The European Fitness Center on South Virginia street has become the topic of angry discussion online, channeling frustrations over alleged predatory membership practices.
In March 2022, a thread was started in a Reno, Nevada, community Facebook group by a disgruntled community member who had what they described as a far from ideal experience at the gym, also known for its faux golden entrance art of Atlas perhaps holding a globe.
The original post, about allegedly shady billing practices and pushy employees, garnered over 175 comments from community members who have had similar experiences, with a handful of commenters leaving positive, glowing reviews in the mix.
The dominant negative comments can be found on other threads through local Facebook groups as well as on Yelp and Google reviews, leading Our Town Reno reporters Gaia Osborne and Arianna Pride to dig deeper. Gym ownership didn’t respond to queries for an interview, but the reporters went on their own trial experience at the gym, followed up with disgruntled internet commenters and also found previous court documents.
When signing up for a gym in Reno or elsewhere, it’s customary to go there beforehand to scope out the facilities, equipment, and overall environment before committing financially to anything.
Often gyms will offer a free week membership to attract potential new customers and draw them into their establishment. These trial periods are usually non-committal, with gym goers sometimes putting down a small deposit to cover a lost or non-returned key.
At the end of the free trial, they can choose whether to continue on and sign up for a membership, or walk out of the gym, no money lost.
When choosing to pass, you definitely wouldn’t want the gym to begin billing you and demanding payment for a membership you didn’t sign up for. But this is what some of the commenters say is happening at the European Fitness Center for the past few decades.
The Better Business Bureau indicates the gym has been around 38 years. It has a D- rating there, and two publicly viewable negative comments.
On its own website, the gym describes itself as a “family-oriented, comfortable and affordable full-service fitness center,” boasting a fully-equipped gym and workout area, as well as a health spa with an indoor swimming pool, a tanning and beauty salon, hair salon, barbers, and an accident injury clinic. It’s marketed as a one-stop shop for all things health and fitness, offering members every facility and class they could possibly need.
As part of the angry comments, several locals said they had entered a giveaway held at the local pizza chain Blind Onion, “winning” a free month-long membership to European Fitness Center.
However, after trying out the gym, they said they experienced pushiness from gym employees, received incomplete information regarding paperwork and waivers, and were charged even before deciding to join.
This is echoed throughout the Facebook thread mentioned at the top of this article. One individual commented: “I went in to take a tour and decided not to sign up and they still sent me to collections.” Another wrote: “The owner tried to take me to collections for a balance of $80. Place is a joke.”
A Yelp review posted by Kenneth M. in April of this year stated: “I was duped during a special they had going where to sign up for your membership was $30, and then 50 more dollars within the first month for your card. This membership was supposed to be a month-to-month membership, today I tried to cancel my membership, and they told me that I have agreed to a year-long membership, which was not the case and was not explained whatsoever when I signed up. They are intentionally not telling people that to get you to sign the contract.”
There are similar, much earlier accounts. Michele V (last name withheld for privacy reasons) is a longtime Reno local who has haunting memories of her own experiences, which she recollected through a phone interview.
Back in 1993, Michele – then 23 – and her boyfriend at the time says she won a free one-month membership at a home show at the Reno Convention Center.
After going in, Michele said they were quickly taken into a small room with a desk full of papers. “Right away, the employee was telling us the paperwork was just for insurance purposes, asking us to sign our names so we could walk around freely. I started feeling weird about the whole thing, but I was young at the time and didn’t really know any better,” Michele explained.
“After I signed, they had me leave the room and separated my then-boyfriend and I. My boyfriend at the time was on the spectrum, and I think they recognized that and cornered him. He didn’t know any better at the time,” she remembers.
When this occurred, Michele was living in Sparks. After looking around the gym, they decided not to sign up and to find a place closer to their home to join instead. “When we visited, nothing monetary was talked about. Nothing indicated that what we were signing had anything to do with finances, they told us it was just for insurance. And, oh my goodness, a few hours after we got home, our telephone was ringing off the hook. Every half hour, 45 minutes. Mostly every 20 minutes.”
It was the European Fitness Center blowing up Michele’s home phone, demanding they return and pay an outstanding fee. Despite Michele’s protests about not signing anything of that nature, they would not relent. “They were rude. I’ve never talked to anybody like that on the phone. Extremely unprofessional. They were talking to me like I was a bad person, and threatening to get us put in jail if we did not pay. It was a ridiculous fee, $150 per person which was a ton of money back then. Our cable bill was only $9 a month.”
Michele never returned to the gym after finding out the paperwork they signed had a membership clause, and that it wasn’t just strictly for insurance purposes. For the next two years, Michele would receive phone calls on a daily basis until she decided enough was enough. She said she filed a case at the small claims court for harassment and bad business practice.
For those already members, there is friction as well concerning the pushiness to get new members.
A comment left on Facebook in March of last year said, “When I had a membership I brought a friend and they wouldn’t leave her alone until she signed up. Very uncomfortable environment.”
Another member, Ehsan, had been living and working in Reno in 2022, and had already made up his mind to sign up when he went to the gym to join.
Ehsan talked about his experience at the gym in a phone interview. He said that during the sign-up process, he was told he must put down three references as ‘emergency contacts,’ which you’d think would be in case something happened to Ehsan, like getting injured while working out.
“The next day, they were calling every single one of those three references who were my coworkers. They were telling them that I was introducing them to this gym and they should sign up too as soon as possible. They were literally using my name and who I was,” Ehsan explained.
“I called the gym to tell them to stop calling and bugging my coworkers. They’d called them not just once, but three times. Every single one of them.”
During the sign-up process, Ehsan explained to the gym employee that he was in between moving and would only need the membership for the next month or so. “They told me that I could terminate or cancel my membership whenever I want. But there was no clause about the cancellation in the terms. I told them I wanted it in the contract, and they said the documents were old and the new ones hadn’t been printed so they ‘made a note’ about it,” said Ehsan.
The no-strings-attached cancellation Ehsan was promised turned out to be more convoluted than Ehsan originally thought, and when it came down to him skipping town, he says he had to pay for a few months of membership fees to cut ties with the gym.
Digging on the internet, we were able to find that Simon Abittan, the president of the European Fitness Center, was previously sentenced to five months in federal prison and fined $180,000 for defrauding several insurance companies and double billing customers at European Health Care.
The European Fitness Center houses many separate entities within their gym, with the word European, such as the European Wax Center, as part of their concept of being an all in one destination for health.
“An investigation revealed that Abittan was involved in a scheme that was double billing for services provided on a customer's initial visit by misusing codes for physician consultations and chiropractic care, inflating bills by charging for more expensive services than those actually performed, and submitting bills for manual massage therapy that was not provided,” the 2000 statement from Nevada’s office of the Attorney General indicates.
In order to get a firsthand experience, one of our reporters toured the facility. Here is her own recollection:
“Like many, I was intrigued by the many amenities on hand. We first headed to the pool area which was a smaller, more intimate area that held saunas as well. The pool area seemed to be maintained pretty well, however, I wish that visitors were not allowed to walk through the area with outdoor shoes on (for sanitary reasons).
I was also shown the nail salon as well as the chiropractic unit that was located near the pool. We then headed to the main machine and free weights area, which had about one or two of each machine on hand. I am personally unaware of how many members the European Fitness Center has, however, it seems as if it would serve a smaller number of people.
Their weights section is a bit smaller in comparison to many other gyms around the area. However, their cardio theaters house many treadmills and walking machines. Throughout the rest of the facility, there were other amenities such as a hair salon, a barber shop, a tanning salon, as well as a nail shop.
After I was given the tour, I sat down with the manager David to talk about signing up for a membership. I was given the run-down that included being made aware of the current special that was going on. This included paying only $20 a month instead of a $60 monthly fee. After a year, you are also grandfathered in the plan, which allows you to pause your membership at any time (after a year contract), he said. I decided to let them know that I won’t be signing up today, however, if I did want to sign up for a membership, I would have to physically come back in to start that sign-up process.
I personally was intrigued by all of the bells and whistles this facility has to offer. I was not able to experience a trial period, but I think that that would be a more in-depth test to see how the gym's equipment and amenities hold up. The main demographics of the gym also seem to be older and younger men. I did see a couple of women at the facility, however, the weight and sauna sections were mainly occupied by men.
Overall, the European Fitness Center seems to be a place that offers many great additives to the general workout facility. Many people have mixed feelings about this facility, but from the outside looking in, the amenities make it a very intriguing place to be.”
Despite the barrage poor reviews, there are also many people on Yelp and Google who are delighted with their experiences at the European Fitness Center.
One Google reviewer states, “This place is whole vibe package deal in one building, Affordable with everything from gym, swimming pool to sauna ,spa tanning room, hair, nail...etc..def worth checking out.”
Another member on Yelp who is extremely satisfied wrote: “I've been a member of European Fitness for 15 years. They are always professional and polite. They've been doing an incredible (job) during the Governors [sic] mandates the past 10 months. The gym is clean and sanitized. Members are asked to mask up and all equipment is socially distanced. If you're looking for a great environment with free personal training at a great rate Europe is the gym to try! Simon and staff keep up the great work!!”
Yet another Yelp reviewer decided to debunk the bad reviews: “I read all the terrible reviews on Google and yelp and was for sure expecting the place to be a disaster with so many negative reviews; numbers don't usually lie. The sole issue with this gym is its recruitment and sales practices, specifically the "contract.” The management here is big on the contract approach and in my opinion, it is working against them horribly. Every one of the negative reviews is from someone that signed a contract and stopped paying it. ALL THE BAD REVIEWS ARE FROM (PEOPLE) BREAKING CONTRACTS. The management here is great. On one hand, I believe these negative reviews are unwarranted. On the other (hand), this place needs to move away from the contract strategy and start a new business model.”
European Fitness Center did not respond to our efforts to give their own views on all the negative social media comments and reviews.
While the gym boasts a wide range of amenities and attracts customers with various offerings, there have been persistent complaints about its pushy sales tactics, billing practices, and lack of transparency.
More internet digging had one article from January 2nd, 2011 in the Northern Nevada Business Weekly, identifying Abittan as the owner of European Fitness Center since 1985.
As part of the gym craze for New Year’s resolutions, the article indicated “the health club also has waived enrollment fee for new members a step it hasn't made in 25 years.”
The article gave indications of tactics, saying that winter months were key to the gym’s survival.
"If we don't turn over big numbers it can get challenging in the summertime," Abittan is quoted as saying in the article. The NNBW then explained that the gym had “put together a three-month television advertising blitz beginning in late December and hired additional service, membership sales and maintenance staff to keep pace with increased activity at the health club.”
Recurring complaints make you wonder how many gym goers were reeled in then, and how many were left with headaches and feeling conned/
A former UNR student wrote in 2022 on the Better Business Bureau website: “I tried cancelling, but when I did they pulled out the contract and showed me the fine print in a specific area of the contract, saying I was locked in for the year and that they would continue to charge me. Since then I have cancelled my card, but now they have sent my info to a collection agency that has been demanding and harassing me to pay the entire year membership PLUS an insane “late fee” or else they will take “further action”. I was harassed and pressured into signing a contract that was deceitful and not clear with what I thought I was getting myself into…. I feel completely ripped off and wished I had never stepped foot into this business for my nonexistent “free week pass”.
The status of the complaint? Unanswered.