Truemors
is reporting from
Member
NP Rank:
NP Rank:
Gym Continues Pre-Authorized Debits for Years After Cancellation
Share:
by Tina Kells | January 29, 2009 at 02:06 pm
386 views | 14 Recommendations | 3 comments
A Vancouver gym, Kitsilano Workout, has been accused of continuing to take pre-authorized debits from a former members Vancity bank account for years after cancellation notice was given.
Barbara Raphael joined Kitsilano Workout in 2003 and stopped using the gym in 2004. In 2005 she went in and filled out membership cancellation forms as required by her contract with the gym but money continued to come out of her back account.
Raphael signed a two-year initial contract with Kitsilano Workout in April 2003, with an option to cancel after two years. She said she only used the facility half a dozen times that year. In 2004, she said she gave notice to the gym that she wanted her membership cancelled. She said the gym told her to put her request in writing and she did. Her two-year obligation to pay ended in June 2005. Records show the business has continued to take payments from her account ever since."They kept doing it and I thought that is absolutely not OK," said Raphael. "I think what they are doing is playing the odds that people are not going to blow the whistle on them."
Since 2005 Kitsilano Workout has taken a total of over $600 from Raphael's Vancity bank account and claims that she is in arrears due to reoccuring stop payments on the pre-authorized debit. Raphael complains that she has had to repeatedly put stop payment orders on her account to deal with Kitsilano Workout's refusal to stop taking her money.
Kitsilano Workout claims it has no record of the cancellation notice but is willing to work with Raphael to find a satisfactory settlement to the problem. The gym blames internal management issues with the confusion and has stated it is committed to fixing the problem.
The outstanding issue, though, for Raphael — is that her financial institution continued to give the gym her money.
"They should stop it altogether," said Raphael, who does her banking at Vancity credit union. "They should have stopped it altogether when I explained the situation but they didn't."
Since 2004, Raphael said she has put four separate stop payments on Kitsilano Workout debits from her account. Rules limit stop payments to six-month periods, though, so each time the debits started up again she had to put in another request to stop payment.
She sent the gym a letter in December 2007, then went back in person again to cancel in writing, as the membership contract requires. Even so, the debits — $27.25 per month — continued.
Raphael has had to resort to changing her back account to stop the money from being handed over to Kitsilano Workout. Even though the gym began withdrawing a lesser amount when the GST dropped her signature was not required to authorize the new amout. Raphael is angry with Kitsilano Workout but she is furious with her bank, Vancity Credit Union.
Vancity claims it is not in any way to blame for the mix up and that it is not current banking practice to police pre-authorized debit requests from vendors. To Raphael this is outrageous. She wants people to be made aware of the loopholes in banking policy that allow for this sort of thing to happen and warn others before it is too late.
Vancity credit union spokesperson Jane MacCarthy confirmed if a creditor with a pre-authorization submits a debit for a different amount that effectively bypasses the stop payment.
"The new amount put in by the originator [the gym] makes it a different pre-authorized electronic transaction that would not be stopped by the stop payment request," MacCarthy wrote in an e-mail.
"If a member cannot resolve the situation with the originator, we advise that the simplest course of action is to change their account, thus terminating the pre-authorized payment on that account."
Videos
Photos
What is NowPublic?
NowPublic lets people work together to cover news events around the world.
Crowd Power
bmann
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Tina Kells
Vancouver, Canada
Most Recommended Stories in World
Recommendations (14)
mtammas
Vancouver, Canada
Paschen
Narita, Chiba, Japan
eastvanray
vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Most RecentMost Recommended Comments (3)
at 14:32 on January 29th, 2009
Gyms are notorious for this practice!
at 16:05 on January 29th, 2009
Why this whole idea of credit cards and electronic money does not make me feel comfortable. Japan is still a cash based society and just the way I like it. The Credit card companies have a hard time selling their products here. Especially since most businesses other then chains do not accept them. I hope it will remain that way.
at 15:40 on January 30th, 2009
The only drawback of cash is that it is an innefficient way to pay for goods and services - expecially now with so much selling being don online. In Canada if you do business primarily in cash most people either think you are a drug dealer or that you are a deadbeat with bad credit.