SAN FRANCISCO (CN) - A RICO class action claims 24 Hour Fitness charges members an extra month of dues when they cancel, though they paid first and last month fees when they joined.
Lead plaintiff Albert Alatorre says 24 Hour Fitness gets credit card and bank account information when its customers sign up for "Unlimited Guest Services," then uses the information to extract an extra month of fees from them when they cancel.
Upon cancellation, Alatorre says, the health club makes "one additional EFT [electronic funds transfer] 'tap' to the bank or credit card accounts of plaintiff and each and every class member for membership dues". The company then applies the last-month dues it already has collected to the month after that.
Alatorre says 24 Hour Fitness does this for all such accounts at all of its 346 health clubs in 14 states.
He claims that no class member has ever received a full refund of the extra "EFT tap."
He seeks treble damages and an injunction for racketeering, unfair competition, fraud, breach of contract and misrepresentation.
He is represented in Federal Court by Jeffrey Keller with Keller Grover of San Francisco, and by Wasserman, Comden, Casselman & Esensten of Tarzana.
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