a try. The agreement was a three month commitment, a little scammy, but okay. I agreed. I enjoyed the classes and my time there, but after three months I was unsure if I wanted to continue with my membership due to travel and finances. I was about to travel for a month, so I wouldn't get use of an entire $200 payment, and after that I had some new expenses that would start up.
I talked to a front-desk employee at the studio in person in the beginning of November (within a 30 day notice of my time out of town) mentioning that I would be gone almost all of December and probably wanted to cancel my membership. They mentioned I could put my membership on hold when the time comes that I go out of town and then decide if I want to cancel after. Great. So, the time came for me to go out of town. I talk to a front-desk employee in person at the studio and they said they can't cancel or pause a membership in person or over the phone, and I have to email the head manager who is the only employee who can cancel or pause a membership and only via email.
So, I email the head manager. I did not get a response for weeks, which ended up being right after my auto-payment date. So, I got charged for the month I had been trying to pause since the beginning of November. I calmly explained the situation and asked for a refund due to the fact that I had been trying to pause since the beginning of November and they did not respond to my email in a timely manner, to which they said no. So, there was my first unethical and scammy $200 charge. At this point my membership was put on pause right after my $200 auto-payment.
During my pause I decided that I was going to cancel for financial reasons, and also because I was pretty upset with how they handled my whole situation. I called the studio at the end of December and no one answered or called me back. So, I sent an email. I politely stated that although I have enjoyed my classes I have decided to cancel my membership immediately due to financial reasons and hope to return in the future.
Again, I did not hear back for over a week. During this time I get a call from the studio saying my membership has been reactivated from my pause. I told the employee on the phone that I have been trying to cancel since November in person, over the phone, and via email, should not be receiving a phone call for a reactivation, and also have not received an answer to my email again. She said that the one single employee who is in charge of membership cancellations and pauses is super busy and can only get to emails every 14 days. I tried staying calm and polite but still held my ground and told her that $200 is a lot of money, I had already been unethically charged $200 once by them, I'm sorry that employee is busy but that is not my problem as a paying customer, and I absolutely will not tolerate them taking yet another penny of my money at this point. She said she understood and apologized. She ensured that my membership would be guaranteed to be canceled and she would see to it that the single employee in charge of doing so would get to it.
Here we are a few days after that final phone call and I finally received an email response from that single employee in charge. Can you guess what she said? "Your membership needs to be active for 30 days in order to process a cancellation. Your final payment of $199 will be on 1/22/24." If this studio thinks they are getting one more penny of my money they can think again. This is absolute robbery at this point! 1/22/24 will be THREE MONTHS since I first talked to them about trying to cancel my membership. At this point I will be filing a dispute with my bank for both the unethical November charge of $200 ($199 if you want to be technical) and the $199 they plan to take from me on January 22nd. I am actually sick to my stomach and appalled. If you think Club Pilates cares about you, your health, or your wellness think again. All they care about is scamming hard-working customers out of hundreds of dollars. Needless to say, I no longer plan to return in the future. read more
