This is a horrible establishment. I stopped my membership last year. Didn't realize that they keep charging you indefinitely. Even after your membership year expires. I had to pay 2 extra months because you have to give a written months notice. Oh wait...... it gets even better. I was very upset and having to pay 2 extra months and put a stop payment on they're automatic withdrawals because I wanted someone from finance to call me so I could express how I felt about their establishment and that this would be the last payment I would be making. I would never be a member of this gym ever again. She confirmed that the account was closed. Guess what apparently a year later, I find out... it was not closed! They apparently " lost" my paper cancelling my membership. And they only reason I hadn't noticed was because i had put a stop payment on them. They reason I found out is because I randomly found 4 payments taken out of my bank..... those f****** picked different days of the month and took money from my acct. I haven't been a member in 1 year. This has to be illegal!
SOMEONE needs to stop these people. I now see all these other people complaining about them. They are crooks.
*Editor's note: this review was edited in accordance with our site review policy

I signed up for basic membership a couple of months ago at Southdale. Was persuaded to buy hot yoga. I declined a personal trainer. Since then I have received at least 3 emails of various offers which I have declined,the latest on Dec 30 th. Well, I showed up on new year's day to work out. I was told I was banned from the premise and all future membership at any facility. Baffled as I have not been notified or warned of any abuse or misconduct. When I asked the staff, all I got was a robotic answer of " it's between you and headoffice, talk to head office. We don't know why, we are only following instructions from head office ". I asked to at least have my workout since I already showed up not knowing anything and had been there the previous day. No, 3 staff members rudely ganged up on me and refused me access without reason. I have never felt so disrespected. I enquired if my payment was stopped too, again same robotic answer, "ask head office". They gave me the number and told me they were open Jan 2nd which of course was wrong. I am going to call back today. After reading these reviews however ;I shudder to think of what they'll say. I was stunned but sounds like they can do anything and get away with it. I imagine if THEY terminated my membership for whatever reasons I am not privy to and without any prior advice, they also terminated my PAP or I will been seeking counsel on that. I've since gone back to my previous gym.
As a business owner, employer and utilizer of various services, I was utterly shocked.!!!

The lies that I was told just to get me to sign. I was told that after I join they could switch my payment to my pay period. They didn't pull money for the first 2 months so when I went in they cancelled my trainer and said I was a delinquent and owed money, I showed them my statement and said it isn't me you didn't take the money out. So the women Christina who enrolled me said if you pay in advance they won't pull the money out. Bull because they did. They said this is what you will be paying a month for membership, that didn't include the trainer that she said it did and more money was pulled then I expected. I admit I should watch my balance more and for that I missed payment and it went to Citadel Credit in which I though well they won't be pulling since I was sent there, I was wrong. For $110 the company harassed me and had my moms number and harassed her and told her what I owe. I went in and said I want to pay the whole thing off what do I owe all together, they gave me a price I paid for it, then I see they are still taking 31.74 out bi-weekly so I phoned, oh that is for trainer. I said what do I owe for that because I asked what I owe so you won't be taking money out of my account anymore, another hundred and something. I recommend you pay up front for everything if you are going to join and don't believe anything the person who signs you up says. Read your contract and keep everything that you sign if you decide to join. Working out is suppose to relieve stress not cause it. The gym was nice but the people themselves suck. Trainer was good though. They can't help they work for an industry where they lie to get you.

Shapes is a total and complete scam! If you sign up for a specific period of time, Shapes continues to charge you after that period is up unless you physically go down and cancel. When the staff goes over the contract with you it's interesting how they strategically miss telling you that part. When I called head office to dispute the money taken from my account that I was unaware of for the past 11/5 years (aka stealing) they said too bad. It's in the contract. Should I have read it more closely? Absolutely. I unfortunately trusted the employees of this disgusting facility and then got reprimanded for not reading it on my own. Why don't you give us time to read it before pushing us to sign the contract? Why "go over" the contract with us if you are strategically leaving out such important information? At least own the fact that you are a malicious company that scams people out of their hard earned money. I think Shapes forgot what it's like to make an HONEST living. "It's in the contract" falls short as an excuse for the misleading information provided by their employees. Shapes/head office did absolutely nothing to help me and on top of it told me I still had to come down to cancel in person when I live over an hour out of the city. With enough arguing I was finally told I could mail in a letter. Again, why wouldn't you say that in the first place?? Did anyone at Shapes think to send their clients a letter or email stating their initial contract term was ending? It's interesting how they used to send you coupons in the mail or reminders to renew your membership when it came to term, yet no one thought to point out such a major change in their contract, especially to repeat customers. Completely evil business and even worse people who back up such immoral standards. Karma's a bitch.

So after two months my friend convinced me to buy a membership at shapes. Before doing so, I read up on this site the reviews and was concerned about getting a membership, but I thought every place will have bad reviews and it wouldn't be bad, well I was wrong. So I go into shapes, my friend tells me about this promotion they have where you get five free visits for free, during October. So I ask the girl at the front desk about this, she said there was no such thing. I asks if there was any sort of trial or weekly trial,she responded saying there is only a weekly membership bi-weekly for a year so I signed up for it. The next day, my friends had the 5 day free trial pass plus she told me if you go online, you can sign up for one free visit. Knowing she lied with my mother and my friend as witnesses, we went back to shapes and complained about this. The girl denied ever saying there wasn't a free trial or a weekly trial for 10 dollars. Her response "I never said no such thing". So I cancelled my membership due to their lies, but I had a ride from my friend and I had the free one day visit in my email opened up. We drove there together, without ever using the facility one, she said I already used the facility so i csnnot use this pass which I never used! honestly how would you know? I had a free visit coupon in my email and she wouldn't let me use it and said I had to pay a fee of 12$ roughly to get in. Instead of this fee, I had 140$ in my bank and o was ready to pay a 3 month as my friend wanted a gym buddy and on the spot i thought on my head I'm out of shape. Im ready to pay this 140 dollars(includes the student discount) and she says alight its 190$. My friend was right there with me and he payed 140$ because he was a student, I said I was a student and her response was well on here it comes up as 190$ so you have to pay 190$. I said I know, but I'm a student so it's 140$. She said, well it comes up as 190$ and that's what you have to pay. I asked to speak to the manager, they already made me wait over 30 minutes and she said the manager was on break so I would have to wait another 30 minutes. So I pay the 12$ fee instead and after the fee was payed I was looking at the email and through he website, and noticed not one place said you had to pay 12$ to use their facility as a guest.. I asked if there was any kind of paper or documents I can see to prove this 12$ fee was true. The worst of all, she looked at me straight in the eyes, heard me because she turned her head to me and walked away, completely ignored. So she walks back towards my direction and I ask again, she looks at me and walks away. She was completely ignoring me. I wanted some sort of proof about this 12$ fee. For example, if I go into the y and right there on the front desk says guests are a 4$ fee. About 2 months later they finally added a sign about this fee.
Another lie they said was while they showed me their facility which I must admit was very good, she said there was a sonna and a hottub. So I ended up getting a three month membership as a gift, I couldn't find this hottub. I ask the front desk, they said it was only on the girls side.... Technically they didn't lie but come on!
I told my dad about them trying to charge me 50 dollars extra and he called them and their answer was because I didn't have my student ID card, which was in their hands!
Only reason I have a membership there is because I got it as a birthday gift. I heard a goodlife is opening up near my house, so I will be changing there. My friends father knows the owner at the nairn shapes and her father told the owner about this, and they told her to tell me how they apologize also saying their service at Penbina shapes is terrible. He also said they receive complaints about their service all the time. I recommend you go buy a membership somewhere else, or a different shapes! I saw some person in a review saying its probably be cause the customer was rude. Let me tell you I was nice the whole time and still they just kept lying and lying to get my money. If your in the st vital area I recommend you go to the snap fitness, the y, or purchase your membership for shapes at a different location which will cause you no hassle. Ever in my life have I been lied to this much by a company. My friends dad who knows the owner to that location even told me to send a email to the management, and also I had witnesses throughout everything! We were nice, and didnt want a hassle and everytime where they thought they could get money out of me they lied!

I availed this Shapes hot yoga promo from Dealfind - $20 for 20 sessions. I walked in, gave the front-liner the voucher, and that's it. Last Friday, I got a call from Shapes Pembina, telling me that I didn't pay my monthly fee. I was like, "what fee? I am not even a member to begin with." She told me that I should call the head office instead. So I called the head office, and told the girl that somebody called me and asking me to pay that monthly fee. The girl from the head office told me that I have a contract, and that they have my credit card number. I again said, "What contract? I didn't sign any contract and I didn't give you my credit card number." So I asked the girl to send me the contract that she was talking about. I received the 'contract' this morning and guess what? Except for my name and home address, everything's fake! They faked my signature, credit card number, and birth date. And the amount that they are asking me to pay? More than $500. I wanted to sue them for harassing me to pay, I don't know If I could do that. If not, I will just spread this experience to everybody... AVOID SHAPES. They are scammers. And if you don't have plans to be a member, never ever give them your personal information.

First let me say that I have been to many gyms in Winnipeg including Rady JCC, Good Life and UofM.

Shapes Fitness Centre is run by a group of people who will do whatever they can to scam you out of your money, the have the rudest staff I have ever encountered.

I decided to try Shapes for a 30 day hot yoga. I did enjoy the classes, taught by professional and well trained fitness professionals. I had to hand in my card to the staff while I did a yoga class, as per the policy. The front desk holds on to your card while you are in class. My card was lost during the class, either picked up by a person leaving the gym, or by the staff themselves. I will never know. I told the staff about this and they said, you lose the card you cannot do yoga. THat means I am out of 20 class-no ifs and's or buts.

I am so disappointed by how rude the staff was, and how unhelpful. Any other business would look at my contract, see that I paid it and help me to continue attending. Not only that, but on the contract I SIGNED it states that if a card is lost or stolen you can pay a fee to reinstate your card.

very disappointed, please avoid shapes at all costs, it is not worth the hassles and rude staff-not to mention the FRAUD.

I was a shapes member for 5 years and one of the last people I knew who actually had something good to say about them, now I will join every other person I know who has ever gone by saying STAY AWAY FROM SHAPES GYM! Trust me, you will be sorry, I didn't believe people but now I understand and boy am i sorry. I was happy there for years, I always used their women s only facility, then one day this fall they claimed to be doing 'renovations' and saying they were just getting new equipment and new TVs etc. So at one point me and a few other members even asked, will this be affecting the womens section in any way, oh no they claimed, just plain simple renovations, making the gym better. So unfortunately we trusted them just to find out after Months of renos that Surprise! The gym is less than half the size for starters! Then most of the equipment is gone and the machines are so close together your practically working out on someone else``s lap! Not only that but the womens only section no longer exists, and even once it was gone they still try to tell you its still there!! I called the head office about canceling my membership and the stupid chick who answers the phone tried to lie to me and convince me it was still there! It took me almost 2 minutes to finally get her to admit and say oh no, your right, its gone. I was SO mad!! How stupid do they think people are??? So I cancel my membership and now they're telling me I have to give them 30 days notice so they still want me to pay for over a month more!!! Criminals! Worst customer service ever!! They constantly lie and do anything they can to get their hands on money that isn't theirs. Not only this but when my sister was 16, she went in there with a friend, they tried to sign them both up and even though they were under age, they still tried to sign them without parent consent. so they lied to get them to sign something they said was just so they could try the gym for a week or so and then decide, next think my mom knows they are calling her demanding money!!!!! So my mom told them to screw off! they signed under age girls without parent consent and claimed my mom owed them money! They are awful, do yourself a favor and join the Y or buy your own equipment, its cheaper in the end! If you do want a gym Ive never heard bad things about the YMCA, they NEVER give you hassle about quitting, and your initial start up fee is tax deductible! So basically you get it all back. Trust me, go there!!!! Stay Away From Shapes!!!!! Unless you enjoy awful customer service and giving away money for nothing.

I was a Shapes member about 9 years ago, and at the time, I didn't really understand people's complaints about how they treat customers. Today, however, I figured it out. I don't live in Winnipeg anymore, so am now a member at another gym in Calgary. Both my gym and Shapes are IPFA affiliates, which is supposed to mean that your gym membership will be honored by other IPFA affiliate gyms when you're out of town. I have used my IPFA gym membership in a number of other cities, and never had a problem. However, I'm in Winnipeg for about a week while my father is having open-heart surgery here, and thought it would be great to be able to continue my workouts while I was here, particularly because I find exercise a great stress relief. When I got to Shapes, however, they informed me that IPFA rules state that I would have to sign up for a 30-day membership with Shapes in order to use their gym for the week while I'm here! It was utterly unbelievable. I was standing there with my membership card, plus a copy of my contract, plus an email from my gym confirming that I was a member, and a phone number they could call if they wanted further confirmation, and they try to make me sign up for a 30-day membership. This, after a rather condescending little speech from the girl at the desk who wanted to "explain to me" how IPFA works. The amazing this is that right on the IPFA website, they state the terms and conditions for their members, which state that "A transient member is a club member temporarily in a new area who will return to his home area. Transient members are to be honored for 30 consecutive days, after this time, they must transfer their membership." It seems pretty darn clear to me that this means that as long as it's less than 30 days, they just have to honor your other membership, and you very clearly are not required to transfer your membership. At any rate, I was not impressed with Shapes, and I only hope that their own members receive better treatment from other gyms. They sure managed to make a bad week much worse for me. How disappointing.

my brother, for my birthday, signed me up for a membership which would be paid by him out of his account. he stopped paying, they came after me. i tried to fight it. i ended up paying, never using that gym membership because i was banned for putting up a fight. it was in the fine print that i would have to pay if my brother stopped. i had asked where and they wouldn't tell me. i kept getting calls from this guy from a credit company for shapes. he was rude, harrassing and *** when it came to talking with me. once, after listening to him for half an hour treat me like c**p, i told him to stop talking to me like i'm a piece of s**t. he actually said ..." well miss, you are a piece of s**t!" can you believe that...... just terrible.

**Editor's Note: portions of this review have been removed in accordance with the ChickAdvisor review policy