True Yoga's evil marketing strategy

I've been meaning to blog about this but forgot till I saw the article in The Sunday Times today :P
Ever since some months ago, I've been offered a free one-week pass cum free tour by some ppl from True Yoga, who presumably got my contact via the credit card company. However, I've never managed to squeeze out time to go till last Sun evening... And this was despite Cat's "warning" some time ago about their distasteful marketing strategies. Well, i mean not knowing why exactly why she disliked them, I decided to take a look myself, since there's no harm just dropping by.
So I dropped by the Pacific Plaza branch after Jap lessons. Informed counter that I was dropping by for the free tour... upon which staff led me to this sitting area where customers/ visitors can rest and drink tea before/after exercise. Place was nicely done up etc... Then this young lady staff came up to me, introduced herself etc and then proceeded with this understanding-customer's-needs-sales-pitch... But actually I was just like thinking in my head.. ok get this over and done with and tell me how much your packages are.... (aiyah but of course I still appeared nice haha) Finally after dropping hints that I had something on later, lady revealed the cost of their packages... which was... totally ridiculous. According to the chart she showed me, one has to pay an exorbitant $400/$500 one-time joining fee, another fee which I forgot, as well as a monthly fee of $179 or something (for the 2 year membership). Rates were even steeper for the 1-year membership. Of course I was quite put off by the ridiculous rates, so like requested to be shown facilities instead then maybe take free pass and go home. Nonetheless, during the quick walkabout, marketing lady kept questioning how much I was willing to pay and that there was room for negotiation... So I said some random figure like $100 a month... after which (when I was about to leave) lady tried to buy time.. claimed that she was 'new' and could check with manager whether they could give me a special discount.... THEN, turns out that they could offer me special rate of say around $100 per month, minus the previous joining fees etc, on the condition I sign up immediately. However, this attractive offer somehow backfired on me. Was quite disgusted how dishonest these ppl are cos they were out to milk every single cent the potential customer was willing to pay. Seriously think the marketing lady is expert at gauging customer's willingness to pay and then adjusts package fees accordingly. For the very first time, I witnessed blatant (first degree i think) price discrimination in action! Wonder how many of their 19,000 customers (according to Straits times article) actually got 'milked' this way without knowing. Oh well, maybe i'm like da3 bao4 bu4 ping2 for nothing cos perhaps classes there are so good that ppl are willing to be ripped off... After that incident, someone told me that certain other gyms also practise similar marketing strategies...

Afternote: found out from colleague (who's member there) the next day that she only pays about $90 per month for an unlimited package. She says she got a good deal from her student days. Though I wasn't cheated into buying up the supposedly brilliant $100 a month deal (limited), somehow knowing this just further worsened my impression of this gym cos it was in line with my theory that they just want to milk every single cent out of every customer.......