Pavillion Sports Club
Thornhill, Ontario Personal Training Scam and Pavillion's lack of refund policy

I unfortunately joined the Pavillion around September/October 2007. I was promised the whole fitness assessment etc. as any prospective member would be.

After joining and signing all the paperwork, I set up my fitness assessment appointment for the next week. Needless to say, the Personal Trainer, Chris, who I had booked this appointment with, was not at the gym and could not be contacted. So I made another appointment for the next week and eventually had the assessment done. Obviously, as with any person doing this, I had my own goals and objectives that I wanted to achieve, but needed to gym personnel to be cognicant of a knee problem that I am experiencing. I was told I would get a call within a week to organize a program for my training.

After a month of hearing nothing (a month of which I was charged for), and numerous phone calls being placed to the gym, I called the gym again, only to be told that Chris had been fired (not Chris Duguay, but another one), and that no-one knew where my file was. I was told by Ron (Personal Training Mananger) that he would set me up with another Chris (not Duguay) for some sessions. They also managed to sell me 6 PT sessions as well.

So I met with Chris for my first session - he knew nothing about my knee condition or any of my fitness goals from my assessment, and proceeded to take me through a very standard session. I then set up another appointment with him (at 6am) a few days later, only to find that he had overslept and missed the appointment. We rescheduled, only to find him not show up again at 6am, as he told me that he had a rough weekend, as one of the other trainers had unfortunately passed away from Pneumonia. A phone call to let me know might have been nice.

So after Chris missing 3 straight appointments in a row (all at 6am), I decided that this wasn't working out for me and I wanted to cancel all my sessions and get my money back.

I must have left no less that 25 voicemails for Ron the PT manager, who did not have the decency to return one of my calls. I went into the gym and spoke to him directly, and he said that he would throw in a few more sessions for free, which did not suit me.

It is now March 2008 - I called Paulo Pannaci (sp?) - the guy who sold me my membership and I said to him either I get my PT sessions refunded or I want to cancel my entire membership. He suggested using the finds paid for PT towards future membership, to which I agreed. He then put me onto Adam in accounting, who seems to be more interested in his stupid cell phone than his job. Adam told me that they are not going to refund me a cent, nor will they put the money towards membership as PT is a separate division than membership sales and tried to console me by saying that don't worry, your PT credit will never expire and you can use it whenever you want.

My response to him is that we had a contract for personal training, to which your company clearly broke. Considering the fact that you are in breach of this contract, I want to cancel it and get my money back, to which he said, sorry, but it doesn't work that way. Basically, they are not willing to budge, they won't give me the names of anyone more senior who I can take this matter up with, and I am still out of pocket my $600.

Steven
Thornhill, Ontario
Canada

Company: Pavillion Sports Club
Country: Canada
Province: Ontario
City: Thornhill
Address: 130 Racco Parkway
Phone: 9057638000

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