Stranded California Fitness members band together in bid to get refunds
The California Fitness at Novena Velocity on July 20, 2016. Photo: Mugilan Rajasegeran/TODAY
SINGAPORE — A total of 331 people have contacted the Consumers Association of Singapore (Case) since last Saturday (July 16) to complain about the recently shuttered California Fitness Singapore gyms, and to seek its advice on getting refunds for membership fees paid.
The complaints began last Saturday morning when California Fitness suddenly announced that its outlet at Republic Plaza at Raffles Place was “closed until further notice”.
Then, just after midnight on Wednesday, an announcement was made that operations at all its outlets — including those at Bugis Junction and Novena Square — would cease immediately because JV Fitness Pte Ltd, which owns and operates the gym, “does not have adequate liquid resources to continue its operations”.
The Case website has an advisory telling consumers who bought California Fitness membership packages using their credit cards or who are paying for them by Giro to contact their issuing bank immediately and ask for a chargeback because of non-delivery of services promised, or to cease Giro payment to California Fitness.
“If the chargeback claim is valid, consumers would be able to get back a refund of the money paid,” the advisory said.
However, if the bank has already paid California Fitness in full and is now collecting monthly instalments from the credit card users, consumers “may still be liable to make monthly repayment to the bank”, said Case.
It added that it was in the midst of contacting the provisional liquidators, Mr Tim Reid and Ms Theresa Ng of Ferrier Hodgson, and would update the advisory accordingly.
Since Wednesday’s announcement that California Fitness would cease operations in Singapore, some upset members have signed a petition hoping to get a refund on their membership fees. Others are considering taking legal action.
Ms Jerilyn Tan wrote on a Change.org petition on Tuesday that she had renewed her membership just a few weeks ago. The club “has ‘cheated’ their members and the public” by making them renew or sign up for memberships despite being aware that they are closing, she wrote.
The petition was initially set up after the gym closed its Orchard Road outlet in February, but gained momentum after Wednesday’s announcement of the closure of all the Singapore outlets.
Writing on California Fitness Singapore’s official Facebook page, a user going by the name of Arti Vinna said she had paid more than S$4,000 to join the club and had not even used her membership.
She wrote that she was planning to file a complaint with (Case) and the Small Claims Tribunal.
Another Facebook user, Ms Maxine Wong, wrote that she had just renewed her membership in March and had spent S$2,200 for a three-year membership. Calling it the “biggest scam of the year”, she said she planned to file a claim at the Small Claims Tribunal.
California Fitness has not responded to these comments.
On its Facebook page, its latest post on July 17 was about the schedule of an upcoming group exercise session.
The company’s website also has no mention of the closure. In fact, a pop-up window inviting people to join the company as employees and a page asking the public to sign up as members still exist.
Some people were sad about the closure of the gym. Ms Diane Wu wrote: “Feeling so so so sad. I have been a member since day 1 in year 2000 at Republic Plaza branch. It’s like a second home to me.”
Ms Natalia Nilasari wrote that she had lost S$1,500 but she was “much more upset to lose my 2nd home for 15 years than the money”.
Some members are already making plans to move on.
Start-up founder Martin Goh, 38, set up Facebook group CalFit Exit on Saturday to try to get people together in hopes of getting a group discount from another chain. The closed Facebook group had about 470 members as of noon Wednesday. “A bunch of us will need to get new gyms and if we can get people together, we might get group buying power,” he said.
