Rachel Dicons contacted local authorities after discovering that the gym she enrolled her children in had charged her credit card the yearly membership fee several times, totaling $11,000.
According to ABC 13, Max Speed and Strength is a private gym in Cypress, Texas, and the owner, Teodoso Garza, originally promised to rectify the situation for Dicons, but then began dodging her. When Dicons heard other members express similar concerns about duplicate charges, she gave up on meeting with Garza and called the police.
"Myself and my husband were contacting him, and he wasn't answering at all, and I was getting a nervous feeling," Dicons said.
Garza turned himself in on Wednesday and is facing charges of fraudulent use of a credit card. However, it is not his first time facing these kinds of criminal charges. The gym owner was sentenced to six years of probation in 1991 for theft, and he was ordered to complete classes in 2013 after being caught writing bad checks.
"What's weighing on my heart is that there may be other hard-working parents who may have lost funds and not come forward, or don't even know or haven't checked," Dicons said.
Max Speed and Strength is a gym that offers one-on-one coaching services to improve athletes’ strength and explosive speed. The gym also offers adults-only HYROX classes. There are two locations in Texas, and its stats suggest that the gym has trained more than 45 youth athletes who have gone on to commit to D1 athletics programs.
A yearly membership at Max Speed and Strength is $1,100, and Dicons discovered that membership fee had been charged 11 times to her credit card.
