A LifeSpan of Broken Promises: Deception, Dishonesty, and a Call for Accountability
When I started writing articles about opportunities within the fitness equipment service industry, I pledged not to name manufacturers publicly. However, after over 11 months of dishonesty and outright deceit, I am compelled to make an exception.
Originally, I had thought that my situation was unique, I had thought that the mistreatment we’d suffered was an isolated incident. I assumed the people on the other end of the table were acting in good faith. I assumed I was dealing with honest, honorable people, but as it turns out, I could not have been more incorrect, and what we had experienced at that point barely scratched the surface. This is a long trip down the rabbit hole, but if you’re up for it join me as I reveal how LifeSpan Fitness and specifically their CEO Jackie Wu intentionally mislead their customers, blatantly lie and misrepresent the truth, and prey on unsuspecting customers and small businesses such as ours.
As I’ve written about before, LifeSpan Fitness has seen fit to not pay their contractors for providing agreed upon service. It’s a pity that the executives at this company have driven a once respected manufacturer into the ground, but here we are. For over eight years we have been happily supporting LifeSpan Fitness by performing warranty and non-warranty service work on their equipment, unfortunately the current regime is a far cry from the original owners.
Between 1.17.24 and 4.23.24 we completed nine warranty service calls for LifeSpan, all at their request, as we’ve done for years. After our invoices from the January jobs remained unpaid, we began contacting them in February asking for updates. LifeSpan replied, saying they were looking into it, and promising a quick resolution. No resolution was forthcoming. We would ask again, and would receive more empty promises, and this went on and on and on until we finally pulled the plug on servicing their equipment under warranty at the end of April. After all, how long can we go without payment for work performed?
Throughout this, I would on occasion receive emails from LifeSpan’s CEO, Jackie Wu. 4.22.24, she stated:
"Since 1/1/2024 [sic1], LifeSpan is no longer operated by Park City Entertainment. But the change in structure took a bit of time due to the current owner not residing in the U.S. @Charles Lin now owns the company and has released the brand distribution rights to me since 4/1/2024. I regret the convenience [sic2] this has caused.
As a small business owner, I understand the importance of being paid on time. Therefore, I'd like to take on the responsibility and resolve all past-due invoices from Park City Entertainment."
sic1: Per later emails from Jackie, this ownership change actually took place 4.1.24, not 1.1.24
sic2: This is most certainly not convenient whatsoever
OK, sounds like there was an ownership change. That has nothing to do with me, but cool, Jackie is committing to taking this responsibility on and resolving this.
But then, Jackie asked that we remove the late fees from these invoices. We found that to be quite audacious! I’m being told, that although my company performed all work as agreed, but that LifeSpan has failed to uphold their end of the deal, that now my small business should be responsible for financing their past due balance for months on end? Absolutely not. Furthermore, the cost incurred by my staff having to spend HOURS chasing LifeSpan down and wading through their lies and deception is not a time expense we can recoup elsewhere, so, no deal.
I said as much, and in what had by then become a pattern, nothing but silence from both LifeSpan as well as Jackie in the meantime.
Months later on 9.19.24, we finally receive an email from Brian Baltazar, LifeSpan’s Technical Support Manager, stating:
"Ms. Wu is still on a business trip abroad but I got an authorization from her to advise you to go head and send us the credit card payment link for $3,087.96 [their total balance due at that time]."
Wonderful, we’re finally going to resolve this issue and all be able to move forward. But then, mere hours later, Jackie contradicts Brian’s email stating:
"My board originally won’t let me offer this deal due to the nature that this is not our liability. The best I’m authorized to do is to cover your loss to Park City Entertainment with 3% included [as a credit card processing charge]. $2687.96 x 1.03 = $2768.6"
Now, once again she brings up the ownership change, remember this, it is important later, I promise!
But, as I said before, after the expense incurred by my staff to chase LifeSpan due to no fault of our own, no deal, I’m not removing those late charges when it has now been over 8 months since this work was originally performed. Don’t like late charges? Pay your bills on time. I’m more than happy to forgive an honest mistake, but this is now bordering on fraud.
I replied to this email, once again highlighting LifeSpan’s inconsistencies and lack of integrity. That was 9.20.24, and now on 12.11.24 we’ve not heard anything since…
Now, as LifeSpan had been routinely misleading us, they naturally had quite a bit of my attention. So, I noticed on 10.9.24 that they posted a 9 second video promo, as seen below:
Turns out, this was taken directly from a local news broadcast, coincidentally from NeoCon in Chicago from 6.13.23. In this video we see Jackie herself touting the features of this bike, and then they cut to another testimonial about how great this bike is. Except, it WASN’T a testimonial for their bike, was it? Upon closer inspection, it is very obvious that the video clip was manipulated to show Erin Torres of Thinkspace describing Thinkspace’s pod as if she is promoting LifeSpan’s product. There it is, plain as day, LifeSpan’s logo all over it. Coincidental, or intentional? You be the judge.
1. LifeSpan edited the original video.
2. Erin Torres’ name and company affiliation were cropped out.
3. The edited video falsely depicted Erin as endorsing LifeSpan’s product.
How did LifeSpan think they could get away with this? As you can see when you compare the videos, LifeSpan decided to crop the footage so that Erin’s name and company affiliation were trimmed from the video so they could falsely make it appear as if Erin was speaking about their product. This is false advertising in a nutshell, and after I called them out on it, LifeSpan pulled their misleading video down but not before I downloaded it myself as further proof of their company character.
But, there’s one more detail in the video. At 0:55, Jackie Wu is listed as being the CEO of LifeSpan. After investigating further, ALL corporate registrations with Utah, LifeSpan’s state of incorporation, show that Jackie was the CEO of LifeSpan at the time we were dispatched to perform these service calls. Therefore, every lie we were told, every broken promise that they were having, “accounting issues,” and every claim that they would, “resolve this quickly,” were told to us on Jackie Wu’s watch while she was CEO of this company.
Jackie Wu, as CEO during the period in question, was responsible for the decisions and representations made by LifeSpan. This includes their failure to pay for services rendered and their misleading advertising practices.
So, regardless of the ownership change, regardless of who the current owners are, it is blatantly clear that Jackie Wu was and is in control of, and therefore responsible for, this misrepresentation, these lies, and for their false advertising claims as well.
I would LOVE to hear her explanation for this, and would be thrilled if she accepted responsibility for the events that took place under her control and would like to see her hold herself accountable for this debacle, but if the past history I have described above is any indicator of what the future holds, I won’t be holding my breath. But, current overdue total sits at $3,453.12, that would be all it would take for this to be resolved.
I prefer to handle business with a handshake, I prefer to be able to take people at their word, but after suffering continued abuse from LifeSpan under Jackie Wu’s control, I will not take this laying down any longer. I will continue to update this as events unfold, and I hope to be able to update this stating that LifeSpan paid us in full for work performed, as well as late charges incurred.
Are we being unreasonable here? We are merely asking LifeSpan in general and Jackie specifically to fulfil their end of the deal we both agreed to. It is now abundantly clear that while Jackie was CEO that LifeSpan was knowingly dispatching service calls to us they had no intention of paying. This was not a mere oversight, this was not a small mistake. LifeSpan clearly acted in bad faith and deliberately set us up for failure by perpetrating the theft of our time and services.
If we as an industry do not demand honesty, if we do not demand accountability, and we do not stand up for what is just, our future will only hold more of the same. I urge fellow industry professionals to stand together and insist on transparency and fair practices. Naturally, manufacturers hold us accountable for the service work we perform, let’s hold manufacturers accountable for their commitments and protect the integrity of our livelihood.