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July 16, 2005
Misleading
“Unhappy with Fitness Trainer, Woman Demands Money Back.” That’s the headline of this recent Action 9 consumer news report. At first glance, that summary seems accurate:
Kristi Stanfield wanted the expertise of a personal trainer. But after spending more than $1,000 for a trainer, she was unhappy with the results and wanted her money back.Stanfield is a busy young professional who likes to hit the gym and get the most out of her workout. That's why she plunked down big bucks to hire a professional trainer through Beyond Fitness.
"I paid them approximately $1,200 for the year and began having problems almost right away."
Stanfield said her trainer was not showing up for sessions, didn't know much about workouts on the exercise machines and knew even less about nutrition.
"There was just a great amount of turnover and I felt that a lot of the people who were supposed to be training me knew less about fitness than I did," she said.
So far, so bad. But the headline seems wildly misleading when read in the context of the very last line of the story:
Stanfield has had several sessions with Rosen [a new trainer] and now she's turned down the refund we got for her from Beyond Fitness because she said he is what she's been looking for.
I guess the point of these consumer “Action” reports is to highlight the efforts of the crusading reporters on behalf of wronged consumers. But the real news here is that the new guy was so good that the client even turned down money offered for the missed sessions and bad advice. Why wasn’t the headline “Overjoyed with Fitness Trainer, Woman Refuses Refund”?
Posted by Kristen at July 16, 2005 12:46 PM