A Long Drawn Payment ‘Affair’

Exactly how long is defined as a ‘long drawn affair’? Well, I guess it depends on the level of patience / tolerance of each individual and the situation at hand. For me, this concerns the termination of membership at California Fitness (CF)... and 7 months is long enough to stretch my tolerance level.

Rebecca and I joined CF last year and I paid for both our membership using my Dad’s supplementary credit card. I thought that this would reduce the hassle of making monthly payments, but I was very wrong. As a result of this error decision, I had to remind myself every month to check that the amount charged to both Rebecca and my membership account was correct, ask Rebecca to transfer the money to me, and then I transfer both amounts to my Dad’s savings account. What a hassle!

And as if this wasn’t troublesome enough, we ran into another problem when we tried to convert our mode of payment from credit card deduction to monthly GIRO payment. The administrative procedure at CF was terrible! Totally inefficient and unreliable! Never in my life have I ever encountered such a screwed-up manner of resolving payment issues!

I came from the Telco industry and I have seen for myself how the Finance Dept has to prepare thousands and thousands of invoices every month. This gym definitely has a lesser number of memberships compared to the number of subscriptions for mobile, broadband, SCV, etc… and they can’t even manage!

After two months of trying, we decided to forget about our GIRO conversion coz nothing seems to be happening. But thankfully, the GIRO conversion didn’t go through, coz the credit card deduction is still ongoing! If not, I would be double paying and STILL have to settle both modes of payment at the same time! Argh!

But our troubles weren’t over yet. We decided to pay advanced payment for the last two months, after giving a few months prior notice of membership termination. And I had to spend the next few months, coming down each month, to fill up request form after request form, and thrashing out matters with the counter staff because the credit card is still being deducted! How can this be? I already did the gym a favor by paying them advanced payment through NETS! That’s cash straight into their bank account! What more do they want? For goodness sake, just stop the credit card billing!

As if these aren’t enough frustration already, there was once when the bank had also charged my Dad a late payment for some extra charge for a particular month. I can’t remember what that was about, that additional $9.72 per person, but I seriously don’t want to bother anymore. I just want to settle this issue and put it behind me.

You see, the problem of this sort of recurring payment is because there is always this possibility of deducting an inaccurate amount, and the difficulty in getting the paperwork done to cease the eventual termination. Having learnt from this lesson, I would never want to pay for a recurring billing using a credit card, ever again.

Besides, using this mode of payment only serves to benefit the company, not the customer! The company just informs the bank to deduct a specific sum of money every month from all their customers and transfer the money straight into their company bank account. And the customer won’t even know how much is charged until the end of the month billing comes in!

After that, the customer still has to verify the amount charged (if not have to thrash it out with the bank and/or the company), write a cheque (issuing cheques cost money too) and mail it to the bank. So much hassle… and still have no control over the amount that is charged! And every month, both my Dad and I will get infuriated over billing errors! What for? How ridiculous! I have learnt this lesson and will only use the credit card for ONE-TIME payments only.

Thus, I was angry and upset last night, when I saw that for the 7th time, my Dad had received a repeated billing. My Dad was angry and frustrated too. And this time, my Mum was angry too. I was mad inside… and I felt so tempted to just call up the CF guy (the name’s Eddy), but it was already 1+am, and even if I did that, he wouldn’t be able to do anything anyway. So I tried to calm myself down after grumbling to Rebecca, making her angry about CF again, and decided to go to sleep.

The confrontation took place this morning, when I walked into the gym and asked for Eddy to come to the counter. I spoke to him in a very direct and assertive tone, before he decided to bring in his manager to resolve this issue.

Her name is Narul, the assistant member services manager. She was a lot more assertive than Eddy, and I could tell that she has a sharp tongue. I never liked women with a sharp tongue, but I guess in this area of work, the staff needs to have a sharp tongue to deal with customers.

With both of us showing a solemn and straight face (not difficult for me coz I am usually quite straight faced), we thrashed out the issues one at the time, until I got the termination papers from her, with the necessary pointers written out and signed on the documents. These papers will have to be faxed to the UOB bank staff tomorrow to arrest this issue. The bank is pissed and my family is pissed.

Although I was a bit affected by her assertive and arrogant tone, I decided to ignore it and settle it, despite the tense and confrontational atmosphere in her office. We thrashed out the issues in a sharp and harsh tone, while looking at the details on her PC… which reminded me about how annoyed I was, when Eddy told me last month, that they had lost all my previous request forms! I was in such a rage, but I did not show it and my best to keep my anger inside. What sort of procedures does the gym have? Fancy losing documents, even repeated ones?

That was my last straw… I had lost all confidence in this organization already. As I told Rebecca last night, CF appears very good in its advertising and marketing campaigns, but their admin procedures and manner of resolving disputes are INDESCRIBABLY terrible! And it’s not just for my case. I have heard stories from Rebecca about her colleague’s experience with CF too. Sigh!

Lastly, I took my (first ever) bold step of asking for compensation for the amount time and transport cost that I had incurred from the repeated visits over the past 7 months. Narul listened steadily and I could tell that she was sharp and poised. She rejected my request for monetary compensation, and I clearly remembered her saying that California Fitness does not give monetary compensation, and it does not intend to do so, now or in the future.

Wow… very sharp and harsh. Never mind, so I turned the table around towards her and asked what form of compensation she would recommend instead. So she said that CF can offer gifts such as a bag or CF T-shirt. When I heard that my mind exploded! But of coz, I have learnt not to show it. It exploded because this was nonsense! Does she think that I would be taken by this gimmick? These t-shirt and bag are mass produced and do not cost to them as much as if a customer were to purchase it for himself! What would be the cost of the gym? Negligible!

What’s more, with this sort of unpleasantness with the gym, does she expect me to carry their bag with their logo, or wear their t-shirt with their logo? I am not stupid! I can see that such gifts may seem like gifts to customers, but I wonder how many people notice that it also serves as a mass marketing tool for the company! Why should I give them added free advertising?! No way!

So in the end, we settled for two months free membership for both Rebecca and I. I haven’t decided if I would go, but if I would, at least it would be of some gain to me. Not free advertising for them, or some t-shirt or bag that are manufactured on the economies of scale. At least if I use the gym, they will still incur cost… like wear and tear of gym equipment over time, cost of water in the shower... and I get to exercise too. Not that I am calculative, coz seriously I just want to walk out of this episode of my life. But even so, I am not about to let the gym walk off just like that either.