Burnaby resident Lorrie Hansen says COVID-19 has been stressful enough without her and her family having to fight a fitness company to stop withdrawing money from her bank account for a membership she says is no longer valid.
Hansen, her husband and her son were previous members of Steve Nash Fitness World in Burnaby.
But SNFW imploded earlier this year in a maze of insolvency, creditor protection and court actions. In July, the BC Supreme Court approved the sale of SNFW Fitness B.C. Ltd.’s assets to FW Fitness BC Ltd., which has rebranded as Fitness World. You can read more about the court process and sale in this story here, but Fitness World has retained two of its gyms, at Lougheed Town Centre and on Kingsway. A third site was taken over by Trevor Linden Fitness in the Brentwood area.
Hansen said SNFW stopped withdrawing money from her account earlier this year because all of its gyms closed and the company sought creditor protection. Recently, however, Hansen noticed Fitness World withdrawals from her account and her son’s account had started in August and then September.
Hansen said her contract is with the old SNFW company and not the new one, and she was never contacted by Fitness World to see if she wanted to be a member. Hansen said her family has chosen to work out at home and not go to a public gym.
“We’re still quite hesitant about going to a public gym,” she said.
A second problem, Hansen said, is it’s been difficult to contact Fitness World because no headquarters number or email are listed and staff at the local gyms are unable to deal with the situation.
Hansen then checked out the Fitness World Canada Instagram account and discovered multiple complaints from other SNFW members saying the same thing.
“A lot of old members including myself are being charged several unknown fees and there is no contact information on their website and they have not bothered to respond back,” Hansen said. “I’ve tried to contact the locations and was reverted to an email address. Several complaints and comments on social media but nobody from Fitness World has responded.”
Attached to this story (scroll through the photos above) are screenshots of several complaints from old SNFW members being charged fees without their knowledge or permission.
“Worst gym company ever. Not sure why I started getting charged for the membership after Steve Nash went out of business,” wrote r_lockwood on the Fitness World Canada Instagram account. “Now they won’t stop charging me, and you can’t get in touch with anyone at the company.”
The NOW contacted Fitness World through the media relations company that handles the company’s media requests, Avenue PR, but was told there would be no response to its questions about these complaints at this time.
“How they are conducting business seems backwards to me,” Hansen said. “Other than making stop payments at my bank, I feel that they should be exposed as a lot of old members are being screwed.”
- With files from Hayley Woodin, Business in Vancouver
