The Members Are the Victims at Health Clubs

An office worker Mr. Kang, who works out at a sports center near his office in Yeoksam-Dong, Kangnam-Gu, Seoul, spends more time waiting than actually working out every time he goes there.

It is because there is so many people that he has to wait for long time to use the machine he wants to use.

The frustrated Mr. Kang wanted to terminate the contract; however, he is in a vague situation because the sports center said there was ‘absolutely no refund.’

Mr. Kang said, “I had a contract to use six month for 480 thousand won, and the sports center said, by the stipulation, ‘no refund is allowed but you can transfer it to another person’ so I am just waiting for the contract to be ended without doing nothing.”

While users of sport centers are growing larger and larger because of high concern of health, users are being cheated since the sports centers are not accepting members with short contracts, or they do not give refund although members request refunds.

An office worker Ms. Hah (26, female), who uses a sports center in Cheongdam-Dong, Kangnam-gu, lost her tongue by the oppression of the sports center.

Ms. Hah said, “I visited the center because they said I had to terminate the contract 45 days prior to the last day; however, they said I had to use it for another month because my card had been already charged,” and “many people give up to work out because there are too many problems in the contract.”

However, the damage compensation about that is not clear, so the users cannot be relieved, either.

The consumer damage compensation provision by the Korea Consumer Protection Center stipulates when you terminate a contract the sports centers should refund the membership fee of the remaining contract after deducting 10% of the total membership; however, it is not working properly because it is not a compulsory provision.

The Korea Consumer Protection Center only proclaimed the ‘consumer warning’ that was stimulating consumers’ attention to use sports centers on March 28 since the objections of the sports center users piled up.

And there is no provision about ‘capacity’ on sports facilities except swimming pools; so many sports centers are recruiting members above the capacity limit.

A squash instructor of a sports center in Kangnam said, “Instructors recruit members even giving them discounts because they get incentives for recruiting members,” and “because of that there are some conflict with regular members and members cannot work out properly because of too many members.”

To defy the oppression of sports centers, there are anti communities against particular sports centers on the Internet.

Consumers are demanding for a fundamental countermeasure for that to the government; however, the Consumer Protection Center only ask them to confirm the contract before signing.

The manager of the Consumer Protection Center Han, Seung-Ho said, “If you want to terminate the contract and they do not give you refund, send a ‘certificate of the content’ about the contract to them immediately, and attach the copy of it and report to the Consumer Protection Center right away. And that is the best way for now.”

sublime@donga.com