He thought it was a deal of a lifetime, not a scam that would last his lifetime.
A Chinese national named Jin is going viral for getting tricked into buying 300 years’ worth of gym memberships and for getting ghosted by the company he bought them from.
The incident is opening a larger discussion about the burden consumers bear and how gym memberships can be shady.
Jin thought he could get double his investment by buying multiple gym memberships
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The man, who goes by his surname Jin, as is common in Asian countries, said it all started a few months ago.
According to various reports, Jin said a sales representative at the gym where he’d been working out for more than three years in eastern China’s Hangzhou City, approached him one day after his workout.
They told him of a magnificent new deal for members like him: purchase a gym membership for a certain price (roughly US$1,200), then the gym would sell it to a third party for double (or about US$2,300).
Image credits: Robert/Adobe Stock (Not the actual photo)
Jin would get the profits, and the gym would take 10 percent.
The deal was enticing, Jin said, but seemed too good to be true.
The employee reassured Jin that if the membership wasn’t sold to anyone within two months, Jin would get his money back.
But that’s not what happened.
Jin racked up 300 years’ worth of gym memberships and private lessons
Image credits: buritora/Adobe Stock (Not the actual photo)
After purchasing his first membership under the deal, Jin started getting excited about the prospect of doubling his investment.
With the prospect of making hundreds or even thousands of dollars on his investment, he bought more memberships. And more. And more. He also bought private lessons under the same sales pitch: pay little now, get lots back later.
According to reports, by mid-July, Jin had spent 870,000 yuan, or more than 121,000 U.S. dollars, on 26 gym contracts.
He had amassed 300 years of gym memberships and private lessons, believing he was investing in a “future of health” for the community.
But about two months after his first purchase, when he was supposed to start getting his profits returned to him, something went very wrong.
When Jin tried to find the gym’s manager or sales staff, they had vanished
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He knew something was amiss when the gym’s staff seemed to disappear. According to reports, the management and all its sales staff were nowhere to be found when he tried to ask them where his money was.
While the gym, located in Hangzhou’s Binjiang District, remains open to this day, none of the management is there.
Rightly worried, Jin contacted a lawyer, who discovered that the company is actually a shell company, with a registered capital of only 50,000 yuan.
Plus, news accounts say: “The investigation shows that the gym has been in debt with rent for three months, which completely coincides with the timeline of Mr. Jin’s fraud.”
Jin also noticed that in the contracts’ fine print, the memberships were not transferable.
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“I admit that I have been brainwashed by them, because I believed I was only one small step away from getting back all my money,” Jin said, as the South China Morning Post reported in a story.
Feeling completely let down, broke, and without many options, Jin contacted the media for help in telling his story.
Chinese netizens are criticizing the man for seeming to make a careless mistake
Image credits: Eric Prouzet/Unsplash (Not the actual photo)
Image credits: WeChat
And that’s when members of the public also jumped on the story.
After making the rounds on Chinese social media for days, netizens are still enthralled with the story.
Comments range from humorous to scolding to pity.
In one comment that got more than 1,000 likes, someone said that “He could have bought the whole gym for 870,000.”
Other people pondered how someone could lose such a large amount so quickly.
“The PR that sold him the membership is good,” said one person.
Others said he got what he deserved.
“Greed will always consume and destroy a person,” another noted.
Experts say consumers need to be careful when agreeing to buy a gym membership
Image credits: 纵览新闻/YouTube
Chinese news reports say that it’s not the first fitness center to use the so-called dual track model, wherein the club operates a front-facing sales department as well as a hidden sales department, “which is specifically aimed at old customers, and they run away after cheating, so that old members have no choice,” news reports say.
“This dual-track operation model has been common in the fitness industry. According to the investigation, many similar cases have occurred this year, but the amount is far less than Mr. Jin’s loss,” the article continued.
Image credits: KMPZZZ/Adobe Stock (Not the actual photo)
But in many cases, consumers need to be more responsible for checking the fine print.
According to experts from The Better Business Bureau (BBB), a non-profit from the U.S., it’s important to “read through your contract if you do decide to go through with getting a gym membership and be careful of free trial offers because they could end up costing you a lot of money once the free trial runs out.”
Image credits: zhu difeng/Adobe Stock (Not the actual photo)
During previous interviews, BBB executive Josh Planos has said when it comes to gyms: “We recommend that you ask questions when you see things like free trials. Typically that involves sometimes a free week, a free month, sometimes two free months of a gym membership, however, you want to make sure there isn’t a huge payment coming as soon as that free trial concludes.”
Netizens criticize the person who lost more than $121,000 buying 300 years’ worth of non-transferable gym memberships
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