New York Sports Club

I met with my doctor on June 24 and he ordered an MRI and gave me a note (attached) which stated "I should not engage in any personal trainer program, now or the foreseeable future and that exercise should be limited to physical therapy exercises prescribed by his office". I gave the note to the NYSC training manager. I met with my doctor on July 3 to review MRI results and he advised that I was in for long term physical therapy for a year or more. I contacted the NYSC trainer manager to update him of the MRI findings and notified him I was cancelling my club membership if a refund was not forthcoming.

On July 9 the NYSC advised me the refund request is denied. I cancelled my club membership and engaged an attorney who wrote NYSC on July 9 demanding a refund or litigation will follow. No reply has been received. My lawyer advised me that the NYSC contract language is illegal per NYS law. No reply to lawyer's letter has been received. My lawyer and I now plan to proceed to Small Claims Court for the refund and a complaint has been submitted to the New York State Attorney Office per their request.

Our first month was free as promised, but then the charges started. When I asked them to look into it, I was told it would be taken care of. I never saw the refund or proof of credit. As the pandemic hit, the club continued to charge me. I was later refunded for half of March and the month of April after the AG brought on a suit. Charges resumed in September, on the first day that the state allowed gyms to reopen, even though many of the clubs were not available for use. I wrote to them and had the freeze on my account extended and was told that the charge would be taken care of.

After I didn't see any progress, I went in and spoke with the customer service manager. After showing her emails and bank statements proving I was misled and erroneously charged, I was told that I was due a refund. Two months later, no such refund came. I was passed on to the Asst. General Manager who told me he thought it was taken care of and that he'd work on it.

A month and a half after that I reached out to a new Customer Relations Manager who looked into it and told me that due to company restructuring, they couldn't refund me any of the money they had said I was owed, but that I could get three months' credit. At this point, I didn't trust the club with my credit card, plus many of the locations that I would have used were no longer part of the network, so the offer was pretty much useless to me. I terminated my membership. The point of my long spiel is that I understand that the business model of many of these clubs is at times unscrupulous, but I feel like at almost every point in my interaction with NYSC I was taken advantage of and misled. $268 of mine was taken and I will not see it back. I wouldn't recommend this club to anyone and urge you to proceed with caution when giving them your credit card.

Cal who is a staple behind the counter in the morning is always upbeat and glad to see everyone. The General Manager Karen walked the floors attending to and meeting customers. One thing I discovered is the folks at NYSC were as eager to see us as we were to see them. This is a great first step of getting back to normal. So pack your patience and empathy and remember, we’re all in this together.

(1) They claimed they did not receive the cancellation letter; they said later the letter had to be sent via a registered mail - in today's digital age, they put in the most ancient method of mailing in their policy, designed to be the most inconvenient and difficult for most people to follow. They would never request any membership application to be sent via a registered mail, would they?!

(2) The manager was in meeting all day (My daughter called Ms. **, the General Manager of this club, 7 times and never got a call back!);

(3) Finally after repeated phone calls and emails, Sheetza got hold of the GM and was told that she had to pay a cancellation fee; and,

(4) The GM lied to my daughter that the refund would take up to 45 days to process and it would not be a full refund (but you wouldn't take that long to charge membership fees, would you?!);

(5) Just as she thought the worst was over, NYSC West End charged yet again a new monthly membership fee on March 1, 2020 AFTER she informed them of the cancellation and a cancellation fee was charged on her credit card on February 20, 2020.

Could this ordeal get any worse? It could and did. After we sent a complaint letter to their HereToHelp line, a person from "customer service" told my daughter that there would be NO refund; and worse yet, they intended to charge another month of membership fee in April! By reading some of the Google reviews and those on this ConsumerAffairs site, it seems that NYSC has a history of reckless charging fees on their clients' credit cards.

How could anyone at NYSC West End do this to a young university student? She had a great time working on an internship in NYC, but NYSC West End's unethical behaviour has damaged any trust she would have on this club and the sports club industry in general. This is an outrageous case of customer abuse, poor management, shameless lack of business ethics, and greed of no boundary. If there were negative stars, I would have given them negative 5 stars. They don't even deserve this 1 star. Do not sign up any membership with New York Sports Club!