Don’t fall for it!

If you are a UBC student, chances are that you’ve probably been approached by a young male or female asking if you’d like to enter a draw for a free one-month Gold’s Gym membership. For those of you that have been approached, you’ve probably also been contacted a few days later by a representative from the gym telling you that you’ve won. And finally, for those of you that actually decided to redeem your prize, you’ve probably been disappointed at what they actually have to offer and all the little details that they “forgot” to mention.

At first glance, it seems like a pretty smart idea on their part: giving out free memberships so that students can try out the gym and see if they’d like to sign up for a full-year membership. The problem is, by redeeming the prize in the first place, you’d have to sign up for the full-year membership. It’d be fine if they mentioned that, but they don’t actually explain this “forgotten” detail until you go in to their office to redeem the prize, and by then it’ll already be too late to back out.

Thankfully, I found out about their poor business ethic practices before I actually went in. Just search “Gold’s Gym” and you’ll find hundreds or thousands of people who have had horrible experiences with the company. From what I’ve heard, their manager uses forceful marketing techniques and pitches in order to get you to sign up for their full year membership in order to redeem your prize. Sounds like a little controversial marketing technique marketers like to call Bait and Switch.

I don’t know about you, but I really do believe that there’s a fine line between “smart marketing” and what Gold’s Gym has decided to do in order to grab customers.