About a year ago, I was working on my first story for Marketplace. It was the "Big Gym Ripoff",
an investigation of the fitness club industry. We examined and exposed
widespread practices -- the worst of which was how some gyms were billing
people after they'd canceled their membership according to the
contract -- those payments debited from their bank account months sometimes
years after the customer believed they'd left the gym. Hundreds of
Canadians shared their worst experiences with us in a unique national
survey.
One of the characters in our story was Mark Simchison, a former fraud cop with the Hamilton Police. One piece of advice he passed along to anyone planning to join a gym was ask to pay cash to join rather than give personal financial information such as a bank account or credit card number.
Well, Gus James in St. John's Newfoundland contacted us this week. In an e-mail to Marketplace, he explained that he went to two local fitness clubs but both insisted on bank account information or a credit card. Gus persisted and found a local gym that would let him pay cash for a membership.
He added that the gym owner said he would take any form of payment except Canadian Tire Money! Gus concluded his note with this: "I would not have looked into that method of payment had it not been for CBC's TV program. Thank you."
Happy to help, Gus.
One of the characters in our story was Mark Simchison, a former fraud cop with the Hamilton Police. One piece of advice he passed along to anyone planning to join a gym was ask to pay cash to join rather than give personal financial information such as a bank account or credit card number.
Well, Gus James in St. John's Newfoundland contacted us this week. In an e-mail to Marketplace, he explained that he went to two local fitness clubs but both insisted on bank account information or a credit card. Gus persisted and found a local gym that would let him pay cash for a membership.
He added that the gym owner said he would take any form of payment except Canadian Tire Money! Gus concluded his note with this: "I would not have looked into that method of payment had it not been for CBC's TV program. Thank you."
Happy to help, Gus.
