It's over....

Yesterday I got a "Thank you for the donation" card from the Winnipeg Foundation for the donation Shapes made in my honour to the Seven Oaks School Divison Educational Foundation.

Today I checked my credit report and the collection was gone.

It's over. Pretty much 5 years to the day after it started. And it's over.

Thank God......

The end of my saga...

After the CBC news report (and a quick, gloating e-mail to Shapes), it appears that the Saga may be over...

I received this reply from Shapes in the form of an e-mail.

Dear Mr. Fingas,

After further review of your case, we wish to apologize for the difficulties you have experienced with our gym.

We can assure you that we will take immediate steps to remove Shapes' debt from your credit record.

Further, as a goodwill gesture, we'd like to make a $200 donation in your honour to a charity of your choice. Please email us back with the name of your preferred registered charity at your earliest convenience.

Respectfully yours,

Shapes Fitness Centres

So after more than 5 years, they've offered to remove the entry on my credit report and donate $200 to charity (keep in mind, with a 50% tax credit, it amounts to only $100, and with the three extra times they billed me, at almost $50 per time, they're still slightly ahead.) As I said though, it was never about the money.

I'll reply to them and suggest a charity I have in mind. I'll also ask them what steps they are going to put in place to make sure this doesn't happen again to anyone else. If they let me know, I'll happily post it on here.

And on February 1st, I'll contact Equifax and check my credit, and woe be upon them if that entry is still there.

Link to CBC news story

http://www.cbc.ca/video/#/News/Canada/Manitoba/1304130959/ID=1726917215


It's about 6 minutes in...
This was the local follow up to a national CBC "Marketplace" report

CBC Winnipeg News Story

So a reporter for CBC stumbled across my blog while researching for a marketplace story.

They interviewed me for the local follow-up on the story. The follow-up dealt specifically with Shapes in Winnipeg.

Here's the link to the national story...

http://www.cbc.ca/consumer/story/2011/01/07/con-marketplace-gym-complaints.html

I'm trying to get a link or a copy of the Winnipeg follow-up. I wasn't able to see it today; I got home late because of the weather.

What truly shocked me was: Shapes is the gym they heard about 8th most out of all of the gyms in Canada. Most of the other ones on the list were national gyms, some with hundreds of branches. Shapes has 3 branches, and they were number 8. That's called "over-representation". It tells me that Shapes is doing something very wrong.

And although it sucks for hundreds of other people... It's nice to know that I'm not alone...

Formal Complaint to the Consumer Protection Bureau of Manitoba

At this point, I am also filing a complaint against both Equifax and Citadel Credit of Canada (Shapes' Collection Agency) for violating The Personal Investigations Act

Citadel has violated by providing disputed evidence to a personal reporting bureau (Equifax) and failing to provide me with proper documentation to validate the debt. Since I have supplied them with evidence that proves, reasonably, that the debt is invalid they are required to either show me their proof or to correct their files and update the report to Equifax.

Equifax is also in violation of this act for failing to properly validate the information that I have disputed. The law says they must "verify" it, something that they have not done. Rather than verify it, they choose just to rely on the word of the Collection Agency to confirm ir(who obviously have a financial motive to lie).

So both of these companies are in violation of The Personal Investigations Act. Here's an excerpt from my formal complaint:

I would like to file a complaint under the personal investigations act.

Citadel Credit of Canada, a collection agency in Manitoba, has knowingly
supplied false information to someone making a personal report about me
(Equifax Canada Inc.) They have told Equifax that there is a debt
against me, that does not exist. I have proof that disputes the validity
of the debt. Under section 15 of the personal investigations act, they
are guilty of an offense. I have supplied them with evidence that the
debt is invalid in the form of a cancellation notice of a contract in a
timely manner, therefore they should reasonably be aware that the
information they are supplying is false.



In addition to this, I would like to make a similar complaint against
Equifax Canada Inc. (a credit reporting bureau in Ontario) I have sent
them a request to verify and correct the inaccurate information, but so
far, they have refused to do so. Equifax's "verification" process
consists of asking the reporting agency (Citadel Credit of Canada)
whether the information is true. The dictionnary, however, defines
verification as "to establish the truth, accuracy, or reality of a
claim". Equifax does not do this in their verification process, instead,
they simply ask the reporting agency (who has a financial motive to say
that it is truthful) whether or not the record is accurate. Even though
I have supplied them with evidence to the contrary, they still maintain
that they have "verified" the information.

Under section 17.1, I would request that the director investigate both
of these agencies to ensure that they are in complaince with the act and
to force compliance and/or prosecute both of these agencies if they are
found to be in violation.

I would also request, that since I have, on several occasions, made both
of these parties aware of their mistakes/violations that you make note
of the fact that they should not be exempt from civil liability under
section 16 due to the fact they they "ought to be reasonably aware that
part or all of the information in the report ... is false"

I'll be faxing this along with my documentation to the consumer protection office. As this is a formal complaint, the commissioner now has the right to levy fines and force compliance.

Complaints submitted

So I've submitted three complaints to the Privacy Comissioner. One about Shapes, one about Citadel, and one about Equifax. Can't wait to hear back from them. We explained in detail in each complaint letter the actions that I took, the actions taken by the businesses that violate PIPEDA and the way it needs to be rectified.

Good times. Hopefully I'll get to sue all three of them for the crap they've put me through after this.

My mortgage broker also had Shapes do this.

So I'm applying for a mortgage through a broker and I tell him about this collection and he says...

"I'm guessing it was a gym membership? If so same thing happened to me, they actually called SCU and SCU gave them my acct info and they forged my signature!! Was it shapes by chance?"

no fooling, I'm saving the e-mail if anyone wants to get a look at it. It's from a business e-mail address of a Winnipeg area mortgage broker. I don't want to post it here, but if anyone wants a look, let me know.

It would be funny if it wasn't so sad.

Also, he has a way of submitting a request for a re-score to Equifax and they'll be more likely to take it seriously since he's a paying member. In the U.S. it's called "Rapid Re-scoring." I don't know what it's called here

Either way, he says he can get any bank to overlook such a small collection, especially when he explains the circumstances and shows them my proof.

To Shapes: You can't treat me this way and get away with it. So to recap the consequences for you: Lost customers, lost time dealing with me, lost time dealing with complaint to consumer's bureau, lost time dealing with formal complaint to privacy comissioner, and soon to be lost time dealing with court and (God willing) lost money from a judgement against you.


PS dear readers: It seems like so many people have had a number pulled on them by Shapes, I keep talking to random people and they all seem to have similar experiences. Why are they allowed to continue their business? Everyone who has been wronged should complain to A) The Consumer's bureau and B) The Privacy Comissioner of Canada!
Perhaps with enough people, we can put these ass-clowns out of business.