By Cally Brooks

Copyright mirror

A student was left “in tears” after being banned from her local pilates studio for leaving a four-star review after the business owner felt it damaged their reputation. Caitlin moved to a new city to start her degree and started searching for a new pilates and yoga studio nearby. After finding one, she bought their all-access pass and booked in for her first reformer pilates session. After taking the class, she was asked to leave a review through the app she booked with. The four-star review read: “I really enjoyed the exercises we did during this class but I do feel the transitions were kind of clunky and would have liked more explanation of the movements instead of watching the instructor demo the moves because the way the room is situated made it hard to see what she was doing at times.” Sharing the situation on TikTok, Cait revealed the review did not go down well with the owner of the studio who also happened to be leading the class she went to. “I just moved to Clemson, South Carolina, to start my graduate degree so I’ve been in the market for a new place to do pilates and yoga,” she says in the video. “I was hoping I could meet some new people because its been a little hard to meet girls my age since moving here. “After the class, the app asked for a review. It’s a star rating one through five, and it gives you a space for comments. I’m not someone who usually leaves reviews, but the app was pretty insistent so I did. I gave it four out of five stars, I said a few things I liked about the class and ended it by saying what I thought could use improvement.” Cait added that her reformer station was not set up correctly when she entered the class, meaning she couldn’t complete all the exercises required and was unable to get the instructor’s attention throughout. “That being said, I know I can be a little picky at times,” she said. “A four out of five star review is still a good review. I went to class the next day, and everything was fine. I then checked the app and noticed I had been unbooked from all the classes I had booked and I no longer had my all access pass. “I thought this was a glitch so walked into the studio to get some answers. I go up to the front desk, explain my situation, and ask how to get my pass restored.” But Cait was in for a shock when the owner of the studio told her she was the one who revoked her all access pass due to the four-star review she left online. “My mouth dropped open in shock,” she added. “She tells me this is her studio’s grand opening and she can’t have this ‘bad energy’ and that it’s a small town and business is a strategy and she can’t have me making a bad name for her business. “I was getting pretty annoyed and upset so I asked if she didn’t want people to be honest and she didn’t have a response for that. I then confirmed with her that I’m not welcome back and she tells me there’s a lot of other studios in town that would love to have me and that every time I walk into her studio she will just be wondering if I’m going to write her another bad review.” And while she was given a full refund for the pass, the situation left her “nearly in tears” as she called the owner a “40-year-old mean girl”.