Man Pays S$153K For 300-Year Gym Membership, Turns Out To Be A Scam

A man from Hangzhou, China is suing a gym for reportedly scamming him of 870K yuan (S$53K) for a membership that would last him 300 years.

If he was hoping to live that long, we want to know his secret to that kind of longevity.

Known only as Jin, he sought the help of a television station, even showing the 26 contracts he signed for memberships and coaching sessions with Ranyan Gym.

“From May 10 to July 9, I bought about 1,200 lessons and membership cards with an accumulative validity period of 300 years, at a total cost of 871,273 yuan,” he said.

Jin said that he had been regularly working out at Ranyan Gym for about three years, and thought of it as a “health investment”.

“I actually did not really expect to use it for 300 years. In my eyes, it was a kind of commitment to health,” he explained.

Jin claimed that a sales executive pitched him a deal where he could buy a one-year membership card for 8,888 yuan (S$1,586), and the gym would sell it to new customers for 16,666 yuan (S$2,975).

The sales executive lured an already sceptical Jin, telling him that 10 per cent of the mark-up would be kept by them, and the rest given back to him.

“He said if they did not sell it within two months, they would return all the money to me,” claimed Jin.

The following weeks saw Jin buying more membership cards and personal training sessions, including 300K yuan (S$53K) in one transaction.

Things went south on July 15 when Jin noticed a promised payment hadn’t arrived and was told that the gym’s finance department was reviewing the claim.

By the end of the month, the entire management and sales staff had vanished.

He then realised that none of his contracts mentioned the promised returns.

“I admit that I have been brainwashed by them, because I believed I was only one small step away from getting back all my money,” Jin said.

Netizens were largely unsympathetic and found his predicament a huge joke, with many wondering what was going through his mind.

“Did he buy 300 years so he could past it down to his future generations?” read a comment, while another wrote, “He had only his greed to blame”.

According to Zhejiang TV, the gym is still open but only the administrative staff remain.

Photos: SCMP