The president of Good Life Fitness responds

scuro2 · September 14, 2010

Here is the update on my daughter's Good Life Fitness account. "Patch" the President of Good Life Fitness did respond to my e-mail!!!

"Hi if its re autism its been corrected. Sometimes things get lost went her company stretches countrywide. All the best patch"

Well my e-mail wasn't about autism but he did direct my complaints to the, "Supervisor of the Member Experience Department". Finally I got to speak with someone who had a first and last name!! This is what contacting the head honcho will do for you. All the other plebeians with their complaints get hung up on the #1-800 phone tree where no one with a last name will talk to you. The SMED looked into the matter and then responded the very next day!!!!!

Hello XXXXX,

I have reviewed your daughter's file and would like to explain the reasoning behind the information you were previously given by our Member Experience Department. Although I understand this is not the information you were hoping to receive I can assure you it is correct and want to ensure you have all of the details. When a payment is returned as being unsuccessful it is GoodLife's practice to notify the member using several methods in order to ensure the member gets informed and can clear up any balance right away. When XXXXX's payment for April 9th, 2010 was returned as non-sufficient funds we prepared and sent a letter to the address on file explaining what had happened and that we will be resubmitting that payment into her account on a specified day in the near future. That letter was sent from our office on April 15, 2010 and informed her that the payment would be attempted again with a default charge on May 1st, 2010. XXXXX's next scheduled withdrawal of April 23rd was also returned from the financial institution and similar to above another letter was generated on May 3rd, 2010 to inform her resubmission dates for that payment. Our resubmission process will stop any future payments once the resubmission is also not successful therefore when we attempted to take funds out of her account on May 1st, 2010 and were unable to do so; we discontinued any payments from that date on. We also had an outgoing call sent to the phone number on file on May 19,2010 to inform XXXXX that we need to discuss her membership with her. It appears our first call from XXXXX was received on August 24, 2010. It is unfortunate that XXXXX was charged a considerable amount from her bank however these attempts were made on the payment schedule that was agreed to. I do see that in one of your previous conversations the retrieval of XXXXX's file was discussed; I do urge you to continue to proceed with that request to ensure you have the outline of the terms in the contract. I apologize we are unable to adjust the balance owing however I hope this has given you a better understanding behind our decision.

Warm regards,

XXXXX XXXXX

Here is a pic of my daughter's bank account. The bank had significant difficulty pulling up the totals for the attempted withdraws but one can see four attempts within a month's time. What was irksome was that a manager, administrator, and a SMED all said that GL would never pull funds out of a non-paying account 4 different times. That to me is wrong so I sent this reply to the SMED.

Hello again,

I do not understand why Good Life would attempt to withdraw ("resubmission") money a 3rd and 4th time, weeks after they had already been unsuccessful twice. This was a minor's account and it stands to reason that if there is no money in the account after two weeks, there will be no money in the account 2 weeks later. You would think that Good Life would personally contact XXXXX to make sure there would be money in the account and to make sure that Good Life's actions did no needless harm to their under aged client. This is a population that generally has little financial experience or money for that matter. Good Life should have phoned promptly and explained what was happening. Contrary to what you stated, Good Life did not attempt to contact my daughter "using several methods...to clear up any balance right away".

We are talking about a girl who felt she needed two bank accounts, one to save and one for Good Life. XXXXX mistakenly withdrew money from the Good Life account to "cover" her Good Life payment and drained the wrong account. XXXXX was incredulous that she was receiving your letters and it wasn't until the August 24th phone call and someone talked to her that XXXXX acted. It was with the first phone call that she acted. Had Good Life also only unsuccessfully attempted to withdraw funds twice I'm sure we could have gotten all the NSF charges eliminated bank. We couldn't negotiate that but the bank understood that this is a minor and that they needed to make sure Evelyn comprehended the situation. They reduced their fees. They treated her differently because she is young and didn't comprehend what was happening.

Could you please reconsider the circumstances? It would be appreciated.

Thanks,

XXXXX

Well the SMED didn't respond for a week, not even after a second e-mail request to do so, so I forwarded the e-mail to Patch and by coincidence got a response that same day from the SMED. Here it is.

Good Afternoon XXXXX,

I do apologize for the delay in my response. I have been giving this

situation some serious thought. The conclusion that I have come to does

not allow me to change the previous answer. In doing so I would be

undermining both the associates you have spoken with as well as the

policies of GoodLife. Being part of a company that lists Integrity as

one of our core values I feel I must uphold the decision that has been

made.

Best Regards,

XXXXX XXXXX

To which I replied to Patch and the SMED:

Hi XXXXX,

Thank you for your prompt reply and consideration. I would have hoped that the issues at hand could have at least potentially trumped group solidarity. Integrity has everything to do with doing the right thing and nothing to do with following policy. That would be especially true for a business that generates all of it's income by building relationships with it's customers.

Company policy and employee solidarity dictate that I pay. I hope that no further penalties have been added to the total while these issues were under discussion. Where should I make payment?

XXXXX

Needless I never got a reply from Patch or the SMED. I did pay and there were no further penalties.

My daughter never expected much at all from Good Life but she thought the same from the Royal Bank and was pleasantly surprised that they listened. She paid every penny of GLF's penalties. In her first experiences with private companies she learned about decency and speaking out if you feel something is wrong. My wife is in that pic above too and she was ultimately responsible for paying the missed payments and penalty fees. They both are personable women and would look great on the camera or in a newspaper article. If you know someone who works in a SW ontario tv station or newspaper and thinks they may be interested in this story...pass the thread along. OFNers didn't disappoint the first time when I had become very frustrated by goodlife.

http://www.ofncommunity.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=46589&st=40&p=498593&fromsearch=1entry498593

Edited September 14, 2010 by scuro2