Basic Fit, the fitness number in Europe, which has nearly 700 gyms in France, will be fined 68,000 euros for having “misinformed consumers about its subscriptions”. Pronounced by the departmental director for the protection of the populations of the North, the sanction follows an investigation carried out by the agents of competition, consumption and the repression of fraud (CCRF) in the North department between March 2022 and January 2023.
The investigators noted several anomalies in the chain’s sports halls, in particular a lack of consumer information at the time of their subscription. Future customers were unaware of the “terms of termination”, no more than of the possibility of “seizing a consumer mediator in the event of a dispute”. The DGCCRF agents were also surprised by the absence of invoice delivery, a practice contrary to the Commercial Code.
The brand’s website would not be more in order, according to the DGCCRF. The Basic Fit pages basic-fit.com and webshop.basic-fit.com/fr present “prohibited clauses in their general conditions of sale” note the agents, and do not provide consumers with “contractual information on a durable medium, as is mandatory in the context of a contract concluded at a distance”. As for the customer reviews identified by Basic Fit, their mode of collection and moderation is not specified, which makes them problematic in the eyes of the regulator.
The case of Basic Fit is not isolated. The practices of sports and fitness halls have been in the sights of the DGCCRF for several years. A massive control plan carried out between 2019 and 2020 had brought to light several criminal practices, starting with the presence of illegal or abusive clauses in subscription contracts and failure to comply with consumer information obligations. Around 65% of the establishments inspected were found to be abnormal on at least one point of regulation and one in four cinemas was guilty of misleading commercial practices. Something to make consumers more vigilant.
