EōS Fitness — Local services in Avondale

This is going to be a long one, so grab a drink! 😆😆

I've waited a while (a year) to do a review as gyms in general have a very bad rep for being shady as hell when it comes to money.

Let me start with the gym itself. Love it! The equipment, the classes, the locker room, movie room, cleanliness--all fantastic. I'm a night owl so I also like that the gym is always open.

Though classes scheduled for night owls would be great and pretty unique.

I thought things were going fairly well so I decided to check out getting a trainer.

DO NOT EVER DO THIS

Big, giant, huge mistake. The manager, Rick Pierce, is creepy and worse, utterly dishonest. How he's even employed is astonishing.

On May 9th I canceled the PT after speaking with Rick on the phone. He said to email him the documents and he would take care of it.

Yeah, right.

By May 20th I was being harassed by a collections agent who started texting me (without permission) and did not identify themselves (which is illegal). They also began emailing me around June 15th.

I emailed back, very angry, telling them the "debt" was not valid, attached all the documentation--including evidence of the phone call with Rick.

I thought that would be it. Ha! As if!

On Friday, June 22nd I was at a rental car counter at the Sacramento airport having just arrived on vacation when I went to pay for the car.

It was declined. Told the gal that was impossible, try again. Nope. Didn't work.

So I open the app for that bank and lo and behold, EOS had stolen nearly $300!!

Suffice to say, I was pissed.

Used alternative payment and went about my weekend.

When I got home I started filing reports with my bank, the Arizona Attorney General's office, as well as a couple of Federal agencies--including the info about their collections agency and its illegal activities.

At this point, I would LOVE to file a class action suit as I'm entirely positive I'm not the only one who has been affected by the fraudulent practices of EOS and other gyms.

I should note, EOS took payment for the PT every 14 days. The PT contract says in order to cancel, you have to notify them 30 days prior to the next payment.

Clearly that's impossible and nullifies the contract.

On Thursday, July 5th I got a call that went to voicemail. It was from the Regional VP of Fitness, Rowdy Yates.

I guess they received the copy of the complaint to the AZ AG's office. He wanted to know when a good time to speak was so "we can find a solution to the issue with your personal training agreement".

Laughable. I sent him email telling him pretty much everything I'm posting here and told him HE needed to find a solution, I wasn't going to do it for him.

What needs to happen is fire Rick Pierce. I know I'm not the first person to have issues of various kinds with him.

I got a follow up email stating he was going to refund some money.

We'll see.

As for the PT stuff itself, Blake is who I worked with and he was awesome. It's too bad he doesn't have some kind of independent fitness stuff on the side as I would definitely work with him again.

Thanks for reading! I'm impressed by your stamina!

UPDATE: Today 7/9 - Have not received any refund as of yet. I'll give it until next week.

But here's the good part: Rowdy Yates, Regional Vice President of Fitness, has KICKED ME OUT of the Avondale gym AND banned me for life from joining ANY location of EOS.

I had to laugh.

He's trying to now say I have an issue with "Membership policies" which literally NEVER came up.

He has chosen to ban for life a permanently medically disabled woman, which was the reason I had to cancel the PT contract in the first place. Just one more thing to raise a brow over.

His email has also taken on the tone of having called a company lawyer in order to parse his language very carefully.

I liked the gym itself. The locker room, the classes, the equipment. Praised the trainer.

My issue was with--and ONLY with--cancelling the PT. Period.

This has just reached absurd levels. We've gone...

My complaint is regarding EOS Fitness. On June 25, 2014 my wife entered a membership agreement with Gold’s Gym in Goodyear, Arizona. In order to complete the annual agreement she had to provide Gold’s with access to our bank account information. The agreement stated that there would be a $40 annual fee every July 15, and a monthly withdrawal of $15.95 on the 15th every month, until cancelled. I only agreed to allow access to my bank account because of my familiarity with Gold’s Gym’s brand.

On June 18, 2015 my wife called to cancel the membership and was told that due to a required 30 notice, one more $15.95 payment would be deducted on July 15. This was wrong because my wife had no interest in being a member for a full month following July 15, so at most, a pro-rated 3 day charge should have applied. Around July 18, I noticed that $54.95 had been deducted from my account by EOS Fitness.

On July 20, we drove past the Gold’s Gym building and observed that the name on the front of the building had been changed from Gold’s Gym to EOS Fitness. We went inside and met with General Manager, Ana Aleman to find out why they had access to my bank account information and had withdrawn $54.95 without approval. Ms. Aleman explained that they had taken the $15.95 monthly fee as well as another $40 annual fee. I asked to see a copy of the contract that my wife signed and noticed that the Gold’s Gym name had been removed and replaced with EOS Fitness, which was troubling. Even more troubling was seeing that they’d fraudulently applied my wife’s signature in several places throughout their document. My wife hadn’t entered into any such agreement. In fact, we had never even heard of them. And Gold’s Gym had given them access to our confidential bank account information, which was even more troubling.

Ms. Aleman claimed that she didn’t have the authority to replace the money back into our bank account. She promised to contact her District Manager, Duane Adair and tell him our concerns. She assured me that on the following day, I would be contacted by Mr. Adair, herself, or both. The next morning, July 21, Ms. Aleman called and said that she had spoken to the district manager and told him my concerns. He instructed her to ask whether my wife and I would be satisfied with a promise of 1 free month each at his gym, if we ever decided to re-join. I declined the offer and said that my satisfaction was contingent upon the reimbursement of my money. Ms. Aleman told me that Mr. Adair would call me himself, that day. That was July 21, 2015. As of today September 22, I have not been contacted by anyone from EOS Fitness.

I am upset because EOS Fitness forged my wife’s signature on a fraudulent document and I discovered that this company had actually started withdrawing from my account in February, 2015. To date they’ve withdrawn $134.70 without permission and I’m seeking reimbursement. The number of people that they have probably done this to is disturbing. Please stop them. I truly believe this is fraudulent practice and that others like me need you to take...

I have never been so displeased with a business establishment in all my life. I went into EOS fitness in May of this year and became a member of this awful gym with great regret. Upon my initial encounter with one of their PT guys I was treated soo nicely and I was very impressed. The customer service from him was excellent and I made the huge mistake of signing up for PT. Immediately after my first visit with one of the trainers, which took place 3 days later, I was calling to cancel my PT sessions but everytime I called I was told that I had to speak with the trainer that signed me up to cancel. That didn't happen for about another week when I was finally able to reach him at which time he told me I could not cancel my PT sessions anymore because I had sign a 12 months contract with them and I could've only canceled within the first 5 days. I informed him that he never told me about this 5 day cancellation policy upon our initial encounter and his response which was quite blunt and filled with great annoyance was, that he sent me a contract by email and it's in there. I told him that I had not gotten an opportunity to read said contract as I'm a working mom of 2 but I was trying to reach him for quite sometime without success. This meant nothing. He did however tell me that I can freeze the PT for 3 months and pay a smaller fee. Well, because that was all I could do I did it and since then PT fees have still been removed from my account. The very same guy is who I've had to speak with consistently about getting said funds refunded to me and his attitude is filled with nothing but annoyance and I am sick of it. I have still not received any refund from this place and money's are still being taken out of my account. The equipment here is good but for what I've been dealing with concerning the PT and the person I'm stuck with for assistance I don't even want a membership here much less a personal trainer. I WOULD NOT...