I attended Cho's several years ago, it was an "OK" place for Tae Kwon Do, although a few of the assistant instructors were a bit "snobby".
When I signed up I refused to let them do a "direct withdraw" from my bank account, that is something you have to watch with these karate places, they always want to setup direct drafts automatically from your account, which means they have *full free access* to everything in your checking or savings account. When I was a little kid my parents had problems with a place in the nearby city of Germantown (which I later found out had also been run by Cho's) and after I had left the classes they kept taking the money even though I was not in classes anymore. And kept taking money until my parents had to threaten legal action and go through a lot of hassle for them to stop STEALING money.
So I signed up and told them we would be paying in monthly payments, which they very begrudgingly agreed to. We made the payments on time on time as always. I then was hired to work full time at a job that would be taking all of my time (I had just gotten out of college) so I had to quit because of work schedule conflicts. We quit according to the contract and had fully paid them up.
OVER A YEAR LATER we receive a letter in the mail saying we were not fully paid and we owed them another month of payment for the classes when we absolutely did not. We sent back a letter showing full proof of payment along with check copies and asked them to SHOW US PROOF that we owed them *anything*.. That was the last we heard from them... Or so we thought...
AFTER ANOTHER YEAR I then received a very "threatening" letter from them telling me that they would purposely and maliciously file a bad report on my *perfect* credit file unless I paid them their "one month" charge that they claimed I owed them and pay it "immediately". I was extremely mad at them by this time and spoke to their "billing" lady on the phone who offered me no evidence that we owed them anything. Eventually I managed to talk them into faxing over any *proof* they had of such. They faxed over a bunch of old mangy checks which were difficult to read and did not prove anything. Unfortunately being a few years later we did not hang onto all of our "old" checks from this place and I had no idea how to go back and prove to them that we were paid up, it would have taken a lot of time and money for me to be able to try and prove this.
So they kept bullying and threatened to destroy my credit and I had *NO CHOICE* but to pay these blackmailing idiots the amount just to save my credit from getting ruined by these crooks.
If I had known when I signed up that the old place that had ripped off my parent's bank account was run by this same company (Cho's), I would have taken my business elsewhere. They also have a branch in Milwaukee on 76th near Capitol Dr. As well.
Avoid these jerks at all cost — do not give them your bank info either or they will rob you blind!
0 comments