California Fitness, Hong Kong 5

COMPLETED 17 DECEMBER 2016

Even When They're Dead, They Seem To Be Devious...

1.   It's been a while since gay mecca California Fitness hit the news.  Disgruntled former customers ended up in other gyms and from street gossip, it would appear Physical picked up a lot of them.  That's not surprising since Physical was always rumoured to be the Number 2 gym circuit for GAMs in this city.  They're now in "pole" position, so to speak.

2.  At the end of November 2016, the High Court of Hong Kong ordered the winding-up of JV Fitness Limited, the holding company of the various California Fitness gyms and yoga centres.  This was as a result of its failure to pay a debt of HK$7million to another company in respect of renovation services  In total, there were 12 outlets in the city, 64,000 customers and 700 employees. It is alleged that over the last 2 years, JV Fitness had lost over HK$117 Million Dollars. There were also gyms in Singapore, Beijing and Shanghai.

3.  It was reported in the South China Morning Post ("SCMP") on 23 November 2016 that the Provisional Liquidator, ShineWing, was in discussions with a potential investor for the purchase of California Fitness assets and that these discussions would continue notwithstanding that the winding-up order had been made.

4.   Apparently ShineWing has a Facebook page in which it give updates on the status of California Fitness.  Both the English and Chinese versions invited former gym customers to go to another website and "provide their indication" as to whether they would agree to having their personal data sold to help recoup losses.

5.  When the SCMP went to that website, it discovered that there was no option to refuse to provide the data.

6.  ShineWing claims it was only to gauge interest, but did not give an assurance that those who had already given their agreement for the sale of their data, would be allowed to change their minds if the data were in fact to be sold (and we suspect, they did not give an assurance that other customers' data would not be sold by default).


FuelMix says:

1.   LOL...When they were still alive, California Fitness had a reputation for aggressive sales practices, shady dealings and greedy billing.  Now that they're "dead", the Liquidator is treading a fine line.  According to the SCMP report, the Liquidator is seeking legal advice on this matter and would have to comply with the Personal Data (Privacy) Ordinance, the contract terms with its customers and obtain its customers consent before any such data could be transferred to a Third Party.

2.   Welcome to the world of Big Data!!  FuelMix attended a number of business presentations and was mildly pissed off at the blase attitude of entrepreneurs ("Oh yeah....we keep the Big Data in a separate room which is locked and you need special access to get in...") fascinated and yet repulsed at the lengths to which companies were looking to "granulate" information in order to profile customers.  Nobody would say it publicly, but businesses have morphed into commercial spying agencies.  The distinction between business research, surveillance and stalking doesn't exist anymore.  It's a predatory world.

3.   And for California Fitness' customers, therein lies the pain.  Having been stripped of their cash, they may run the risk of being stripped (or already having been stripped) of their personal data.  Nobody has answered the question:

"What was California Fitness doing with customer data in the 2 years BEFORE they went bankrupt..?"  

4.   It had racked up HK$117 Million in losses during the last 2 years of its operations.  For a business unconcerned with a city-wide reputation for sharp practice and Consumer Council warnings, that Big Data would have been worth something during that period.  And we have a suspicion that somebody, somewhere, was asset-stripping the business.

5.   Remember, Big Data is worth something to the company.  Qualitatively it is worth more than the Pec Decks, Leg Presses and Cable Machines.  Its individual customers are simply unsecured creditors.  Translation:  They get zip, zero, nada.  (But hey, thanks for the personal data...).

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