[If you are from Curves in Suwanee, Georgia and you see this page, I hope you will take it for exactly what it is. I plainly and politely asked you to make it right, to give my fiancee back the money you wrongfully took from her after she had already cancelled her membership and after that membership had also rightfully expired. That's still what I am asking you to do.]
"A legitimate health club is interested in your physical fitness and doesn't make you sign a contract." - renowned consumer advocate Clark Howard (posted here on his website)
Perhaps she should have known that consumer advocates warn that fitness clubs which require contracts are really just out to rip you off. Perhaps she should have known that the Curves she signed up to join was owned by someone with no concern about anything but her pocketbook. Unfortunately, my fiancee decided to trust some untrustworthy representation from the following Curves location:
Curves health/fitness club
4325 Suwanee Dam Rd., Suite 200
Suwanee, GA 30024
(678) 482-4007You may have already guessed. When her contract was up, my fiancee cancelled it, in writing. (Actually she tried to cancel it before it was up, originally, but they refused.) Unfortunately, the owner of the Curves in Suwanee Georgia continued to put through unauthorized check withdrawals for months afterwards, and the bank continued to honor them. Such check submissions are called "Automated Clearing House (ACH) Withdrawals" by many banks, and they can result in money being taken from your account without any authorization on your part whatsoever. This particular Curves franchise owner cost us nearly $300 in completely unauthorized withdrawals and we spent months worrying that these unathorized withdrawals wouldn't stop. I don't know about the rest of you, but for us $300 of stolen money is worth fighting to get back. Peace of mind is pretty important to most people, too.
We have been told that usually the bank will side with you (our bank did eventually help us some) and give you your money back (or at least some of it). Contact your bank about disputing the ACH as soon as possible. Many banks have limits as to how far back they will allow such contests without you having to resort to legal action (although legal action is always an option), so you want to do it as soon as possible and for as far back as your bank will allow. If your bank operates like ours, you will want to be sure to file a contest against each and every ACH that they have done to your account (you might be able to photocopy a mostly filled in form and just fill in the fields which need to be different). We managed to get back part of the money that was taken from us, but not all of it.
Apparently, my fiancee is not alone. There are Class Action Lawsuits in the works against Curves (learn about one of them here) alleging improper disclosure of cancellation rights in health club contracts and excessive costs for cancellations. Realistically, my fiancee is probably the target of this sort of unethical and immoral behavior, too, but even if somehow she were not, she cancelled (in writing) AND ultimately her term was up anyway, so any and all charges after that point are unquestionably fraudulent. It is possible that some of the charges prior to the end of her contract were fraudulent as well, but that wasn't the point of our contact with the Curves owner.
Have You Suffered Too?
If you have been hurt by this company, contact me, include permission to post your story, and I'll see about posting it here, too. For the protection of the innocent, I will remove the names and email addresses of the plaintiffs.
Curves Victim in Calhoun Georgia
From: ________@bellsouth.net
Subject: curves
Date: January 26, 2006 4:57:41 PM ESTI too was a victim of curves... I signed a contract with curves in Calhoun, Ga. I went for a very short period of time, less than 1 month. I did not have a problem paying for the 12 month contract term, I signed it and was willing to hold up my end of it. The bank drafts continued not only for the 12 month contract but even now 6 months after they are still drafting $29.00 per month. I call and was told the contract I signed stipulated that it would continue until I signed a stop draft notice.. They never said that in their sales pitch. I am going to contact the news channels you mention in your statement and my bank and look forward to any additional information you may have. Feel free to post this so others may be warned..
Sincerely, N.W.
Curves Victim without Contract?
From: ________@msn.com
Subject: Curves
Date: February 7, 2006 7:01:39 PM ESTHi
Thanks for posting your website
I decided to try Curves out in November. Unfortunately I didn't know about their practices until after I started going. However, I did not, to my best knowledge, sign a contract. I quit because the noise, springboards, and machines made me dizzy long after I'd return home.
To make a long story short, they cannot give me a signed copy of my contract. At least not yet. It's been 2 weeks. If they can I will get the note from my doctor. But it had better be my signature.
Just wanted to say thanks and let you know we're challenging their policies.
L.
IF YOU HAVE BEEN SHAFTED BY CURVES AND WANT TO COMPLAIN TO THE WORLD, TELL ME, GIVE ME PERMISSION TO PUT IT UP, AND I'LL ADD IT HERE. EVEN IF THEY DON'T KNOW ABOUT MY SITE, THE MAJORITY OF PEOPLE WHO FIND MY PAGE ABOUT CURVES WILL DO SO VIA GOOGLE.COM SEARCHES FOR CURVES OR HEALTH CLUB OR FITNESS. Email
Have Your Own Site?
I continue to get emails from people who have had similar experiences, but I haven't had time to post them all. Now I have discovered that there are others out there who have also posted their own stories on their own sites. Let me start by posting this site, started by a dissatisfied ex-customer:
www.brookfieldcurves.com - The site owner even set up a Guest Book, which is a really good way to let people immediately share their stories.
Correspondence from Curves People
I have received email from people purporting to be associated with individual Curves franchises. So far, they haven't helped me find a solution to getting the owner of the Suwanee Georgia franchise to return the money. However they have been informative in their own ways.
One Curves owner who has requested to be unknown wrote "However, at our Club and at the recommendation of Curves Corporate we will let members cancel before the 12 months that were contracturally [sic] agreed upon when the contract is signed by the member." and "We don't charge a 'fee' to cancel, we convert their membership from a 12 month Check Draft membership to a month to month membership. So hypothetically, say she was a member for 3 months and wanted to cancel. We would convert her to month to month for those 3 months which is $30 and once she signed a cancellation form and paid her $30 the contract is cancelled and the draft is stopped. Say she was a member for 7 months and wanted to cancel, we would convert her to month to month 5 months (because as directed by Curves the cancellation conversion caps at $50) and once she signed a cancellation form and paid her $50 the contract is cancelled and the draft is stopped."
The Curves franchise in Suwanee doesn't appear to honor this particular policy, but if you are faced with a similar situation at another Curves, you might request that this policy be extended to you. Paying a fee you didn't expect, one time, might be a lot better than getting charged non-stop for months on end. Assuming they don't change the policy, that is.
The owner who has requested to be unknown also wrote "At least concede we aren't all bad people as your website suggests." Of course I concede that Curves owners and employees aren't all bad people. That doesn't alleviate my concern about the way that these contracts seem to be set up with the explicit purpose of creating a situation in which the victim is charged money they didn't want charged and is hard put to get it back. One of my coworkers literally grimaced when I started off my story about this, "So, my fiancee signed this contract with Curves and ..." Certainly I don't think that every person connected with Curves is somehow bad, but I do think that this setup creates a very negative situation and that it does so in the name of greed.
Other reputedly Curves related individuals were a good bit less helpful, and reinforced my view of what happened to my fiancee:
From: PattyBowles@aol.com
Subject: CurvesBoy do you have alot of time on your hands or what? Do you not have a job? You sure went to extreme lengths to try and defame Curves. I laughed at much of what you had to say, it was very entertaining.
Thank goodness we live in America where people like you can make fools out of yourselves through that wonderful thing called "freedom of speech"! And even better, those of us that have something worthwhile to say can freely express it. Oh, and by the way, did you know that in America we can donate money to any charity that we choose? Yes! Anybody we want. But you probably don't know about donating money, seeing the great lengths you have gone to, to try and collect a measly $300.
I just wanted to thank you for the entertaining piece of work you have online. I think it exposes your ignorance and one sidedness to Curves. Moreover, I think that it makes a complete fool out of you. Before I go, I was just wondering if you have checked out your 2006 Entrepreneur Magazine? You might want to check it out, we're still going strong and better than ever!
Regards,
Patty Bowlesferguson3@charter.net, another person reputedly related to Curves wrote, "My wife is the owner of 6 Curves in the Roswell, Alpharetta and Norcross area. I am the organizer of the Atlanta Area Curves advertising co-op. I read every word of your webpage and and I hope that you would have the graciousness to post this letter on your page..." and "If you don't I will assume that you are in fact a competitor hiding under the guise of an unsatisfied member. Your webpage is so over the top relative to your issue that I sense that there may be some kind of hidden agenda at play here. Is it just to get $300 or is there something more?"
I don't see anything on my page which would suggest I am anything but the loved one of a victimized customer who wants her money back, so I was startled by that accusation. However, it only gets worse.
Ferguson goes on to compare the situation to that of Katrina hurricane victims, "Reminds me of Katrina victims who never paid flood insurance and whose insurance contracts excluded flood damage but now say that the insurance companies are the bad guys for not paying for flood damage for which they never received premiums in the first place. Go figure." We aren't saying that a contract wasn't signed. We are trying to point out that it was cancelled, in writing, and the bank drafts continued anyway.
Ferguson also wrote that, "big time media celebrity Clark is losing touch with his small business principles." I have no idea if this is true or not, but the motive of claiming that a popular consumer advocate is inherently flawed seems clear to me.
Then Ferguson just flat out accuses, "Why are you so anti-woman?" Huh? I am trying to help my fiancee, like a good husband and somehow that makes me "anti-woman"? What kind of logic is that?
Finally, in his last correspondence he says, "Your webpage makes me think of a scenario where there is a child molester whose last name is Hubbard and a website proclaiming that all people with the last name Hubbard are child molesters was published." Whoa! So now we are talking about child molesters? Because I asked the Curves in Suwanee to give back money they took after my fiancee cancelled her already expired membership?
Resources for Fighting Back
As this stuff pans out, I'll try to update this page to give more information to those who are also having problems with Curves. Hopefully giving you the same contact information and reports of results will help you in your efforts. I informed the owner that I would be taking some of these steps and he said he didn't care.
Contact Your Bank
This is potentially the most important thing you can do. Get your bank to stop the charges, as soon as possible. Also, contest wrongful charges which have already happened, and try to get your money back.
File forms Disputing an ACH (Automated Clearing House) Withdrawal for each and every charge with your bank. This is the advice that a representative at our bank gave a couple of days after Christmas (how lovely it was to have to continue to deal with this during the holidays). If you have been fraudulently charged by Curves (or any other company) I suggest you contact your bank for details of how to file a dispute form for each and every fraudulent charge they put through.
This was perhaps our most effective resource, ultimately. The bank gave us back some of the money, dating back to their cutoff date for contesting charges. It is important that you contest these charges as soon as possible, so that any deadlines don't run out on you (thereby sticking you with other options).
Contact the Government
If you are in Georgia, contact the Governor's Office of Consumer Affairs here http://consumer.georgia.gov - Ironically, they have a page warning about health club fraud, which I wish we had read before this happened (OCA Health Spa Warning). If you live in another state, your executive branch of government probably has some similar Governor's office you can contact.
Take it to the federal level if you like, and file a Federal Trade Commission complaint.
Contact the Media
If you are in Georgia, try the Fox 5 I-Team here in Atlanta IteamAtlanta@foxtv.com . They are one of those nifty little news services which actually works for the community rather than endlessly reporting about dead bodies in car trunks. They investigate government and consumer fraud. WAGA-TV is located at 1551 Briarcliff Road Northeast, Atlanta, Georgia 30306. Their main telephone number is (404) 875-5555.
You might also try contacting consumer advocate Clark Howard. He even has a radio show and has discussed the health club contract issue before:
Clark Howard
c/o Consumer Action Center
1601 W. Peachtree St., N.E.
Atlanta, Georgia 30309
Consumer Action Center at 404-892-8227
Clark Howard web pageAnother Georgia media source you can try is Channel 2 - contact their Witness Report program http://www.wsbtv.com/contact/index.html .
Better Business Bureau
Contact the Better Business Bureau. Some people don't consider them particularly effective, but it is worth forwarding them a copy of the OCA complaint. File a complaint with the Better Business Bureau.
Gather Complaints
Gather complaints from other victims, and post them if possible (see this page above): IF YOU HAVE BEEN SHAFTED BY CURVES AND WANT TO COMPLAIN TO THE WORLD, TELL ME, GIVE ME PERMISSION TO PUT IT UP, AND I'LL ADD IT HERE. EVEN IF THEY DON'T KNOW ABOUT MY SITE, THE MAJORITY OF PEOPLE WHO FIND MY PAGE ABOUT CURVES WILL DO SO VIA GOOGLE.COM SEARCHES FOR CURVES OR HEALTH CLUB OR FITNESS. Email
Contact the Curves Home Office
There's a reason I listed this last. So far I haven't even managed to talk to a real live corporate Curves person. The phone system there (1-800-848-1096) is automated and as far as I could tell there is one option for "customers with comments" and that option tells you to contact them at membercomments@curvesinternational.com or via fax number 254-399-8970. That's it. Note there is no option mentioned therein to talk to a human being if you are a customer. Anyway, we've tried the email address without managing to get any positive results (as of the time of this writing). You may have better luck, or you might try leaving them a fax?
Suggest More Ideas
Had some success with these people? I'll add to this list as more ideas occur or are suggested by other victims.
Strike a Blow for the Rest of Us!
If you have some spare time, or if you have been targeted by some fraudulent practices, then contact some of the resources listed throughout this article. Every additional voice that calls out for justice is one more voice that might result in that justice being achieved.
For anyone who might wish to spend some free time telling this company just what you think of them, here's the contact information:
Curves
4325 Suwanee Dam Rd., Suite 200
Suwanee, GA 30024
(678) 482-4007Curves International (franchise home office)
100 Ritchie Road
Waco, TX 76712
Tel: 1-800-848-1096 (toll free)
Fax: 254-399-8970
email: membercomments@curvesinternational.com
Other Potentially Not Pertinent Information
Maybe it shouldn't be a surprise that this franchise operates this way when anti-women behavior is found all the way at the top of the company. Before founding Curves in 1992, the owner, Gary Heavin, went bankrupt, lost custody of his two children and served a six-month jail sentence for not paying child support. In prison, he supposedly became a born-again Christian. Gary Heavin is reported to be a supporter of efforts to destroy women's free choice. Reportedly, he has donated millions of dollars to groups dedicated to eliminating women's freedom of choice. There's nothing illegal about that—rich folks buying politics is the American way—but it does suggest his views on whether women should be allowed to decide things for themselves. For more information about this subject, check out:
Women's Enews article http://womensenews.org/article.cfm/dyn/aid/1844
http://www.holtuncensored.com/members/column388.html#feldt
http://www.holtuncensored.com/members/column389.html#letters
The San Francisco chronicle reported on this issue. Check out the San Francisco Chronicle Curves article here.
Boston Globe Article "Sweating with the Enemy"An Iowa news source reported that certain Curves franchises were attempting to avoid paying taxes, too:
http://www.franchiselawblog.com/archives/2005_09.htmlThere are other options besides Curves, too. We haven't tried any of them yet, after being burned so bad by Curves, but we have started looking into them. While we can't personally endorse any of these, yet, having not yet gone to them, we are posting links to other people's testimonials. Check out some of them here:
Lady of America http://www.epinions.com/content_96763940484The Curves home office is in Waco. That fact is completely unconnected to this issue of course, but if you are bored some evening, then you might find this an interesting read - Waco: The Inside Story.
"I have met thousands and thousands of pro-choice men and women. I have never met anyone who is pro-abortion. Being pro-choice is not being pro-abortion. Being pro-choice is trusting the individual to make the right decision for herself and her family, and not entrusting that decision to anyone wearing the authority of government in any regard." -- Hillary Rodham Clinton
To the Owner of Curves, Suwanee, GA
If you are from Curves in Suwanee, Georgia and you see this page, I hope you will take it for exactly what it is. I plainly and politely asked you to make it right, to give my fiancee back the money you wrongfully took from her after she had already cancelled her membership and after that membership had also rightfully expired. That's still what I am asking you to do. Until you do the right thing, I hope that all that is holy condemns you as you deserve.
