Another day, another drama for fitness blogger Ashy Bines.
This time, it is being reported that new complaints questioning Bines’ business practises are flooding in, prompting 19,000 people to join the ‘”Ashy Bines Company Truths” Instagram account in a bid to bring the fit-star down.
According to marie claire, many of this 19K following have told media outlets that they had money withdrawn from their accounts to pay for fitness programs that no longer exist.
“Payments started coming out of my account and I was curious to why because it was a one-off payment so contacted them via email several times and never heard back,” Bines’ former customer Michelle Denham told 7 News.
“I then wrote on their Facebook page and I was told the questions I was asking were inappropriate on their page and was blocked by them.”
This isn’t the first time Bines has had to sidestep a scandal.
As previously reported by The Weekly, a young PT and homecook, Alexandria Dodds, came out swinging against Bines, slinging accusations of plagerism the fitness star’s way.
As an avid homecook, Dodds created a blog back in 2012, which she used to share her favourite recipes with friends and family – recipes she claims she conceptualised on her own.
It wasn’t until a few months later that Dodds’ co-worker noticed that her recipes also appeared in Ashy Bines’ e-book.
“I couldn’t believe a woman that claims to be empowering other women could do something like this,” Dodds tells The Weekly.
“I’m all for making an honest name for yourself and young women succeeding in business, I’m just not sure that Ashy understands the impact it has.”
Not only that, but Bines later took to YouTube to confess her seemingly inadvertent plagiarism, stating that she may have been “… too naïve to think I wouldn’t have to check the origins of each recipe”. And this is what spurred Dodds on to take legal action.
Commenting on the video apology and plagiarism confession, Dodds says: “Unfortunately, I felt [Bines] was sorry for getting caught, not so much for what she had done as she then shifted the blame to an ‘outsourced nutritionist’ and then goes on to sell a new edition of the book.”
Now, opening up to Nine and The Courier-Mail a year later, Alexandra, now a mum and living in Brisbane, is crowd-funding to sue Bines for a cool $150,000.
“There are more proceedings and I have to lodge documents with the court,” she says.
“I don’t have the backing she has … and I am just an everyday, average person going up against a big company.”
This revelation comes just two months after Bines was criticised for parking in a disabled parking spot out the from of her Gold Coast gym.
“When no one’s used that car park for three years and we have no members with any disabilities, then I do use that car park sometimes,” she later took to Snapchat to, err, clarify.
“They are there 24/7 … yeah, sometimes I do use it. I know that it does look bad in some way but I hope you guys can hear my side of the story.”
“Sometimes I do use it and I do apologise if I have offended anyone, but I wanted my loyal followers to see my side. There’s always that 5 per cent to comment, judge criticise and jump down my throat at everything.”
Bines’ white Range Rover parked in a disabled carspot in front of her gym.
