Updated 1:30 p.m.:

On Thursday, D.C. Attorney General Karl A. Racine filed another lawsuit against the parent company of Washington Sports Club (Florida-based Town Sports International, LLC) alleging that the gym has not processed membership cancellations or credited fees paid back to members as promised.

This comes on the heels of a April 3 letter sent by Racine and attorneys general from New York and Pennsylvania telling the company to stop charging customers for memberships they were unable to use due to the coronavirus shutdown. By the end of the month, WSC froze all memberships, with Racine announcing the gym would credit fees paid while the gym was closed and would allow members to cancel without penalty.

However, since being able to reopen in June, the D.C. Office of the Attorney General alleges that this hasn’t happened as promised.

According to the lawsuit, the company has neither issued credits for fees paid during the shutdown nor processed all membership cancellations. OAG is seeking a court order that would force Town Sports International to credit members and process cancellations, along with civil penalties.

“Unfortunately, we’ve gotten a raft of complaints that Washington Sports Club once again has broken its promise. The job is to do what we’ve done the last time, which is bring suit and have a court make Washington Sports Club honor their promises to their consumers, ” D.C. Attorney General Karl A. Racine tells DCist/WAMU.

He said that his office has received “well over 50” complaints in regards to the issues the office alleges.

Prior to the pandemic, WSC had six D.C. locations but two (in Georgetown and Gallery Place) have since closed permanently.

This isn’t the first time that the D.C. Office of the Attorney General has filed a lawsuit nor has warned the gym about perceived deceptive cancellation and billing practices. In January 2019, OAG filed a lawsuit alleging that WSC employees told prospective members that they could cancel at any time by simply telling a gym employee their request. But that wasn’t true, with the contract requiring cancellations to be done in writing with 30 days’ notice. This ended up with members being charged fees while thinking they had canceled.

This came two years after other cancellation and membership issues that resulted in D.C. OAG involvement in late 2016.

It seems similar practices have continued to happen throughout the pandemic with a number of members reporting they’ve had to go on a “wild-ass goose chase” to cancel their membership even when the gym was forced to close, along with other non-essential businesses, on March 16 in accordance with the Mayor’s order.

DCist/WAMU has reached out to Washington Sports Club’s parent company Town Sports International for comment, but did not hear back prior to publishing.

This story has been updated with comments from D.C. Attorney General Karl A. Racine.