At the gym, Elizabeth Farentino wasn’t just a retired hairdresser clocking steps on the treadmill.
She was “Queenie” — a playful nod to her social status in the Oakville sweat palace she visited regularly for the past decade until a debilitating physical ailment made it increasingly painful to get around.
Elizabeth doesn’t like to talk about her disability — or what happened next.
Late last year, as the club underwent a major renovation and rebranding from ‘One Health’ to ‘Corten,’ a staffer put Farentino’s membership on what she and her husband Michael, both seniors, thought was an indefinite hold.
When biweekly billing resumed on Feb. 20 and again March 6, totalling $133.34, the situation escalated into what Michael calls an uncomfortable and totally avoidable “foofaraw.”
The Problem: A reno, a rebrand and the fine print ‘foofaraw’
While Michael had relinquished his membership long before the revamp — which transformed the space from a traditional fitness centre with standard drop-ceiling fluorescent lighting to a luxe wellness retreat with a 30-person aromatherapy sauna and cold-plunge tubs — he didn’t grumble about the cost because the gym had long been an important social outlet for Elizabeth.
But the new charges didn’t add up, the couple said. Elizabeth hadn’t set foot in the facility in months.
“It doesn’t feel right that she should be charged for something she didn’t use,” he said.
When the couple questioned the club about its charges, they were told the temporary hold had lifted and they needed to submit written notice to extend the hold or cancel the membership altogether.
The Farentinos had no idea such a deadline existed.
They also had no record or recollection of signing a new contract agreement with the rebranded club.
The Star Steps In: Bad deals paved way for better protections
It wasn’t that long ago that complaints about fitness clubs flooded Ontario’s consumer services ministry, which underwent its own recent rebranding and now goes by “Ministry of Public and Business Service Delivery and Procurement,” a name I will never not have to look up.
Back when it still published information about consumer complaints, the ministry noted it dealt with more than 710 gym-related beefs in 2015, most commonly contract cancellations and billing disputes.
The Farentino’s complaint is the first I’ve received about fitness centres since this column launched last year.
I hope that means most clubs are doing a better job of operating on the right side of the law.
In an email, Corten manager Irelyn DaCosta said the private club applies its policies consistently and “not on a case-by-case basis,” noting it extended an initial complimentary pause before automatic billing resumed.
However, Ontario’s Human Rights Code requires service providers to adapt blanket rules when they create an adverse financial impact on seniors with disabilities.
While DaCosta asserted the gym made good-faith accommodations — including waiving a notice fee by applying the two processed payments to an immediate cancellation, and offering a one-month credit transfer to Michael — the family rejects this narrative. Michael insists that when he personally proposed transferring the membership to his name to use the sauna for a month, management told him it was contractually impossible.
I told DaCosta the Farentinos did not believe Elizabeth had ever signed a new contract with Corten and could not remember signing any updated agreements beyond the initial membership agreement with One Health more than a decade earlier.
Under Ontario’s Consumer Protection Act (CPA), service agreements with fitness centres must be renewed annually.
Could Corten confirm the date on which Elizabeth had signed her current agreement and provide a copy for my review, I asked?
If an updated agreement did not exist, I pointed out, the contract may be entirely voidable under Section 30 of the Consumer Protection Act.
Since the facility underwent a massive reno and corporate rebranding, the operational terms of the contract changed. If Corten simply started auto-billing Elizabeth without ever having her sign a fresh, physical or digital contract that reflected the terms of the new brand, it would violate Section 30.
In a scenario like this, the law gives the consumer the right to cancel a contract up to one full year after entering into it. The consumer can demand a full return of all payments collected under the non-compliant framework.
“We will not be providing private member documentation, agreements, billing records, or other confidential account information to third parties,” DaCosta replied. “We take our members’ privacy seriously.”
The Resolution: Credit where it’s due
Bringing their beef to public light was never about the money, the Farentinos said. They told me they had offered to donate the amount to a registered charity of Corten’s choice. While Michael initially was willing to try out the club for a month to see if its new amenities could soothe his own increasingly aching joints, he said he wouldn’t feel comfortable or welcome setting foot in there now.
After my third and final emails to Corten that outlined Ontario’s strict accessibility and consumer disclosure laws, the club’s management abruptly dropped its “no refund” policy.
The “circumstances appear to stem primarily from a communication breakdown rather than any deliberate action by the club,” DaCosta wrote in an email. “Our position that the membership charges were processed in accordance with the information available to us at the time remains, we have elected to process a refund of the charges totalling $133.34 directly back to Mrs. Farentino’s original method of payment.”
Elizabeth will be thrilled to step out of the glare of this public dispute and return to a quiet road of recovery, her royal title intact.
The Farentinos should see the credit in the next six business days.
