Gym front desk worker gives her number to a friendly regular. Then she gets a DM from a woman with 7 children claiming he’s allegedly scamming the gym

Virgo (@klairelena) shared a story on TikTok from when she used to work the front desk at a gym. What started as a friendly regular who asked for her number turned into a story about a man with multiple children cheating on his partner while scamming a gym out of hundreds of dollars.

Sometimes, you might feel like you’re being scammed by your gym membership, as in this case of a woman being told it’ll cost $250 for her to cancel her membership at Anytime Fitness. In Virgo’s story, one member apparently flipped the script by using the gym without paying for his membership, and the staff allegedly didn’t realize it until they were told how he did it.

To top it off, Virgo includes a bit about exchanging a number with this man as a potential date at the gym, which can result in an awkward situation. The result is a story that might feel like it should be made up, but only Virgo knows how much truth is in it.

Virgo gives her number to a friendly regular at the gym where she works

Starting her story, Virgo explains that she worked at the front desk and gave her number to a friendly regular. She says she was newly single at that time, and she would sometimes contact him to go out for drinks.

Then, she gets some DMs on Instagram from a woman claiming to be with that man and having seven children with him. Virgo claims she didn’t know he wasn’t single, and the woman then tells Virgo that the man allegedly hasn’t paid his membership in months.

When she checks the system, it appears to confirm that he owes the gym hundreds of dollars in unpaid fees. As the woman explained it to Virgo, he did that he would buy a drink and talk to the front desk worker to apparently charm them so they wouldn’t realize that he didn’t check in.

While Virgo claims that she ended on good terms with the woman, who didn’t blame her for associating with him since she didn’t know, Virgo doesn’t mention what happened regarding the membership after the discovery of how much he owed.

You can protect yourself from gym scams

A story about a member scamming their gym is much less common to find than a story about a member feeling like they’re being scammed by their gym. If you’re concerned about having or starting a gym membership and ending up with unexpected costs, there are steps you can take to protect yourself as much as possible.

Perhaps the most important step is using a credit card to pay your membership, and then paying the card off each month to avoid the high interest rates. Credit cards offer more payment protection and let you dispute charges more easily. They also tend to have more fraud protection in place.

Beyond that, you want to read the entire contract before you sign anything, and then document everything. It’s going to be easier to dispute charges that shouldn’t be there if you have proof that they don’t belong. It’s also going to be easier to deal with canceling the membership if you have written proof detailing the terms. Then, you can also dispute any continued charges after canceling if you were paying with a credit card.

In short, document everything and use whatever form of payment offers the most protections that is currently available to you.

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