Fitness BlowoutReviews of fitnessblowout.com

I have dealt with this company for the last four years and really do not know how they stay in business. Ordering and paying for it was easy. When we have needed service, they do not respond in a timely manner. Two weeks ago I requested service and received an email back say they would get back to us when they could. I received an email from Leo one week ago saying he was assigning my service to a David and if i did not hear from him in a timely manner to call the 1-800 number and select option 2. I waited a full week and received absolutely no contact from David, so I called and a young lady did not recognize David's name. She looked up the email exchange, checked into our account and informed me that the mechanism that raises the ramp on my precor elliptical is not covered under their super warranty, which is what we paid for when we ordered the machine. This is the third time we have had to contact them for service in 4 years, and all three times, we have had to contact them several times before we get any response. If you are considering purchasing anything from this company DON'T!!!

My entire experience here is so dreadful it's boring. Basically - I can affirm, that unfortunately I didn't read Yelp, BBB or any reviews except on their website. So shame on me - but overall this experience has been a terrible lesson in how someone who runs a teeny company, only operates on the phone and won't return any emails is astonishing. Please take your hard earned money and join a gym, or just beat your head against a wall because at least you won't be beating your head against a wall, wondering where your $2000 went and only elevating your blood pressure not your heart rate.

I could go on and on about the disreputable business practices of those at Fitness Blowout, but if you are reading this or any of the other hundreds of complaints lodged against them you already know of their sleazy business tactics. So, for the sake of all consumers who like me got caught in their web of deceit, I’d rather focus on how I WAS ABLE TO BEAT THEM AT THEIR OWN GAME, AND I HOPE YOU WILL BE ABLE TO DO THE SAME. I BELIEVE THAT IF YOU WILL ALL DO AS I DID, AND FOCUS YOUR EFFORTS ON HITTING JIM ROSEN AND THE REST OF HIS CREW AT FITNESS BLOWOUT WHERE IT HURTS, TOGETHER WE CAN PUT THIS POS OUT OF BUSINESS ONCE AND FOR ALL! As far as I’m concerned there is a special place in Hell for Jim Rosen and Steve Barzilai, and hopefully they will get to experience it sooner rather than later. I hope the information I am providing here will help anyone who reads it to also realize, just as I have, the great sense of satisfaction which goes along with STICKING IT TO FITNESS BLOWOUT. IF YOU DON’T READ ANY OTHER PART OF THIS REVIEW, PLEASE READ THIS PARAGRAPH. In my case, I provided the companies I knew of who ship freight nationally with research I had done on Fitness Blowout and the numerous other aliases they use. This prompted them to do their own research by looking into their accounts and realizing that something untoward was going on with Fitness Blowout, and to my knowledge three of the four companies I contacted have severed all ties with the company. I suggested that they may want to look into how many of Fitness Blowout’s shipments were being redirected; having to touch freight more than once costs the freight company time and money. I also asked them to look into what would happen to the freight if delivery was refused. You may not be aware, but if freight is refused the shipper will be served with a legal notice, 4 (B) of the Bill of Lading Contract. This document serves as notice to the shipper that the freight company is terminating their carrier liability and will thereafter only be liable as a warehouseman. As set forth in the Bill of Lading Contract storage fees will begin to accrue at that time and will continue until the freight company receives written disposition instructions from the shipper. The shipper will have 30 days to guarantee freight, storage, and all other applicable charges be paid, or the freight will be sold at public auction. Guess how often this was the case with freight being shipped from Fitness Blowout. It would stand to reason that if what Fitness Blowout was shipping had any value at all they would most certainly pay the return shipping fees to avoid having “valuable” pieces of equipment being sold at auction for little or nothing. I AM PROOF THAT SOMETIMES THE LITTLE GUY DOES WIN! I am hopeful that my efforts will make it extremely difficult for Fitness Blowout or any other company Jim Rosen, Steve Barzilai, etc. operate under to continue to ship anything anywhere! Like many of you, I didn’t think to do any research on the company until I’d already placed an order and was having a very difficult time getting anyone at Fitness Blowout to take my calls or address my concerns afterwards. Sadly the days of trusting people to be good and honest are over! BELOW ARE THE STEPS I TOOK TO AVOID BEING SWINDLED BY FITNESS BLOWOUT AFTER THE PURCHASE, AND I HOPE THEY WILL HELP NUMEROUS OTHERS TO HAVE THE SAME POSITIVE OUTCOME I DID. STEP 1: Email Fitness Blowout to notify them you wish to CANCEL YOUR ORDER IN WRITING, and keep a record of the email. Of course there are ridiculous hoops in place which they expect you to jump through, but I emailed the General Manager Steve Barzilai, who also happened to be the person that took my order...talk about a person skilled at the art of deception. Document, document, document, and keep every single shred of evidence handy, because you will likely need it. DO NOT BELIEVE ANYTHING ANYONE AT FITNESS BLOWOUT TELLS YOU! STEP 2: As soon as possible contact your credit card company and FILE A DISPUTE of the purchase, and be prepared to provide them with documentation that you’ve cancelled your order. I not only did this, but I requested that an American Express representative join me on a three-way call so that there would be an undeniable record of what was discussed. LIKE NUMEROUS OTHERS, MY CREDIT CARD WAS COMPROMISED WITHIN WEEKS OF GIVING IT TO FITNESS BLOWOUT (STEVE BARZILAI), SO WATCH YOUR ACCOUNT! STEP 3: Even though I had cancelled my order in writing and had received assurances from a representative, Tiesha, at Fitness Blowout who supposedly worked in the cancellations department, I was contacted by UPS Freight Worldwide months later, and they wanted to schedule a delivery. Of course I notified the representative that the order had been cancelled less than 24 hours after being placed months before, that I’d filed a dispute with my credit card company, and that the freight certainly should have never been shipped across the country, from California to North Carolina. I REFUSED TO TAKE DELIVERY, AND I BELIEVE THAT STEP WAS VITAL. STEP 4: I continued to research the company and its unscrupulous business practices, and what I found was disturbing. Most laughable was the copied and pasted mission statement Jim Rosen pulled out year after year to make it appear as if he was trying to turn the company around. “We are committed to our valued customers, and are taking immediate corrective steps to regain confidence in us. We have begun putting a comprehensive plan in place to provide better and more-timely information to you, more tools and resources for our team members and improved procedures for handling operational difficulties in the future. We are confident that, as a result of these actions, Fitness Blowout will emerge as a more reliable and even more customer responsive company than ever before. We take feedback and input from our customers very seriously because we care what you have to say. We continually strive to improve and streamline our processes and we have learned a great deal from this incident. Unfortunately when relying on third party carriers and vendors to deliver per our terms of contract, occasionally situations may arise creating unforeseeable delays or errors. After researching this situation this seems to be an isolated case in that this unit was not properly inspected by our vendor’s quality control.” I submit that if Jim Rosen truly had any intention of making changes with regard to his business practices they would’ve come to fruition long before now. It seems that his go to method is to always lay blame on someone or something other than himself…where there’s smoke there’s fire, and this guy reeks of smoke! In the end I believe it was crucial that I shared everything I found with my credit card company and with the freight company used in my situation. As I’ve already mentioned, this prompted them to investigate further. I also shared the same information with other national shippers, and to my pleasant surprise I learned that these huge shipping companies take their brands very seriously and will sever ties with companies who would shed a negative light on them by using deceptive business practices. I BELIEVE THAT IF OTHER CONSUMERS WILL DO AS I HAVE DONE AND BRING THE DISHONEST PRACTICES OF JIM ROSEN AND FITNESS BLOWOUT TO THE ATTENTION OF FREIGHT COMPANIES THEY WILL HAVE NO CHOICE BUT TO TAKE ACTION AND REFUSE TO MOVE FREIGHT FOR ANY BUSINESS WITH A CONNECTION TO JIM ROSEN OR FITNESS BLOWOUT. You see, freight companies don’t like to touch freight more than once, and in the case of Fitness Blowout they’ve had to do so at an alarming rate. Though I believe I’ve been instrumental in making it very difficult for Jim Rosen and Fitness Blowout to continue to use certain freight companies to move their junk, there may be others out there whom I did not know to contact. My best advice to any of you is to contact the freight company being used in your case and insist they look into their account with Jim Rosen, Steve Barzilai, Fitness Blowout, Fitness Club Warehouse, Super Gym’s Fitness Warehouse, Fitness Club Warehouse, Super Gym Rosen, 1800Fit4Less, Exceleration Fitness, Excelerated Fitness. Good luck! I did ultimately purchase the unit I was interested in from reputable company, Carolina Fitness Equipment, out of Charlotte N.C., and I couldn’t be more pleased with my decision to do business with them. Actually, I ended up with a unit that is two generations newer than the one from Fitness Blowout, and I paid $500 less for it. So, if you are still in the market for top of the line used equipment you might want to have a conversation with David Preble, the owner of Carolina Fitness Equipment~he’s good people!

Do not order from this company. Just spent 25 minutes on the phone getting the run around. Looks like I may have to turn this over to my legal counsel.

I started my trials and troubles with this company on January 13, 2016. I made an order and gave them $100.00 to hold the equipment so I could set up financing. I finalized the order and it took them a week to get the paperwork to the finance company. Once the contract was signed and I am locked into payments I still have not received my equipment. Today is 3-7-16. I spoke with a representative again today after I was told that they screwed up the week of 2-23-16 and my equipment would be expedited. This is a scam, I was told today that the shipper had lost my equipment and that they had to submit a new po to get the equipment out to me even though they had found the equipment. I would advise any and all people to avoid this company like the plague. They will put you on hold for up to 156 minutes and come back at tell you that their computer froze up. They will tell you they will call you back but never will and the Owner of the company may even be the one to help you and send you emails...BUT if you try to email him back you will get the run around and receive an auto responder. You will not get any help until you mention attorney....Very Bad Customer Service and a company in my opinion lies to its customers. They have over 100 complaints in the last 3 years with the BBB. My advice...go somewhere else to buy your fitness equipment.

I purchased a treadmill and service agreement and was promised the treadmill within 21 days. This was important because we were moving in a month. It was nearly impossible to contact the company. There has been no shipping date (this is now five weeks later). I have attempted to cancel the order, but there has been no acknowledgement of this from the company. Fortunately, I have all my e-mail attempts first to get tracking, then when I realized the unit had not even shipped to cancel the order. The card company is refunding the money to me. This is a very shady organization—avoid it. They will take your money, but will not provide promised goods or services.

My experience with Fitness Blowout was pretty bad but after reading other reviews, I realize it could have been much worse. Fitnessblowout is a third party reseller or "middle man." I purchased an elliptical that was supposed to be a top of the line model and started out on the most bizarre purchasing adventure of my life. I called the company to ask about a top of the line Free Motion elliptical but as soon as I told the salesman what I wanted, he transferred me to general manager, Steve Barzilai. Steve talked me into ordering a top of the line EPIC elliptical instead by telling me the two machines were pretty much identical, made by the same company (ICON), and so on... I had been researching ellipticals until my head was spinning and I was just ready to be done with the whole business. I paid almost $2000. After ordering, my first clue that something was wrong was when I received the shipping confirmation and looked up the tracking information. The shipping weight didn't match up to the specifications listed on the fitnessblowout website. I googled the elliptical and every website I encountered listed the machine as weighing 305 lbs. My machine weighs 264 lbs. I thought either the wrong machine was being mailed or it was missing a large part. I tried to call Steve directly as he had given me his number and assured me that I could always talk to him about any concerns... I was never able to get in touch with him again. After he made his sale...crickets. He never returned my calls, answered my emails, or anything... I finally called the main number at fitnessblowout and told them about the shipping weight being off. The salesperson, Amanda, put me hold and called ICON where it was being shipped from. She told me that ICON confirmed that they sent the right machine. BTW, I'm sure ICON did send the machine that was ordered by fitnessblowout (Steve), but it was not the one advertised by fitnessblowout. (I will note that ICON is not at all to blame for this catastrophe. They are a major supplier of fitness equipment and have no control over what third party sellers perpetrate. They have tried to bend over backwards to make sure everything was fine from their end.) Anyway, long story short, I repeatedly tried to contact fitnessblowout about the wrong machine being shipped and have them rectify the problem. All they did was shift the blame, make excuses and finally avoid me. I've notified the Better Business Bureau. I will also post reviews about them so that others can avoid their scams. I have an metaphor that sums up my experience. Let's say you sit down at a restaurant to order desert. You look at the menu and see they have 2 flavors of ice cream, chocolate and vanilla. You order chocolate even though it inexplicably costs more but receive a flavor you never knew existed...chocolate & vanilla swirl! You find that you like the flavor but it's definitely not what you ordered...it's wasn't even on the menu! I will share the latest email I sent to Steve and Amanda. It's been almost a week now and still no response from either of them. You've been warned! Mr. Barzilai, I now know that I didn't receive the machine I ordered from you. The machine I received weighs 264 lbs. and has a 33 lb. flywheel. Your site lists the specs of the EPC 3.5 elliptical as weighing 305 lbs. and the flywheel weighing 35 lbs. I'm not sure what I got but it may be the one your site lists as the 3.0 because your site describes that one as weighing 261 lbs. For all I know, my machine may be some kind of hybrid of the two models... A mishmash of spare parts. The console diagnostics says the machine is a 3.1. I've attached a screen shot of the diagnostics. Other than the machine not being the one I ordered, it is a bit unsteady and wobbles side to side when I am using it. I weigh 125 lbs. so it shouldn't do that. That may be due to the lighter flywheel. This is one of the reasons I wanted the heavier 3.5 version. Also, the screen is scratched up. I will keep the machine unless you would rather go through the hassle of somehow having it shipped back. I don't hate the machine but it's just annoying that I didn't get what I ordered and I tried to tell you something was wrong with the shipment because the weight was off weeks ago. I would like the price reduced to the lesser model and refunded to my account. Please contact me about resolving this as soon as possible. Sincerely, Amy M. PS: I've spoken to ICON extensively now and the machine I have certainly does not match up to the specs of the machine I bought from you. I like the machine and it works well but I am upset that I didn't get what I ordered. If I order and pay for a top of the line model, I expect to get what I pay for. I hope to hear back from you soon.

I am a trainer and Jim owner. When we ventured out on her own, money was tight and I was looking for a good deal. But I would've paid twice what I did to not be dealing with this company now. We have had a treadmill down nearly a year, the "lifetime warranty" om which fitness blowout refuses to honor. Nearly every week we call customer service (the phone is rarely picked up), and try to begin the process of re-initiating a warranty claim. It's a runaround every time. The regional fitness repair man, who is contracted by fitness blowout, now refuses to do business with them as well because HE has difficulty getting paid. I BEG you not to do business with this company!