All Amanda (not her real name) wanted to do last Friday was try a very specialized ballet-inspired workout for the first time. She went to the workout studio in an upscale spa and paid P1,500 for three sessions.
She put her bag in one of the lockers provided, locked it and brought the key with her to the studio.
The one-hour class started and she noticed a man who joined the group. “What struck me was he had dirty feet. And a few minutes after the class started, he left.”
Amanda enjoyed the class and headed back to the locker room after to pick up her things. The locker room is shared by men and women who take the dance-inspired workout classes.
When she opened the locker, she was shocked to discover that it was empty. Her bag, her iPhone, BlackBerry, her Longchamp wallet which contained around P17,000 and her credit cards, were no longer there. Soon, two other women realized that their things were missing, too. “I know one of them lost Ray-Ban glasses and a Rolex watch, they lost their phones and wallets, too.”
Amanda couldn’t believe their things had disappeared, especially since their keys were within their sight the entire time.
Some staff members tried to help her look for her things but they were really gone.
One week later, Amanda returned for a meeting with the studio representative.
She was hoping they would offer to replace the items they lost. But they didn’t. “They just offered me a year of free Barre3 classes. I asked them, ‘Who would want to go back to the scene of the crime?’”
Another weird thing Amanda noticed was that the establishment didn’t have a security guard outside. “They told me they did have a guard but he was upstairs. That’s the entrance to three establishments—a spa, a Barre3 studio and a beauty center—and yet they do not have someone guarding the place. Anyone can just walk in.”
The place does have CCTV cameras but they refused to show the footage to the theft victims. “They said they showed it to the barangay and filed a report.”
Consider this a cautionary tale: the next time you go to the gym, you might lose more than just your unwanted pounds.
