If you give money to Crunch Gym, you just may well never get it back from between those vice-like, beefy, Mr. Universe fingers. Or, as Gaurav G. discovered, even if you don’t give them money.

Gaurav joined his local Crunch Gym in October, 2005, looking for a local gym with a pool. His idea? Expand muscle mass by dumping thousands of dollars of muscle protein powder into the swimming pool, then doing forty laps a day with his mouth open.

His plans for beefy hunkdom were soon waylaid when he took a position in New York. He canceled with Crunch Gym. They still billed him. He canceled with them again. They still billed him, then told him he’d never canceled when he called.

The only way to take down Hercules is to kick him in the crotch. G.G’s email, after the jump.

Love the website, and read it diligently thinking damn, I’ve never had a customer service issue as bad as that dude. Well, now the day has come. Try this one on.

I was a member at Crunch Gym in Chicago (normally stay away from things like that, but they were the closest gym with a pool) from October to December of 2005. I went abroad for a month so I put my membership on hold and then came back and found out I was moving to New York for work, so I cancelled my membership when I got back in mid-January. Crunch wasn’t on my next credit card statement so I thought all was well. Not paying too much attention, I moved and everything seemed fine.

At the end of July, I noticed that I was being billed $79 a month for Crunch membership again. So I called the Chicago Crunch and talked to the manager there and he said that they had been having billing issues because they switched systems and a bunch of old accounts were reactivated. He looked up my account, check things and said, that my account was indeed part of that issue and that he would put my name on a list and have the amount refunded to my credit card. Again, thinking all was well, I let it go.

The credit wasn’t on my statement for August and in fact there was still a $79 charge! I thought maybe it takes them a while. It wasn’t on my statement for September either and there was a charge again!!! So I called them up in Chicago, and this time the manager tells me that my account is still active, and that they have no record of my membership ever being canceled?!?! I’m exceptionally pissed off this time, and they gave me the number for their corporate finance people. I called them up, and all they can tell me is that they have no record of a cancellation, and that they can’t do anything about it, and that I need to talk to the Chicago Crunch. This time I call and I get Lisa, who I have to say was exceptionally helpful. She is the first person to believe me. She gets back to me and says that they have no record of a cancellation either, but that they were working on seeing how to resolve this. She gives me the customer service line’s number to call. I call them, and the lady on the line tells me that my account is still active?!?!?!? After two months of issues, you’d think someone would cancel the damn account. She tells me that they can cancel the account now “as a courtesy”!?!?!?! I get really upset and ask for her supervisor, and she tells me that he isn’t available, but I can leave a number and he’ll get back to me. So I do. That was 2 days ago. I called again today to follow up with them, and the customer service rep says that it does indicate that the supervisor was notified, and that they “usually get back to customers within 48 hours” but that the supervisor isn’t currently available. Meanwhile, I’m out 600 bucks!!

Crunch sucks. Tell your readers that if they do have a membership there, and cancel, hold on to your papers because it may come back to bite you in the ass 9 months later.

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