[Resolved]  Fitness First India Private Ltd — auto debit of credit card even after request for a cancellation of membership and stop payment 3 months in a row

Address:

Karnataka

I had enrolled at fitness first india in july 2010, for a 8 months period. They are a premier health club. I have been requesting for a freeze in my membership since february 2011. Since I had some frequent official travel to undertake, due to which I would have not been able to attend the gym regularly.

What is a freeze- a freeze is a period when you don't attend the gym, and pay a nominal charge for continuing the membership. In this case monthly debit from my credit card is rs 2758 per month for normal usage and in the freeze period its rs 575 per month.

My biggest concern is they are repeatedly debiting my credit card even after continuous request to freeze the membership. This has happened for 3 months in a row now. Even after they confirming everytime that they will freeze the membership.
I informed them over the phone, for freeze in march on around feb. 13th, 2011 and reminded them on 27th feb again for the same, they still debited amount of rs 2758 in march.

Then I went to the club with 2 of my friends miss priya wadhwa and mr siddharth sharma in the 1st or 2nd week of march, to request for a membership cancellation, since I can fore see I would not be able to attend the gym regularly because of workload and office travel. But they informed me later that they will not cancel the membership since I had not completed the 8 months active membership yet.

I kind of acquiesced to agree on a freeze since I didnt have the time to run after or argue with them on their non sensical terms and conditions, which were now being shown to me in all new light to serve their purpose.

So in march 3rd week I told them to freeze my membership march onwards till july/Aug. When I will be able to rejoin the club. For which they called me and confirmed that my membership has been frozen from april onwards.They never gave me an email confirmation even after my asking for it!!
to my surprise they debited the full amount of rs 2758 on 1st april.
When I brought this to their notice they apologized to me saying that this was a system error and they will ensure that nothing other than the freeze charges is deducted from my card, till I come back. And once I am back they will not deduct any amount and give me 2 months usage as back dated payment, since I had already paid full amount in march and april while I had not used the club for a day and had also requested for a freeze. They also sent me a email confirmation for this.

I took this seriously and thought the matter is sorted out and they will charge just the freeze amount rs 575 to my card

but to my surprise, I again got an sms notification on may 2nd, 2011 from my bank that they have charged me for the whole month the normal usage charge of rs 2758.

I am now really worried with the whole state of affair since I feel nothing is stopping them from miss-using my credit card details. And they dont have any policy of cash refund or reverse payment in their system. I am so offended with there un-professional and callous attitude that I dont want to continue any relationship with them and will like to receive back my whole amount they have debitted for 3(2758*3) consecutive months even without my consent and stop any auto debit by the club of my credit card any further.

Regards,
Reetaja majumdar