DENVER — DENVER — Brian Quintana, has been a 24 Hour Fitness member for the last four years. Since gyms were ordered to close because of the novel coronavirus, he was surprised to find a bill for his membership.
Quintana, of Denver, said he was recently looking through his bills trying to find non-essential memberships and was surprised with what he saw.
"I looked and I saw that I was charged for 24 Hour Fitness on March 20," he said. "I believe their gyms had already closed at that time."
When he tried reaching out to customer service, he said he didn't receive a reply.
"With people in such financial distress right now across America, what are they supposed to do? Keep paying their $40, $60 a month for a gym they can’t use?" he said.
Denver7 reached out to 24 Hour Fitness and in a statement they say they're doing their best to reply to their member.
The statement reads: "24 Hour Fitness is focused on the continued health and safety of our club members, team members and guests. With that in mind, we have made some difficult decisions to ensure our ability to provide services to our club members and sustain our business over the long term. In addition to temporarily closing our clubs nationwide, we also announced that club memberships will be extended for the same period to cover the time of club closures. We encourage our members and all consumers to utilize the free downloadable 24GO app and all of the additional offerings we have provided to stay active and healthy during this time. We are adding fresh content and new virtual workouts daily. Given the unprecedented nature of COVID-19, we have recently closed our call center. For specific requests and general inquiries, members can visit our website for a general list of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) and access the Contact Us web page. We are working diligently to respond to member requests as quickly as possible, but are experiencing an overwhelming volume of inquiries related to the COVID-19 pandemic. It has unfortunately caused a significant delay in our response times and for that we greatly apologize. We look forward to welcoming members and guests back into our 24 Hour Fitness clubs when we are able to reopen the doors."
Quintana said that doesn't answer why the gym continues charging customers without allowing them to freeze their accounts.
"I encourage them to think about the people that have lost their jobs, to think about the people who are sick and think about the people who have been so loyal to their gym," he said.