crunch

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Google Self-Driving Car Involved In Another Crash

One of Google’s self-driving vehicles has been involved in another crash while cruising the streets of Mountain View, CA, the company confirmed, after another driver ran a red light and crashed into the Lexus RX 450h. [More]

DMV Report: Google Self-Driving Car Hit City Bus While Changing Lanes

DMV Report: Google Self-Driving Car Hit City Bus While Changing Lanes

Google has been quick to point out in the past that its self-driving cars haven’t been at fault for any of the accidents they’ve been involved in. In what could be the first incident that’s the driverless car’s fault, a California Department of Motor Vehicles report says a Google Lexus hit a city bus while in autonomous mode. [More]

NYC Woman Exploits Gyms For Year Of Free Workouts

NYC Woman Exploits Gyms For Year Of Free Workouts

With the exception of parking and affordable homes, there’s a lot of everything in New York City… especially gyms. With this surplus of workout spots, they are all fighting to get a sweaty, muscled grip on your wallet. A 24-year-old law student in the Big Apple not only saw an opportunity to exploit this competition and score some free workouts, she’s also blogging about her attempt to make it through the entire year without paying for the gym. [More]

Rewind: The Culture That Brought Crunch To Bankruptcy

Rewind: The Culture That Brought Crunch To Bankruptcy

Just read these headlines our some Crunch gym posts from our archives. Not surprising that their new owners say Bally’s, who themselves settled with the SEC for understating losses, lied to them at the time of the sale about how many members they had.

Balance Sheets Flabby, Crunch Gym Files For Bankruptcy

Balance Sheets Flabby, Crunch Gym Files For Bankruptcy

Crunch gym filed for bankruptcy last week. Guess that strategy of signing up your members for long contracts, then making it really hard to cancel a membership and continuing to debit people’s bank accounts even after they were supposed to be canceled and generally being total jerks about any member that tried to stop giving them money, even if they moved away or the gym itself closed down…yeah guess that didn’t work out.

Crunch: $4 Trial Membership Secretly Means $138 Real Membership

Crunch: $4 Trial Membership Secretly Means $138 Real Membership

That’s what I got after signing up for a contest at a Lincoln Park Chamber of Commerce event (specifically Pizza fest) in July 2007. I took Crunch up on the pass because I wanted to check out what my local Crunch had to offer. Included in the week pass was a personal training session. I went to Crunch 3 times that week and had an enjoyable time; it’s a decent gym and seemed ok.

Crunch Gym Is Notoriously Corrupt

Crunch Gym Is Notoriously Corrupt

Crunch Gym is notoriously corrupt. In the course of running this blog, it’s only natural that we get quite a few similar complaints about the same company. Sears Home Repair People never show up on time. Verizon’s customer service people are mean. Stuff like that. It becomes really troubling when we receive many complaints about a company refusing to stop taking money out of an ex-customer’s account. Those are the complaints we receive about Crunch Gym. Remember Jacob? He was canceling his membership after Crunch tried to charge him extra for adding a boxing ring to the gym.

Crunch Gym Tries To Charge Extra For "Improvements"

Crunch Gym Tries To Charge Extra For "Improvements"

Personally, we are allergic to high-pressure sales people. This is the reason that we do not work out at Crunch Gym. It may look like a gym, but it’s actually a festering pool of high-pressure sales douchebags.

Joining Crunch Gym Is Like Joining The Mafia

Joining Crunch Gym Is Like Joining The Mafia

As Michael Corleone once said, “Just when I thought that I was out they pull me back in.”

UPDATE: Bally’s Tele-Customer Service Blows

UPDATE: Bally’s Tele-Customer Service Blows

After his complaint appeared here on The Consumerist, Garth reports his ongoing issue with Bally’s double-billing him got fixed up ship-shape.

Bally’s Tele-Customer Service Blows

Bally’s Tele-Customer Service Blows

Garth writes in complaining about his workout join. They’re triple-billing him, he says. Not only that, they seem to be actually messing with his mind when he tries to remedy the situation through the telephone customer service: 20 minute holds, inane music and telling him to fax his bank records in to numbers that aren’t even valid fax lines.