Running and Swimming

Running and Swimming

My daughter, Carolyn, who is spending the month of July with us here on the hilltop, is a marathoner. She has run nine NYC Marathons and countless half-marathons. Last year while she was here, she tried running in the neighborhood only to find it too hilly and too warm for her, so this year she has asked me to take her to the gym so she can run on the treadmills. The way L.A. Fitness works is that you can buy a monthly guest pass at a reasonable price, but the guest has to be accompanied by the member. Naturally, this is happening exactly when I have a new garage gym set up. Anyway, I have decided that when I take Carolyn to run, I will use the time to reactivate my swimming program.

Our experience as a family with L.A. Fitness has been less than perfect. Back in early 2020, both Kim and I joined, me to swim mostly and Kim to use their training capabilities to do her favored workouts. Then COVID hit and all of the gyms and other service businesses closed down rather suddenly. Kim had bought a training package and sought to cancel it on the grounds that they were not open and the sessions could not be used. Apparently, that was beyond the refund policy of the company and they could not grapple with the notion that they had not earned their training fees. This so put off Kim, despite the relatively small amount of money involved, that she swore to never again use L.A. Fitness. Once COVID had ended and I was once again in the market for a gym, I joined and suggested she do likewise. L.A. Fitness has three excellent and large gym facilities, all with pools within about a ten mile radius of us. That didn’t matter to her and she remained adamant. I, on the other hand was not so offended and liked to convenience.

I have been using L.A. Fitness, primarily at the San Marcos facility rather than the Escondido gym, and I began with a program of training twice per week, interspersed with 3-4 days of swimming. I tried the aqua aerobics class and found it both uninteresting and less than rigorous. I kept up that program for about six months and then the club started rotating the training staff. That led to me dropping to training once per week until they once again rotated the training staff and I became less that enthusiastic about continuing the training at all, I chose not to renew the weekly sessions and simply didn’t book any further (that’s when I bought the equipment for my home gym). Then I got a text from L.A. Fitness offering me a month-by-month discounted program for what amounted to about a 17.5% discount. After two months of that, I found the trainer turnover made the whole idea unworkable. I called;ed the manager of San Marcos, who I had gotten to know and he said he would take care of it in June. I did not ask for a refund for June, but just to cancel everything except my base monthly membership from July onward.

By coincidence, my credit card on file with L.A. Fitness had to be changed out due to an unrelated fraud breach and that left L.A. Fitness without a payment vehicle for my account. When July rolled around, L.A. Fitness tried to hit my account for some training fees. After multiple telephone calls to explain and resolve the situation, and assurances that they were working on it with “corporate”, I told them I would not be giving them a new credit card to charge until we resolved the issues. They were contending that my newest training agreement ran until October even though I never signed anything to that account, not was I told that was a condition for the “deal”. My credit card file showed that they tried multiple times to hit my account and were rejected. Then, suddenly, they managed to get through and a charge hit my account. I have no idea how that happened. That charge was for the original $50, as though I had ordered an individual training session, which I clearly had not. Once that went through, the monthly $165 hit my account immediately like a guy who sneaks into a theater and opens the door for his pals. I called the gym and got the usual “corporate” double-talk. Meanwhile, i filed a claim with the credit card company about what I called fraudulent transactions. THe L.A. Fitness people must have gotten the message, because the next thing I heard was from the San Marcos manager, who left the message that he had succeeded in getting “corporate” to agree to give me a refund and that the matter was completely settled. Imagine that. I don’t suspect that by refund he was talking about anything other those two July transactions.

Now I have a decision to make. Do I get my dander up the way Kim did and call out L.A. Fitness for the scoundrels I think they are? I found their tactics quite sneaky and clearly aimed at scraping out whatever they could before conceding defeat. I’m actually quite shocked that they took such a shot-term view of the situation and were prepared to risk their reputation over a few hundred dollars, the same amount involved with Kim’s altercation. At least then they could have claimed an Act of God. This time, it was pure and simply pilfering for gain, penny-ante gains at that.

The decision has been made for me by virtue of my daughter’s need to run almost every day and the fact that I have to be in attendance with her for that to happen. Luckily, my years in business make me a little more able to be pragmatic with a situation like this. I would never recommend L.A. Fitness to anyone, and I might even relay our family issues f\with the company, but I would probably just say that whomever was asking keep the club on a short financial leash, not that I ever did anything other than that. I am now thinking that every time I owe them money, I will use my card at the club to pay my membership in arrears rather than give them a card or account information to allow them to draft against me as their corporate offices direct them. It will be a little more trouble for me, but I think it is worth it to avoid the frustration of having this happen again. There is an entire cottage industry now built around scanning and deactivating autopay charges that go rogue. As easy as it is to auto-renew, I suspect it is important to stop this practice as a matter of principle.

So, for now, Carolyn and I will keep using L.A. Fitness until they stop me and then we will have to find somewhere else for our running and swimming.