All posts tagged: memberships

As Valentine’s Day approaches, is it ok to gift Botox and gym memberships?

As Valentine’s Day approaches, is it ok to gift Botox and gym memberships?

Published by Daniella Wilson

Sign up to our free Living Well email for advice on living a happier, healthier and longer life Live your life healthier and happier with our free weekly Living Well newsletter Live your life healthier and happier with our free weekly Living Well newsletter How would you feel if someone gave you a gym membership as a holiday or Valentine’s Day gift? What about Botox? Laser hair removal? Services like those are part of the estimated $48 billion self-improvement industry. Does this suggest that many people would appreciate self-improvement gifts? Retailers seem to think so. The Planet Fitness chain of gyms encourages buying workout equipment for Mother’s Day. The Republic of Tea offers beauty tea, which the company says can improve your complexion, as part of their gift sets. Instagram posts call paying for other people’s Botox treatments “the new flowers,” and tell men that it is what women want for Valentine’s Day. As an academic who studies consumer behavior, I am particularly interested in social aspects of consumption. Seeing these promotions, I wondered whether …

Fitness fraud: gym goers warned over fake deals on memberships and personal trainers | Scams

Fitness fraud: gym goers warned over fake deals on memberships and personal trainers | Scams

Published by Sam Flores

A new year means a new start – it’s time to get fit and there are quite a few deals out there. On Facebook you see a local gym advertising a discount on membership if you sign up within the next few hours. There are limited spaces so you act quickly. It’s only after you pay that you realise the ad was a fraud: you’ve received no membership details and when you contact the gym it has no record of your payment. The scam is one of a number of fitness-based frauds criminals focus on in January, when people are looking to trim their waistlines or improve their health. Others include nonexistent personal trainers who offer “bespoke” training plans, which are copied from free sites, or fake fitness apps that only harvest users’ data. Marijus Briedis, the chief technology officer at the cybersecurity company NordVPN, says criminals typically clone real ads or sites from legitimate businesses. A fake website that claims to offer a training app from Gymshark. Photograph: NordVPN It can be difficult to …