Goodlife Health Clubs review decision to charge fees during shutdown

One of the country’s biggest gyms has backflipped on a decision to continue to charge users a fee during their government-imposed shutdown.

File photo.

GOODLIFE Health Clubs have written to members to backflip on a decision to charge them a ‘time freeze’ fee during their nationwide shutdown due to the coronavirus crisis.

The chain wrote to members yesterday after their government-imposed closure, telling them that their standard ‘Time Freeze fee’ of $5 per week will continue for the duration of the closure unless in their membership type.

“As soon as we are able to re-open our clubs, we will credit your membership account with any Time Freeze fees paid during this time,” the club wrote yesterday.

“This credit will be applied automatically once we have reopened and your membership is reinstated. This will help ensure we are able to maintain the Goodlife Health Clubs you know and love during this difficult time.”

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But furious members took to the gym chain’s Facebook page overnight, promising to report the issue to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission.

Today, Goodlife’s general manager Andy Chamoun sent an email to members apologising for yesterday’s email.

“I’m writing to you to let you know of a mistake we made yesterday in response to the new Federal Government regulations relating to gyms, and to offer my sincere apologies for that,” he said.

“On Sunday 22nd March 2020, the Australian Prime Minister announced that all gyms across Australia must close, with less than 16 hours notice.”

“This directive is unprecedented and required us to close over 80 clubs in 4 different states with a community of over 295,000 members.”

He said Goodlife teams worked through Sunday night and Monday to close clubs, notify members, partners and suppliers and finish work ahead of the nationwide stand-down.

“Unfortunately in that rush to meet the Prime Minister’s deadline, we made a mistake. We followed what our contracts stipulate and put our memberships on a Time Freeze, which includes a small ongoing administrative fee to be payable by members,” he said.

“That was a mistake.”

Mr Chamoun said they were not prepared for a national shut-down of their entire business and workforce on such little notice.

“And we hope that our members can accept our sincere apologies for this error,” he said.

“I would like to confirm that all memberships have been placed on Time Freeze, with no fees payable by any member until we reopen. Any member that was debited a time freeze fee on Monday 23rd or Tuesday 24th will be refunded.”