The Family Fitness chain, which has a Plainwell location, has been sued by Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette’s office.
The attorney general’s office announced Tuesday, Sept. 26, filed suit in Kent County Circuit Court, asking the court to stop Family Fitness from engaging in several practices alleged to violate Michigan’s Consumer Protection Act. It seeks monetary relief for the customers the Attorney General’s office alleges were harmed, which amounted to 286 consumer complaints against the chain in 2017.
“It is my hope that we can reform Family Fitness’ business practices, and get some money back in the pockets of many consumers. We will also ask the Court to make sure the credit reports of Michigan consumers no longer show debts arising from unlawful conduct by these fitness clubs,” Schuette said in a press release.
The attorney general’s office said it received numerous complaints the chain was holding consumers responsible for paying hundreds or thousands of dollars on cancelled gym membership and personal training contracts. Many complained they were being pursue by collection agencies.
The attorney general alleges:
• Consumers have entered drawings and are told by telephone they have won free memberships, but—when they show up to collect their prizes—they learn there are actually monthly costs;
• Consumers who have won drawing prizes are not given any written description of the prize, notice that they will be subjected to a sales presentation when they come to collect it, nor any descriptions and costs of the services Family Fitness intends to solicit them about when they do come, as required by the Act;
• Misrepresentations are made to consumers at the time of signing up with Family Fitness.Such representations relate to topics including the involved costs, the duration of contracts, and the consumers’ right to cancel contracts. Such misrepresentations range from false or misleading statements that the membership or personal training arrangements can be cancelled at any time, to failures to disclose important information—such as Family Fitness’ expectation that a consumer doing a free trial must use the facilities a specified number of times in order to be able to cancel the free trial;
• For consumers who have had memberships with other gyms that have closed, Family Fitness has made confusing and misleading representations regarding their legal obligations to Family Fitness;
• In recent situations, Family Fitness appears to be putting consumers under duress to enter into new membership agreements by telling them that is the only way they can remove prior alleged debts for which the consumers have been put into a collections process.
A call to the local Family Fitness for comment was not returned by press time.
In addition to Plainwell, there are Family Fitness locations in Allendale, Alpine, Grand Rapids, Grandville, Holland, Muskegon, North Muskegon, Norton Shores, Portage, Sparta, Standale and Wyoming.
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