More Boston Sports Club Membership Problems |
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Back in late October, I mentioned that Boston Sports Club kept charging me. I had figured it was over with the call that I made later that day. In fact, just last week, I got a check for the whole amount that they over-charged me.
That's the end of the problem, right? Not exactly. On this month's credit card statement, I see a $9 charge in mid-November. I got right on the phone. After waiting in the phone queue to oddly techno-sounding music for 10 minutes, their system simply disconnected me. For a company on my bad side that didn't help. Trying back, I got a customer representative on the phone after 8 more minutes of techno.
I asked about the $9 charged, and the answer was fairly surprising to me. They charged me a fee because the credit card they had on file for me didn't match the current number of the card I have. Well, I had misplaced the credit card about 8 months ago and called up and reported it lost. Boston Sports Club never gave me a call to try to get an updated number, they just decided they'd bill me because of it. Between being confused about that policy and being happy to get the $9 back, I didn't think to ask the most basic question... What are they still doing with my billing after sending me check and supposedly closing out my account?
I'm sure I'll have to wait another month to get my money back. I guess there are two lessons to be learned here:
1) Be careful who you give your credit card to. I know this going without saying, but even "reputable" companies can make mistakes or have weird policies. I guess that's what I get for trying to maximize my reward points.
2) Really double and triple check your statements each month. I could have easily missed this.
This post deals with: ... and focuses on:Consumer Battles
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Lazy Man,
I was just reading on another blog (sorry, I forget which, or I’d link to it), and the author was talking about how he called up his credit card company to dispute a charge that was $7 or so.
Turns out, since it costs the credit card company more than that to go through the whole dispute process with the merchant, they just instantly credited him. They said they routinely do that for all amounts less than $10.
So there’s a little tip… on an amount less than $10, I bet you can just call up your credit card company and get the credit right away.
I figured I could do that, but I like to save those calls for the times when I really have no other recourse. Also, it might be tougher because I gave them the right to charge my card and didn’t complain when they charged it for the first year of gym service (as I should have been).
I’m having problems with BSC Central Square (Cambridge) too.
They charged me for 6 months whereas I canceled in April 2008.
The story detailed here: http://www.yelp.com/biz/boston-sports-clubs-cambridge-2#hrid:4LNYEQSzY9IS291cL230jg
To sum up: I’ve been paying for 6 months because a BSC customer rep. lied and now, they don’t want to reimburse me…