Brittany Dawn, a Dallas-based coach and fitness influencer is facing backlash from followers after they paid for her online fitness and nutrition programs that were reportedly never customized to the individual as promised.

Last April, the Better Business Bureau (BBB) started getting complaints from Dawn’s followers about delays in receiving her customized online fitness programs—some which range in price from $45 to as high as $300. Followers who purchased the courses told the BBB that they ordered customized programs but only received generalized ones, and when they tried to inquire with Dawn, she allegedly skirted around answering their questions. Dawn was also accused of deleting any critical comments on Instagram page and blocking customers, according to a report in the Insider and the BBB.

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"why in the pancake ass would you even post this? do you even squat bro?" this was a comment, left by a man, on a photo posted a few days ago. years ago, this would have broken my spirit. completely. and I would have doubted myself, fallen into the trap of poor body image, and doubted my ability to help other women. looking at that comment now, it makes me want to fight back. not just for myself, but for every woman out there who has ever been degraded for the simple fact of being who she was made to be. the women who are working hard, doing their absolute best, receiving negativity, and choosing to pick themselves back up day after day. because newsflash: women come in ALL shapes and sizes. tall, thin, strong, small, short, curvy, big glutes, smaller glutes, big boobs, or none at all — you name it… we represent it. and we refuse to come as a “one size fits all”, for the sake of your preconceived notions as to what a female SHOULD be. this is for all the women in this world embracing every inch of their bodies, every single day, no matter what opinions people throw your way. keep going, girl. you owe your body the love you freely give. ? #girlswholift #plantbased

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Customers took things even further by starting a petition, Stop Brittany Dawn Fitness Scams, on Change.org that has amassed 8,600 signatures as of this writing, and nearly 4,000 people joined a Facebook Group to share their stories about the alleged scam by Dawn. The group, which is not monitored, stated “We did not create this to simply bad mouth Brittany. Our hope is to gather relevant information in disputing charges due to bad business practices for ours and for others’ sake.”

In response to all the backlash against her online courses, Dawn released a statement on her YouTube channel on Feb. 6 acknowledging her mistakes and apologizing to followers who were dissatisfied with her product. “Unfortunately with being human, comes learning from making mistakes,” said a tearful Dawn, who said she has received hundreds of death threats. “This is my heartfelt apology, to move forward and make things right, and I please ask that the death threats end, and for my family/friends to be left alone from here on out.”

https://youtube.com/watch?v=A78PnebqzAM

Dawn took full responsibility for her less-than-fit online courses and admitted that her business took off faster than expected, leaving her overwhelmed, which she explained in a portion of her statement:

“I apologize to anyone that feels like they got scammed from me, and I genuinely promise that my intentions from the start were pure. I wanted to help and impact as many women as I could, because I felt like this is why I was given this incredible platform. When you’re given an opportunity like this, you would be stupid not to take it and run with it and unfortunately I ran too fast for one person. These claims are coming from years ago after I was launched into a business that took off so fast I didn’t know how to mentally handle it. I did what I needed to do to the best of my abilities. I didn’t know what I was signing up for simply because being an influencer and running a fitness influencer business was not really a thing back then. Therefore, I didn’t have much guidance. I’m not truly saying this as an excuse to my actions but to give you all a much-needed explanation as to why things happened the way that they did and fell through the cracks. At times, it got extremely overwhelming, and I took on more than I should have. And for that, I take full responsibility and I am sorry.”

She went on to say that she wants to “make things right” and address each of her followers’ concerns through a new email account where she can communicate with everyone on their individual issue. 

A NASM Fitness-Nutrition certified teacher, Dawn first founded her company in 2013 and offers online fitness and nutrition coaching programs for men and women. Today, she has built a social media presence with followers numbering in the hundreds of thousands. As of press time, she has more than half a million Instagram followers alone.

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