On Tuesday, July 23, 2013, Josh Harwood, the senior vice president of operations for Titan Fitness, received some disheartening news — a handful of Fitness Connection’s (owned by Titan Fitness) members’ accounts had wrongfully been charged holds of close to $3,000.
“We’re a month-to-month club,” said Harwood. “So we took the situation very seriously.”
After doing some investigating, Harwood’s team discovered the issue was the result of a third-party billing company, Vantiv’s, error. Fitness Connection utilizes Jonas Fitness club management software, which uses Vantiv to do its billing processing. In a statement released to the press, Ken Thorsen, the vice president of Vantiv, stated:
Vantiv recently identified an isolated error in a single processing batch file that was transmitted on Monday, July 22nd that may have caused a limited number of credit and debit card holders to receive authorization holds on their accounts. These authorization holds may have been applied with incorrect, larger dollar amounts on certain accounts due to this error. At no time was cardholder information exposed anywhere outside our secure networks, and at no time were cardholders actually charged for these incorrect amounts. Additionally, the isolated file error that caused this issue was promptly fixed.
Harwood concurred that as of yesterday, the situation had been resolved, and that Vantiv had agreed to pay any late fees members may have accrued as a result of the issue. Roughly 2 percent of Fitness Connection’s members were affected.
Despite the less-than-ideal situation, Harwood believes that the way he and his team handled the situation shed Fitness Connection in a positive light. “We were made aware of the situation and immediately started working to get the situation resolved,” he explained. “We e-mailed and called members that were affected, and worked with both Jonas Fitness and Vantiv to figure out what had gone wrong. A lot of members were pleased with how quickly we responded.”
Harwood explained that he was transparent with the media as to the issue’s cause and what steps were being taking to get it resolved. “We really wanted to take an approach of partnership with the media,” he said. “We wanted to let them know we cared.”
Hardwood advised that if a similar situation were to happen to other operators, fast-action is necessary. “First off, start investigating the issue right away,” he advised. “Next, prep for communication with staff, members and the media. Let them know that you’re working to fix the situation.”
As of Wednesday, July 24, 2013, Harwood reiterated the issue had been resolved, but that any members adversely affected should contact refund@jonasfitness.com with any issues.
Fitness Connection boasts multiple locations in Texas, Nevada and North Carolina.
By Rachel Zabonick
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Rachel Zabonick-Chonko is the editor-in-chief of Club Solutions Magazine. She can be reached at rachel@peakemedia.com.
