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Cambridge Crunch Fitness says 'technical error' resulted in members being charged fees while gym remains closed

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Some members at a Cambridge Crunch Fitness claim money has been coming out of their accounts despite the gym being closed for months.

The company said the situation was the result of a technical error.

The doors at the Hespeler location on Holiday Inn Drive have been closed for months.

“Since March they started up taking out my monthly dues,” said member Karen Bartlett. “I feel angry. I feel almost robbed.”

Crunch Canada confirmed out of around 4,500 members at the Cambridge location, about 150 were charged.

Some said getting a hold of staff has been an additional challenge.

“To no avail. No response. To no answers as to why they’re doing this. No correction,” Bartlett said.

The company says the problem occurred after recently upgrading their billing software.

“A lot of people have been refunded. We are still working on refunding others,” said Sharon Johnny, the Director of Operations at close to a dozen Ontario Crunch Canada locations.

Crunch is asking members to be patient, but some said patience is running thin and they’re still questioning the company.

“I think it’s a definite cop-out. It’s not a technical issue,” said Bartlett. “You can’t be doing this to people especially in these times”.

“It was an error. We did not do it intentionally by any means and we’re working through it as fast as we can,” said Johnny.

The error showed up as monthly fees for some members and yearly maintenance fees for others, or in some cases, both.

“A monthly amount. My daughter's monthly amount. And then my yearly,” said Cambridge Crunch member Leisa Cairns.

Crunch is still investigating to find out if this happening at any of the other 18 Ontario locations.

Cambridge members will have the choice of getting a refund or rolling the monthly dues into future months when they reopen. Some members admit when they do reopen they might not rejoin.

“I don’t think I will rejoin. I just want the fact that it’s been kind of deceptive,” said Cairns.

Crunch Fitness said they lost many staff members during the lockdowns but are doing their best to reply to members as soon as possible.

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