Shapes Fitness Centres

My overall rating

My advice, don't consider signing up for shapes if you are not serious and motivated to stick with them. As for a personal trainer they are only good for helping you find a workout plan and how to use the machines effectively but aren't...   +

My advice, don't consider signing up for shapes if you are not serious and motivated to stick with them. As for a personal trainer they are only good for helping you find a workout plan and how to use the machines effectively but aren't worth having for a long period of time, because eventually you'll get a hang of doing things on your own and having to pay that extra ($73.00 bi-weekly) and up ontop of the basic membership fee ($20.00 bi-weekly) is just not worth having when could join the various different kinds of workout classes that have no extra cost all included in the basic membership fee. You'll be stuck with that large amount to pay for a year. Shapes has a good facility and friendly staff, but when you got a problem concerning their mistakes on your account, good luck, they aren't as fair and friendly as they were when you first signed up.

Onto my experience...
My sister had wanted to join the Shapes Fitness centre on McPhillips. Due to the fact she has never worked out at a gym in her entire life nor did she feel comfortable going alone she asked me to come join with her so she would have someone to work out with until she felt comfortable on her own. I knew of course that I wouldn't be staying with the gym for long because I like getting my exercise by going to my martials arts class. And find myself physically fit enough and the gym just isnt my thing. We went down to the centre to talk to the manager there. She was all smiles, very friendly but very pushy. I specifically asked the manager because I was only going to try it out with my sister for a short time, what options did i have for a contract? She said my only option was to sign up the 1 year contract they have and that after one month i could cancel out at 'anytime' after one month. We then asked some questions about the basic membership as well as the '1 month trial personal trainer'. My sister had asked the manager many times if the personal trainer is strictly for 1 month and that she only wanted it for 1 month and the manager said "definitely after 1 month your trainer will be canceled". I then repeated numerous times that I would only be signing up for the 1 month only and she assured me that my membership was only for 1 month. She then gave us the contracts to sign and while my sister went ahead and signed, I sat back and read the back of the contract. There were some parts I questioned to clarify with her so that i fully understood. It said i was signing up for a 1 year contract and as i read on it stated that I could cancel after the 1 month trial. It also stated that I would have to cancel my membership with the head office and that a written letter had to be mailed to them. I
(There is no mailing address to them) then asked the manager about it. She said "I can do that for you, you let me know when the time comes and I will cancel it for you. This is where I went wrong. I put so much trust into these words. It's hard to believe you can't trust what the employees of such a big company say. The term 'the customer is always right' does not apply to these people. Anyway. The second week after joining our training sessions had been scheduled and printed out for us. because i work during the day my sessions have been scheduled in the evening. I went to the centre to find out that all my training sessions had be wiped out of the computer system and been completely deleted as well as my sister's. None of the staff *** knew what to do and just told us to work out on our own and come back the next day in the morning when the manager works. Now that really ticked me off, like come on, the head office couldn't at least call me to tell me my schedule has been deleted? Wasted my time. So we came back a few days after during the day (on my day off) to talk to the manager to see what was going on. Apparently the voided cheques we gave them bounced thus having cancelled all our sessions. She told us to go to our banks and try getting the number again and maybe that would fix it, but before that to pay through the interact machine they had so they can reschedule. After doing so we drove to our banks go verified everything and the cheques we gave were correct, we then drove back to the center and the manager tells us that everything is correct and that it was the head office's screw up. Think about all the time wasted doing this and the fustration. We then decided we didn't want the personal trainer and just stick with the basic plan but the manager said we can't and that we have to go through the full month. We decided to put up with it and went ahead. The training as well as the equipment were great. Our trainer was a nice guy and easy to get along with we told him the stuff we went through and he even said "Yeah those guys are stupid" they caused a lot of people to quit and also hasn't been happy with them for quite a while.

Two weeks before the month was over we started to make phone calls to the manager about cancelling the personl trainer as well as my 1 month membership but everytime we called they said she was either busy, out on a break, out in the back doing something, all times of which they said she would call us back. We work during the day and workout in the evening by the time she is not even there. The one chance we got to come down to see her in person she was coming out of the facility and she had said she had to head out and would call us later on. Not one phone call over the past 2 weeks. We even went and asked the staff members on what we could do and they had said "I'm sorry, only the manager handles these situations" and were not helpful at all. 1 month and 5 days gone by, my sister tries calling her back again, she finally answered and rudely said "It's out of my hands now, you'll have to talk to head office", gave the number and hung up without any explanation or anything. We call the number given and the girl tells us its too late to cancel but we can try sending them an email about what happened and that it would take up to 1 week to review our case. We sent the email right away. 1 week and half goes by no call or msgs from them. So I called them back and they had said "because we are busy doing renovations we haven't been able to review your case yet". 2 weeks and a half go by and I'm still paying but havent gone to the facility have the 1st month. Still no call, so I call them back and they still have not reviewed. She told me that they would either email me or call me back. I told her that something needs to happen asap because I'm going back to university soon and do not have the money to keep paying for this. 1month and 1 week go by and Im back to being busy with school and work right after. I forgotten about the shapes thing, for a while then remembered. Called them back only for them to say "I'm sorry but the lady who handles these cases is on vacation and won't be back for 2 weeks." Like why would you only have 1 employee who works on this? Two weeks gone by again and I call. They tell me "I'm sorry but we have reviewed your case and have decided we aren't going to cancel your contract. Despite what our employee told you, because it's in the contract we can't help you." They also claimed they sent us a letter already a while ago but we have received nothing. I told her that and at all times was very polite and calm and she then said "well i don't know, check with your post office or something" and hung up. Like really what else could I do? and in my eyes I don't see how its 100% my fault. Why am I the one having to chase them? Fed up, I went to the bank and asked what I could do, the bank teller told me she had problems with them too (what a coincedense) the year before and how the bank has been having so many problems with them too and adivsed me to be firm. She said what she could do is close my account and issue me a new one. Being desperate I went ahead with it. Now am being harassed by their shapes citadel credit.

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