Zumba

I agree with an earlier post and criticism of the Zumba corporation's treatment of its instructors. I was pressured into buying a ZIN membership during my Basic 1 class. I only took the class to get CEU credits as I'm already working as a certified fitness instructor. My instructor (April Smith) sent multiple emails about the benefits of the ZIN membership and spent at least 1 hour talking about how great the membership was. This was during an 8 hr class that I paid close to $300 to attend. I finally bought a ZIN membership, thinking that I could cancel it after one month.

When I called today to cancel my membership, the cust service rep started with about 10 minutes of follow up questions, comments, recommendations on why i needed to keep my membership. When it became clear that I wasn't planning to renew, he hit me with a statement that I had to commit to a six-month ZIN Membership. He said it was prominently written and stated everywhere and there was absolutely nothing I could do about it. I told him that April Smith never mentioned a minimum 6 month commitment during the whole day that she had us. He said it's all over their website - which I finally found after scouring their site and finding it buried in the FAQs. What a racket and a really sleazy, underhanded way to scam people for months at a time. I would NEVER recommend Zumba or ZIN this to any trustworthy instructor.

I wish I read before people's reviews about canceling my membership, I might have to go to my bank to cancel, since they don't answer the phone.

WARNING: They make it VERY difficult to cancel your ZIN membership. Keep that in mind before signing up for it.

I taught Zumba for 5 years and the first 4 years I went to the Zumba training every year to keep my license. Each training was $225 if you register early. The last year I decided to sign up for ZIN (Zumba Instructor Network) for $40 a month because I couldn't find a training before my year was up. This would allow me to keep my license without having to attend the 8 hour training every year. They send you music and choreography every 2 months with ZIN but the music they send is terrible so I always had to spend extra money buying music.

When I tried to cancel my membership, they asked me several personal questions and tried to convince me not to cancel even though I told them I wasn't interested in teaching it anymore. Then they said they couldn't cancel it until I pay the upcoming month even though the website clearly says you can cancel before the end of the month in order not to not be charged for the next month. I tried to cancel 10 days before the end of the month. When I pointed out what the website says, they tried to say I couldn't cancel because I must pay for at least a year before I'm able to cancel; which is a lie because their website says you only need to pay for 6 months before you could cancel. I've paid for 10 months at this point. Mind you, I stopped teaching 3 months before I finally decided to cancel.

Long story short, they made me be late for work and still refused to cancel my membership. Gave me a long list of excuses not to cancel it so I hung up the phone. Luckily, I was paying for it with a prepaid card so they won't see another dime from me.

As many people before me I also advise you strongly AGAINST using zumba.com for purchasing any merchandise or training course. Their customer service is non existent! If you buy some clothing from the site you'll have to pay for the postage & it's not a company based in UK. They are in Netherlands! Absolutely NO EXCHANGES = if the item does not fit, you'll have to pay again to return it (postage + new packaging). Then you'll have to pay again to receive the item in correct size! Refunds are unheard of! They just tell you that you agreed to their terms and conditions.

As for the ZUMBA INSTRUCTOR TRAINING COURSE costing on average between £240 and £255 in London, IT IS ABSOLUTELY NOT WORTH IT! The venue was in Kingston (no courses in central London at all), some kind of a primary school without any A/C and with quite unpleasant loos. It's a one day course (9am - 6pm) and during that time there were absolutely no refreshments (tap water in the hall to refill your bottle...). You are advised to print your manual and you also have to print your certificate of completion at home!
So for £250 you pay, all you receive is the actual training from the instructor who then HEAVILY promotes joining ZIN network - just another money making mechanism for the company. I was forced to do this training while feeling absolutely horrific with a nasty cold. I tried to reschedule the training and they wanted me to pay in excess of £100! The same venue, same instructor and just one month later (because of my illness) would have cost me another £100 on top of what I have already paid! Once again the 'so called customer service rep' told me that I agreed to their terms and conditions...
AVOID ZUMBA.COM CLOTHING OR TRAINING!

I bought something then I made a mistake that could be easily corrected with any online seller but it has been a point of contention with Zumba. I have already made countless calls to Zumba and UPS try to fix problem. I recently moved to another town and I used PayPal to pay for the purchase without my knowledge thinking I had deleted my old address and used it in order to complete the purchase. Using PayPal is something I do often and I have found that it's relatively easy to change your shipping information right after you have made an order because of the time and they hadn't processed it yet so went ahead and called Zumba right away and actually I sent messages right away as well to try to get this fixed but I was told that the second and order is place that they can't cancel it refunded or even change the shipping information. Then they sent me to UPS to try to change it with them which I could not because at the time I didn't have the tracking information yet UPS told me without the tracking information they can't change it and that zumba should be able to do it since it's still in processing. This has led to a circus amount of calls that I have made to both Zumba UPS essentially them telling me UPS can do something and UPS telling me they cannot and it has escalated to the point to where I might never get my shipment again because of a mistake that is very easily fixed using any other type of online seller and a mistake that is quite common amongst people that shop online. I was even told by Zumba that this problem happens quite often and that UPS can change the address however in this instance that was untrue and if they know this is something that happens very often to their customers they should have some type of infrastructure that allows for users to change their address within minutes of them making mistake.