Johny Druckmann and the Ontario Consumer Beware List

The following appeared when I searched the Ontario Consumer Beware List:

I did the same search using the term “Pavilion” and this is what I came up with:

Eventually they settled with me (but not before I suggested I would make a formal complaint), and we came up with a contract going forward.  But this list of charges doesn’t surprise me in the least.   I wasn’t completely satisfied with the way they handled my case, and that is why I started this blog.

Complaint heeded

I made a complaint the other day, and next time at the Pavilion, I was surprised and pleased that the maintenance staff attended to the matter and fixed the problem (well, not 100% but they at least tried).

Join us?

I check this blog every couple weeks, and no one has ever made a comment.  But I am willing to make other people bloggers.  Please join us.

Lost credit card

I lost my credit card.  Now that the Pavilion doesn’t have a valid credit card, I’ve decided to pay by cheque from now on.  I lose the points on my credit card.  But I gain the peace of mind that if the Pavilion wants money from me, they are going to have to get it from me personally, and they won’t have the ability to charge a third party (Visa or Mastercard) for a service that they aren’t providing.

They will never get a credit card number from me again.  Some people just can’t be trusted with that kind of power.

Curiously, I was talking to another member some months ago who likewise said he would never give them a credit card number.  But he was smarter than me–he never gave them his credit card in the first place.

Current price of membership at the Pavilion

Since we’ve been members of the Pavilion we’ve never seen a published price for membership.  It is not advertised on their website.

Currently, I have seen a recent contract for the following prices for a regular membership:

$99.95 per month

$799 per 12 months paid in full (GST = 39.96) = $838.96

Snap Fitness 24-7: Financial Post article

An article today in the Financial Post features Snap Fitness 24-7 clubs.  There is one located close to the Pavilion at Clark and Dufferin.

The club only has weights and cardio.  There is no pool, no shower, no racket sports, no gym.  But it is open 24-7, a feature important to some customers of the Pavilion.  Some have been hurt by the new reduced hours, not me.  But I feel for those who paid for a one-year membership and with the understanding that the place would be open–but now there was no way out of the contract.  It is a “gotcha” factor which the Pavilion has mastered.  When I went into Snap, the guy told me there was a Pavilion customer who joined their club because it was open 24-7, and so he is paying now for two clubs until his Pavilion membership expires.  Too bad.

There is one very nice feature about the Snap which the article mentions; Darko Vasic, Canadian director spoke about their memberships:

“People tend to sign up for gyms for a variety of reasons, but they end up cancelling,” Mr. Vasic says. “We’ve given them no excuse not to use it.”

If they cancel for any reason, there are no shackles. “What we’ve done is removed the biggest barrier to entry … which is that contract you have to sign,” he says. “There is no long-term contract, but despite that we still have the lowest attrition rate in the industry.”

If they cancel for any reason, there are no shackles. “What we’ve done is removed the biggest barrier to entry … which is that contract you have to sign,” he says. “There is no long-term contract, but despite that we still have the lowest attrition rate in the industry.”

Wow.  Wouldn’t it be cool if the Pavilion could give us one reasonable and straightforward price, and we just paid by the month.  Then the renewal of long range contracts would no longer be an bone of contention.  I’ve met not a few people who were so pissed off by the renewal process at the Pavilion that they quit.

Credit Card Fiasco

I naively thought that if I got in a dispute with a vendor, I could cancel the credit card payment.  But this is not true.  The credit card company is apparently legally obliged to pay the vendor in certain cases.  This comes as a shock to customers with unexpected charges from their sports club.  Here is an interesting case, which I will summarize:

http://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/0/279/RipOff0279640.htm

Mike of Richmond Hill warns against the Pavilion; it is an interesting read about a customer who claims to have canceled via telephone and seven months later received a charge for his membership on his credit card.  He disputed it with credit card company, who initially reversed the charges, but when Pavilion accounting presented the contract which gave them the right to make the charges, Mike then was forced to pay.  When Mike said he would take it to court, so he claims, Jennifer said she looked forward to seeing him there.

Here is the relevant part of the contract, item 2 on the back page:

Customer may rescind agreement at any time after the initial (12) month term as set out on the front of this agreement upon thirty (30) days notice by hand delivering written notice to the Manager/ Operator at the Club location address set out on the front of this agreement at which time the Member will receive a signed and dated cancellation receipt.

When I spoke to my credit card company, they said that these lines then give the Pavilion the legal right to charge the customer a monthly fee, if he or she fails to cancel in writing the agreement at the end of the initial 12 months.  Therefore, my credit card company could do nothing about the charges.  Mike would likely have lost in small claims court.  I did hear from a lawyer who won in small claims court, but in his case, the Pavilion had apparently raised the price without fair warning.  Another lawyer told me that there is the customer’s sense of justice and fair play, and then, there is the law.  And in court, it is the law that matters.

Apparently Mike doesn’t realize this but the Pavilion is not alone in this practice.  So Caveat emptor!  I was shocked to hear that the credit card company wouldn’t support me.  After all, I am the one paying the bills.  But this is the reality. That 12-month contract that you sign is a legal agreement between the sports club and you; and it places legal obligations upon you that you cannot get around.

My advice again is not to neglect your renewal and if you want to quit, don’t just walk away.  Go in and cancel your membership in writing and get that receipt, because the paperwork is the only thing that your credit card company can respect.  You can tell the Pavilion you quit until you’re blue in the face.  It will do no good.  They will keep charging you and you will have to pay, or go in like I did and plead with them to give you a 12 month contract (of course, I did this within the first couple of months and for good circumstantial reasons, they gave me credits for the amounts that I had paid after the contract expired–they still probably want to keep you as a customer, though sometimes it seems they have a funny way of showing it).

Google Searches: Perspective

It may seem unfair that so far in my google searches I’ve only found negative stories about the Pavilion.  But it is a normal problem for businesses in the Free World.  Very few satisfied customers ever declare their appreciation, but most customers get very upset when they feel that they have been mistreated.  So they want to vent and get back at the person who has mistreated them.

I just want to talk about how the Pavilion has helped me.  When I saw that they were going to build the Pavilion I was really happy.  Since being a member, it has helped me stay in shape which is no easy task since I’m over the hill, as they say.  We’ve made some important contacts at the Pavilion.  For the most part, the customers and the staff are friendly and helpful.  Before, there was no really good club with a pool, a gym, and squash courts near our house, except the Dufferin-Clark Community Centre, and the hours there were not convenient to our schedule.  So we have been mostly happy customers.

So one has to take the ripoff reports on the web with a bit of perspective.  There is much to gain if one can overcome the fear and frustration of dealing with some of these issues.  It is a question of knowing what the rules are and how to play the game.

Vandalism

Vandalism has been a problem at the Pavilion since I’ve been a member.  Unfortunately, it takes it toll on everyone’s membership fees which have increased signficantly over the years.  It has also contributed to the decision not to leave the facility open 24 hours.  What can we do to help stop this problem?

Ontario Consumer Beware List

See what happens when you type “Pavilion” in the search line of the Ontario Consumer Beware List

How does one get on such a list?  What does it take? I wonder also if the Pavilion could change something to get their name off the list or is this some kind of permanent stigma?