Gofitness Derrick Pierce Ripping Off Elderly Oregon Ontario,
In 2018 my mother was suffering from severe dementia as documented by a neurologist in 2017 and was totally obvious to anyone who knew her. Derrick Pierce had been training her for 6 years so he had to be well aware of her problems. He continued to train her at the age of 88 and eventually she could no longer walk and is now relegated to a wheelchair. I can find no training that he has completed and he refuses to send me a copy of his credentials so I have to assume he has none.
He did have a business card with the initials of NASM as a place that he was credentialled only I called NASM and his certificate had expired in 2009. He had generic initials listed for another credentials but the category is way to broad to verify that he actually has certificates and there is no way to look without a specific name.
He started by charging her $3,000 per year and by the end of her training he charged her $7,000 in 2 payments within 30 days of each other. This is a ridiculous amount to charge for a man that has no credentials and lives in a rural town in Oregon. I can find no contract that she signed and he refuses to provide one even after I sent him a certified letter.
Who knows how much money he would have taken from her if she continued to be trained by him. So here we have a man who will not return a family members phone call, refuses to issue a refund for almost 8 months that she did not receive training because she could not walk. When I turned him over to the BBB he merely responded on how much better she was doing since she started training with him which I maintain was marginal at best. Do not go see this man for your fitness training under any circumstances. He is a scam artist.
1 Updates & Rebuttals
Teri
Boise,Idaho,
United States
Additional complaints for GoFitness
#2Author of original report
Tue, November 26, 2019
My mom paid him in two payments of $3,500. The payments were made within three months of each other, July of 2018 and October of 2018, not 30 days as reported in the prior complaint.
By January 2019 my mom could no longer walk. She was complaining of pain in her legs in July, 2018 and Derrick was working her out continually during this period except when she could not bear to drive to the gym. He never proposed that she take a break from working out during this time period but rather charged her $7,000 instead. Her legs are now permantly damaged and she cannot walk to this day.
Derrick was sick for approximately 30 days right after she paid him the last $3500. Between his sickness and my mom not being able to workout because she could not drive the car due to the pain in her legs approximately two months were missed. I do not know if he intended on training her for six months or a year or two years for $7,000 because he will not provide a copy of any contract so it's impossible to know how many sessions is still owed to her but my best guess is he still owes her for eight months worth of payments. He has refused to give a refund a year and a half later even though it is a possibility that her not walking could be linked to her working out. We will never know. We do know that the workouts did not do her any good.
Derrick Pierce moved into my 88 year old mom's home for approximately one month while she was suffering from moderately severe dementia. Which essentially made my mom suffering from dementia essentially defenseless when he asked for the second payment of $3,500 just soon after he lived with her. In the past he claimed that he was giving my mom the best rate he could give her by paying ahead when I first started complaining in 2015 about his charging an 84 year old woman two years in advance. In my mind, he made my mom his own little piggy bank.
She also had an additional $35 fee coming out of her bank account automatically each month on top of the $7,000 even after she could not walk. Only if: 1. I had a death certificate for her, 2. She had proof of active duty military, 3. She moved more the 30 miles from the gym with a utility bill in her name to prove the move 4. She had a doctors certificate saying she could not work out for more than six months was provided, would he stop the payments. Very stringent indeed. Like the man is entitled to her medical records or to require a doctors excuse to get this payment stopped without his requirements to have all that in writing beforehand. She had already been paying a gym fee for six years to train with him. Since she had no contract, this $35 fee would go on forever unless one of these conditions were met. So if she just wanted to change gyms, she would in theory still be paying the $35 to GoFitness.
He had been charging her this fee so she could use the gym anytime when he was not there to supervise. So which is it? She needed this high priced trainer for her safety or she was fine to work out on her own?? She had no business working out alone at all with her bad legs and dementia. If she fell or got caught in a machine there would be no one there to help her. His giving my 88 year old mom with demantia and painful legs a key to the gym was negilgent on his part.
So even after she had allowed him to move into her home he still ripped her off for several thousand dollars. Coincidently she was exercising with him right up to the timeframe she could no longer walk. I believe he had no training to work with the elderly and now she still is relegated to a wheelchair.
Do not fall into his promises and traps. He is a scam artist and cares nothing about his clients.