I realised I had a bit of extra weight that I needed to remove, so I decided to checkout the local equipment suppliers. I finally found somewhere that made you feel welcome it was WW in Mile End, SA. I bought a few small items (approx $200) for my boxing bag, ie. gloves, strapping, etc. Customer service was great (for now). Then I found a few other items that caught my eye, I told them I’ll be back to get them later.

It was approx a week until I went back and ordered a 4-way boxing stand ($699), the waiting time was “middle of next week” the salesperson said. I didn’t mind too much, I called them at the end of the following week as I was expecting a call. They had explained that “…it must have missed the truck!” (WTF!!! how can something so big miss a truck?)

I called them the following week and it wasn’t until the following monday when I received a phone call to say it was in. When I went to pick it up I bought a speed ball and a new nylon speed ball mount (approx $70). I spent the following Saturday morning putting it together (awful instructions! not entirely WW fault).

I popped back in a little later and bought some dumbbells ($130ish) for my partner (a personal trainer), and a kettlebell ($75ish) for myself. By now I was in full swing of the excercise movement, toning up and feeling great!

I still needed something more… “THAT’S IT! I need a heart rate monitor!”, I did my due-diligence and found Suunto would fit my activities. That weekend I popped down to WW and got a Suunto T3C watch – albeit NOT the one I called only minutes earlier and asked the staff if they had it in stock, to which they replied “of course we do” [STRIKE ONE!]($270 w/ 10% discount), about 2 weeks later I bought a Suunto GPS pod ($300) to measure the distances I was running and moving while at footy training, I was quoted $260 (full retail) by two of the part owners, after another 2 weeks of waiting for the GPS pod to come in, I still had to call them and ask if the item had arrived. In my lunch break I drove to Mile End WW and introduced myself, the salesperson asked me how I would like to pay the $300.00 – I said “eftpos… WHAT? $300? I was quoted $260!” I said shocked. He didn’t want to know, he said “it’s $300 do you want it or not?”, [STRIKE TWO!!] – I was furious – $40 isn’t much, but it’s the principle. I still took the item.

A number of weeks later the $130 dumbbells I purchased fell apart and hit one of my partners client on the head. She was devastated! I took them back to WW and explained what had happened, I saw one of the owners and he was very empathetic and explained he would get them replaced brand-new. My partner and I were very happy with this outcome. They explained it will be 2 weeks until they will be replaced, we didn’t care as long as they were safe again.

2 weeks later I called to see if they had been replaced, the salespeople knew nothing about it, they said they would find out and call me back. I called them the next day and spoke to the same dude, again he didn’t have any idea what I was talking about, but he said he would check – he put me on hold and said that it would be in the next day or so [STRIKE THREE!!! - YOU'RE OUT! NEXT BATTER].

A couple of days had past so instead of calling I drove into WW and found they were sitting behind the desk – in the same box as when I took them there. They had not been replaced they were REPAIRED, we accepted this [STRIKE ONE!].

About a week later they started coming loose and dangerous again, I checked them over and found it had been broken inside one of the caps that held them together, I temporarily fixed them, but they only lasted about a week.

Last Monday (15/06/2009) I took them back in to WW, two of the owners were there – I had been dealing with these guys from the start. I showed them what had happened, one of them picked it up and basically made me feel like a bloody lying criminal! [STRIKE TWO!!]. He said “they’ve been dropped haven’t they?”, I said “I can’t tell you that, they’re not mine”, he said “OF COURSE THEY HAVE, LOOK!”, I again said “I don’t know if they have”. He muttered something and walked away. Then they said “we’ll have to replace that cap”, I felt a little easier once they said that, then he said “it’ll be a couple of weeks”. Ohh sh*t I wonder how long really???? [STRIKE THREE!!! - YOU'RE OUT! TIME & GAME BITCHES]

In summary, for $130 of what it cost me, it has completely spoilt their business in my mind, I will gladly travel into Adelaide and purchase from Rebel or Amart next door to WW. I sincerely regret spending the $1700 odd dollars there, I’m only putting it down to an expensive lesson.