Urban Active Website: http://www.urbanactive.com/trainerfinder/websites/60092/home/index.html BBB on Urban Active: http://www.bbb.org/centralohio/business-reviews/health-clubs/urban-active-fitness-in-columbus-oh-70011953
Before heading off to OCS, I knew I needed help getting into the best shape possible. I went over to Urban Active and signed up for a membership with some personal training. I signed a year contract and they showed me in writing where it says that the contract can be cancelled when my military orders took me away from home. All was good. The gym was great, my personal trainer was awesome, and I was feeling good about my pre-OCS preparation.
A couple of days after I reported, 01AUG2010, Melissa took my orders to the gym to get the membership cancelled. I had a few personal training sessions left so she made a month to month membership to use them up. Paperwork was done and all appeared to be fine. Until next month when we still got charged. And then the next month when we still got charged. In fact when I got back from OCS at the end of October, we were still getting charged for my gym membership. When we went in to ask about it, they showed us the small print that said that it could take up to THREE billing cycles to cancel a membership. ARE YOU SERIOUS!?! Ok, fine, we didn’t see that the first time, our bad, they charged us an extra three billing cycles and we should be good.
Nope.
They then start charging us $9.76 on the first of the month. What? I have never paid that amount of money for anything Urban Active. So we go back to the gym to ask about it. They girl behind the counter says, “Well my computer says your membership is cancelled, but I also see those charges, I don’t know what it is.”
Ok…. so the conversation continues about like this:
Me: "Well can we get this done and taken care of?" Her: "I don't have the ability to issue refunds here, but I can go through corporate." Me: "Can I just talk to corporate and I'll take care of it?" Her: "No, corporate doesn't have a phone number. We have to email corporate to talk to them." Me: "Are you serious?" Her: "That's how things work. I'll email them and see what I can find out." Me: "Ok, when should I expect to hear back from you?" Her: "It usually takes corporate about a week to respond to emails." Me: "Are you serious?"
So we left, waited a week and hadn’t heard back from her. I call Urban Active to get an update. I am told the girl is with a customer at the moment and would call me back. I ask if she’s going to call back in a minute or in a few hours, I’m told a few minutes. About 5 hours later I get a call from her saying:
Her: "Corporate saw the problem and they are issuing a refund to your credit card." Me: "Ok, good. How much of a refund should I be expecting?" Her: "I'm not sure." Me: "Ok, when should I expect to see this refund on my credit card statement?" Her: "I'm not sure, probably about a week."
And that phone conversation happened on December 15, 2010. That was almost two weeks ago. So I call back today, talk to the same girl. She takes my name, looks in her emails and says: “Well it looks like we put in a request to cancel your membership. And everything is marked as done. Let me email corporate and see what they say. Give me a call back in a few days.”
If I get charged again here in a few days, I’m calling the credit card company and asking them to deny the payments. That’s something I should have done a long time ago, but I’m trying to work this out through the company. What a headache.
The sad part is that the gym is great! It was exactly what I needed. The personal trainer was awesome. The equipment was good and working well. Lots of TVs around and everything. But the customer service side SUCKS!
Would I recommend Urban Active to someone? Yes, but I would highly suggest only doing month to month and not signing any contracts.