NEW YORK, NY — A New York woman says what should have been a simple Pilates membership cancellation turned into months of unwanted charges and a $342 past-due notice. The woman, Cece, shared her experience on TikTok under the name @ceceonthescene, where the story quickly spread to hundreds of thousands of viewers.

According to her account, she canceled through the studio’s app in March and believed the membership was over. Later, she said, she found monthly charges on her credit card that continued after the cancellation attempt. When she contacted the business, she said the studio told her it had no record of the cancellation.

The situation has resonated with viewers who say they have faced similar subscription and membership problems. Many said the story felt all too familiar, especially when a business and a customer disagree about whether a cancellation was completed.

How the Pilates charges kept appearing after March

Cece said she first noticed the problem in August, when she saw that the studio had been billing her credit card every month since April. That timing made her believe the membership should have ended long before the charges piled up. She then reached out to the studio to ask for refunds and to explain that she had already canceled in the app.

She said the business responded that it could not find any cancellation record. At that point, the issue became less about a single mistaken charge and more about whether the cancellation had ever been processed at all. Cece’s account suggests she had expected the app to serve as confirmation that the membership was closed.

Her experience reflects a common frustration with recurring billing: if a customer assumes a digital cancellation worked, the gap may not become obvious until several statements later. In this case, the charges continued long enough to turn a membership dispute into a much larger financial headache.

Why she believed the membership had already ended

Cece said several details made her think the studio no longer considered her an active member. She said the business showed account information indicating no credits had been added between February 15 and April 15. She also noticed that the text messages she had regularly received from the studio stopped around that same period.

Those two signs helped reinforce her belief that the cancellation had gone through. From her perspective, the lack of credits and the end of routine studio texts pointed in the same direction: the membership was over. Instead, the charges kept coming, and she only learned about them after the fact.

That mismatch between what a customer thinks is happening and what a billing system records can be especially stressful. In Cece’s telling, the app cancellation, missing studio messages and lack of account credits all seemed to support the same conclusion until the credit card charges told a different story.

The $342 past-due email that pushed the dispute further

The situation escalated on September 14, when Cece said she received an email claiming she owed $342 in past-due charges. She said that came after she had previously been told the membership would be canceled that day, adding to her confusion and frustration about the account status.

After receiving the email, she locked her credit card and opened a dispute with her card company while continuing to communicate with the studio. Those steps signaled that the matter had moved beyond a simple billing question and into a formal fight over the charges themselves.

The amount at the center of the dispute is not huge compared with some consumer conflicts, but the timing made it feel urgent. By the time the past-due notice arrived, Cece said she was already dealing with charges that had continued for months.

TikTok viewers share warnings, tips and their own cancellation stories

Cece’s video drew several hundred thousand views, and the comments quickly filled with frustration and advice. One viewer wrote, “This should be illegal. Making canceling a subscription this hard should be illegal. (Looking at you, Disney.)”

Others shared practical suggestions drawn from their own experiences. Several warned that replacing a credit card does not always stop recurring charges, saying old subscriptions can sometimes keep going even after a new number is issued. A number of commenters urged Cece to contact her bank and ask for the merchant to be specifically blocked.

The conversation also turned into a broader discussion of how difficult gym and studio cancellations can be. Some viewers said they had dealt with similar problems at Pilates studios or other membership businesses and had to take extra steps, including canceling a card or visiting a location in person.

Calls to keep records and file consumer complaints

Several commenters encouraged Cece to save every possible piece of documentation, including screenshots, emails and any cancellation confirmation she may have. They said those records can matter when a customer and business give different versions of what happened. Many also urged her to keep documenting all communication with the studio while the dispute remains open.

Some viewers suggested filing complaints with the Federal Trade Commission, the state attorney general and consumer protection agencies. Others mentioned that some states have laws requiring companies to make cancellations as easy as sign-up, which added to the anger around the story even though the details of any state law were not discussed by Cece.

The advice reflected a common consumer instinct: preserve proof early, because billing problems can become harder to untangle as time passes. In Cece’s case, the unresolved charges and the past-due notice left her waiting for the studio and her credit card company to sort out what happened.

Real, uplifting stories from across America – GCHS Eagle's Eye.