When I purchase a product or service my expectation is I will receive impartial and just treatment or behavior without favoritism or discrimination.

This particularly applies with a medium to a large organization that has been in business for some time.    That is, given their track record and absence the perception of dishonesty from the press and social media it seems to be a reasonable assumption.

The Fine Print

Of course, even large bureaucracies do focus more on self-interest over fair treatment of stakeholders to a certain point but usually, reason prevails so a fair balance is achieved.

Contracts with unreasonable clauses, usually in small print, are a popular technique to help employ one-sided practices that favor the business.

Today’s Rant

Almost ten years ago my wife joint Spa Lady Gym, as the name implies a gym exclusively for women.  New owners recently renamed the company GYMMVMT (weird name).

She was a regular at least a couple of times a week until Covid hit.  The gym, fairly in this case, offered the chance to suspend monthly payments, while gyms were not allowed to open, which my wife took advantage of.

Now comes the tricky part.  The gym decided to restart monthly payments in July (because gyms could now be open) but they did not announce it.

We had a 1-month credit so did not see the return of the monthly charge until this week.   Not ready to return to the gym my wife decided just to cancel her membership.

The Catch

The contract fine print required months notice so cancelation will not take effect until Sept.  So we pay for July, August, and September for a service that is not being used.

Is it fair?  I think not.