Consumers who plan to join a health club so as to stay in shape for the summer beware: it will be difficult to drop out once you give in and enter the contract under the aggressive tactics of the sales.
Complaints about the heavy-handed sales tactics of the health club have shown an upward trend over the past four years. The Consumer Council had received 94 complaint cases in 2008, 172 in 2009, 184 in 2010. For the first six months of 2011, 119 complaint cases had been received, compared to 102 cases received during the corresponding period of 2010, a 17% increase.
Among the easy targets of the health club are the weak-willed, who sign up for membership costing tens of thousands of dollars for the numerous sessions which one finds difficult, if not impossible, to complete before the contract expired.
These consumers are often lured to health clubs by gifts and free trial offers where they face high pressure sales tactics and have their credit card and personal belongings deliberately withheld to prevent them leaving the place.
Sometimes, they are taken to a room where consumers are bombarded with rounds of sales pitches before they end up paying huge amount for membership plan.
Many will find the promises of the salesmen attractive, as they are offered easy entry into the plan like payment by monthly instalment; membership extension in case of injuries and pregnancies; and privileges like eligibility to use other branches of the health club.
But once they signed the contract and found out all these promises would have been difficult to realize, it may be too late already, as shown in the cases below.
Case One: Psychiatric Patient Unable To Pay For A HK$60,000 Membership Plan
Mr. Chan was lured to a health club by offers of free gifts, where he was pressured into buying a health club membership plan and personal training contract worth HK$60,000 while both his identity card and credit card were withheld by the staff.
His mother later took his case to the Council, claiming that his son, who was a psychiatric patient, had signed the contract under the influence of drugs. She sought to stop the membership and requested refund of the HK$40,000 paid, saying that her son was not capable of honouring the contract as he was chronically unemployed due to the suffering of mental illness.
Upon the company's request, Mrs Chan further provided medical report of her son, which showed that he had been suffering from serious mental illness for more than a decade.
Despite this, the company insisted that the consumer should continue to pay and that they would only agree to freeze the consumer's membership for the time being. Subsequently, the Consumer Council advised Mrs Chan to take civil action on her son's behalf.
Case Two: Consumer Unable to Complete All Training Even With Six Sessions A Week
Mr. Lee had enrolled in a 3-year health club membership plan, but soon after signing the agreement, he was approached by the instructor every three to four days to take additional training sessions like weight-lifting and boxing. Without checking his own schedule, Mr. Lee purchased a total of 400 training sessions that worth up to HK$600,000 in three months' time. As a result, he had to attend six four-hour sessions weekly, up from the initial plan of three one-hour sessions a week.
Soon after he realized that he was not able to complete all training sessions before the contract expired, he took his case to the Council. He requested the company to revoke the contract and refund the remaining fees. The company turned down his requests and Mr. Lee had to pursue his claims through legal means.
While consumers are advised to look out for the hard-sell tactics of health clubs, they should be aware of the liabilities when they signed up for the membership. If they sign up for too many classes at one time, they will be subject to losses if they cannot complete the sessions before the contract expired.
Most personal training programmes do not constitute an agreement with individual instructors, in situations where there is a change of instructor or the trainer resigned, the contract could not be voided. In addition, most personal training contract carries an expiry date.
Consumers should read the contract terms carefully and pay close attention to the rejoining fees and late payment charges. Some health clubs would require permanent members to renew their membership every year, and their membership may be cancelled if they failed to do so.
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