Gold’s Gym members’ bank accounts tapped with faulty charges

Gold’s Gym members’ bank accounts tapped with faulty charges.

Gold’s Gym members in Palm Springs have been checking ledger lines in their banking and checking accounts after learning some of their workout colleagues were tapped with unwarranted membership charges.The problem, first reported by The Desert Sun and KESQ, came to light after members in Palm Springs reported in Twitter feeds and Facebook pages that their bank accounts reflected pending electronic dues and club membership charges — some ranging from a couple of hundred dollars to more than $8,000.Manager Brenda Olsen and a receptionist at the Palm Springs gym on Tuesday gave indication that more than one Gold’s location was affected by what she described as a computer glitch in the franchise’s third party billing system.Gold’s Gym International, which got its start in Venice Beach in 1965, operates more than 600 gyms in 30 countries. It has more than 30 gyms in California. Inland region Gold’s facilities are also in Palm Desert, Temecula and Murrieta.On Wednesday, Gold’s Gym regional manager Aaron Wallo said only the Palm Springs location was affected.Wallo chalked up the problem staff spent much of Wednesday to correct to an “isolated error” made in a single processing batch on Monday, July 22, by Vantiv, the third-party credit card processor for a software company Gold’s hired to collect payments from its members.In a statement, Gold’s said the amounts were in “pre-authorization” status, and no money had been taken out or fully applied against a client’s credit or bank balance. Cardholder information was not exposed outside secure networks, the statement said.Wallo declined to say how many clients were affected.The Palm Springs gym is one of 16 operating under a separate franchise of Gold’s Gym International, Wallo said. He declined to list the other locations.