Judd McIlvain, the TV2 Troubleshooter, and the resolution of the mysteriously missing doctor's note!

Here’s a fun little anecdote.

Many years ago (approx 1988 or 1989), I signed up for a membership in a gym on or near Gower Street in Hollywood.  I never actually used it (not even once!).  You know how it goes....

Eventually, I was actually unable to use this membership, whether I wanted to or not, due to issues at that time with my lumbar spine.  The membership was a 2-year contract with monthly fees (around $20, which is worth about $48 now in 2022) being automatically withdrawn every month from my bank account.  So I contacted the gym to find out what I had to do to cancel the membership, and was instructed to get a note from my doctor.  I did so, and sent the doctor’s note to the gym, as instructed.

The gym then (appropriately) stopped withdrawing the monthly payments from my bank account.

About three months later, I received a threatening notice from a law office accusing me of back payments due.  I called and explained that I had cancelled the membership properly, with the doctor’s note, etc., and that the gym, itself, was the entity which had then (correctly) ceased withdrawing payments from my bank account—I was not “in default”.

The law firm told me there was no record of any such doctor’s note, and that it didn’t exist, and that if I didn’t fork up the last three months’ payments, they would come after me, levy my bank account, etc.

So I called Judd McIlvain, the TV2 Troubleshooter, and explained the situation.  He said he’d take care of it and would get back to me.

Later that same day, I received a phone call from him, wherein he told me (chuckling) that it had been taken care of.

Shortly thereafter, I received a call from the attorney’s office that they had mysteriously and suddenly found the doctor’s note, and all was fine.

Here’s a little info about Judd McIlvain, who was a consumer advocate for KCBS-TV 2 in Los Angeles, where he worked 10 years starting in 1988.  (He also did lots of other stuff during his career.)  When he was 12 years old, he wrote, produced and hosted a kids’ talk show for a local TV station in Bloomington, Illinois.  At age 15, he was a radio disc jockey and then produced a show, TV Dance Party, in Missouri.  He won two Emmys and 8 Golden Mike Awards, among other awards.  He passed away at his home in Woodland Hills, California, on 3/9/15 at age 73.  (There’s more info on his legacy web site, https://www.juddmcilvain.us/.)