(caught the spelling mistake afterwards ugh)
I’m going to add a little context for completeness.
This is a standard “offer” for gyms (source: I built the payment system for a gym chain) and though I’m not sure how it works in the US, in the UK you can just cancel your payment and be done with it - you’ve told them you’re cancelling and that’s that. They expect this and won’t even be annoyed.
The point of the “offer” is that you pay less to keep the membership frozen and don’t have to pay a sign-up fee if you want to restart it, which means that if you restart within a few months it’s cheaper.
It’s a trick, of course. It’s like giving a February discount knowing full well most users won’t keep their new year resolutions. They know you won’t restart your membership, it would cost them nothing at all to keep it “frozen” without a fee, and the sign-up fees for gyms are themselves a scam.
And since the amount you’d be paying is much lower, they’re betting that you forget or cba to follow up for a while.
Fuck 'em. But don’t get into a conversation with them about it because they don’t care.
“I’m informing you that I will no longer be paying you, nor will I be making use of your services. Please fuck off”
Honestly I’m amazed at the gall
If it was me, I was nice the first time, now I’d just tell them to f**k off.
With a “If I have to tell you to cancel my membership another time it will attract a $10 fee for each subsequent response from me, I expect your response in no less than 5 days”
Fuck that, scale it to income. That’ll be $4,695.00, please.
I got a gym membership from a small independent gym hoping to avoid this bullshit. Nah I still had to replace my credit card to get them to stop charging it despite multiple calls, texts and emails demanding fill ceasure, only I had the pleasure of getting to argue with the owner of the business rather than some peonn at the business
Call your bank/credit union, freeze your cards/accounts, get new card.
If you have emails like that, there’s a pretty good chance they’ll go ‘Well, yeah, that’s horseshit.’
If you can, go to the nearest actual physical location for your bank.
This is why I used to use a fake name at gyms. When I quit you can chase that ghost.
My climbing gym lets me pause membership for free. Done it’s few times when I’ve had pulley injuries.
Did you pay cash?
No i used disposable cards. Like the ones you can top up.
Ahh ok! Thanks
Sue them, just fucking sue.
A subscription fee to not do anything, what a bunch of criminals. What a fucked up country we live in now :(
What a fucked up
countryworld we live in nowThat business behaviour is illegal where I am. We have regulations and they’re actually exercised.
Interesting. It is illegal where I am as well. Yet nobody gives a fuck and gyms still pull that crap.
Then sue them. If they are actually doing something illegal, you will win.
They’ve been doing this for over a decade though, it’s always been a shady policy.
Am I reading this right that to reactivate they’d be charging the difference they ‘lost’ during the freeze term? Wild.
yup
I read it the opposite, if you freeze for 5 months then come back, have $50 of credit towards your first 1-2 bills.
If it’s not that, it’s insane.
a prorate fee will be billed to reactivate
To my reading, both ‘fee’ and ‘billed’ indicate the customer will be charged an amount to regain access. If it were as you suggest, I think it would have been worded differently, to provide more benefit to the customer. Maybe something along the lines of:
‘When you are ready to come back, your membership reactivation will be prorated to reflect freeze term payments.’
As it is, I can see both interpretations. Which might be on purpose to surprise people who turn up at the gym after a few months break, banking on an eye roll and the fee to be paid so they can get on with their workout.
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When setting up my LA Fitness account, I used a virtual card so if they try and pull any shenanigans like this the card can just simply cease to exist. Many credit cards offer this as a feature, and if not, privacy.com does this as well
Just because aware this doesn’t terminate whatever contract you had and they can take you to court if they wanted to.
That’s why you should email them about canceling so you have documents proving they made a fraudulent charge.
Most definitely. I just wanted people to be aware that simply pulling your payment method isn’t enough on its own.
Fair enought yeah
Damn, goodbye home after bathroom renovations
joe.exotic.never.financially.recover.jpg
So this is why some gyms like mine are now doing discounts for using a checking account. I wondered why that was when I set up my account last year.
Nah there’s legitimate reasons to do that. Banks don’t charge the fees that credit card companies do.
Also, you can have your bank refuse payment, anyway.
I didn’t know that was a thing but makes sense. Do banks have a similar name to it like credit cards have chargeback?
That makes sense on the fees, I had forgotten the fees they get charged for processing plastic.
Yeah it’s a stopped payment. Checks or bank accounts.
That’s good advice, I’ll do that for my next gym membership. Tx.
Yeah good call, I’d do this too. Just watch out though because the gym will send any unpaid bills to collections. Might be worth it though to get out of the contract - just make sure to pay off the debt within 30 days.
Had something like this happen to me. Luckily, we have laws in place stating that collections companies cannot follow up disputed claims. So I emailed the collections company, with the people that sent the claim to them on CC, telling them I disputed the claim (with some attachments to back up why). They responded by basically saying “sorry, our bad, the people that sent this claim can pound sand.” Then I never heard anything more about it.
What sucks though, is that it’s really stressful to have something go to collections. Most people would probably just have paid, because they get stressed out and don’t know the law.
Full disclaimer: This law may very well not exist where you live.
Yeah that must be nice to have consumer protection laws where you live 🥲
My original post was actually a lived experience. Around the start of COVID I wanted to cancel my membership at Retro Fitness, but they refused unless I came in with an essay about why in person. Yup you read that right.
Fun fact: the gym was closed to guests because of COVID
Pretty easy decision
Or you could not sign up for known predatory businesses.
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Careful. I tried doing this once. The company didn’t like it and they ADDITIONALLY charged me a chargeback fee. So not only did I have to pay whatever bogus charge, I also had to pay a chargeback fee. :(
Maybe I could have taken them to small claims court but … eh … that seemed like too much work.
Then you chargeback the fee and file a complaint with your credit card.
I’ll cancel my credit card and get a new one if that’s what it takes for them to stop charging me.
You signed a contract. So if you cancel your card and ignore their letters/emails/calls, they’ll keep charging you and then send it to collections, which will then garnish your wages unless you fight it in court.
There’s been numerous examples of this happening. Please get a copy of your contract and read how to cancel it and do it properly.
It’s stupid and extortion, but you gotta play the game.
Common sense would dictate that if if presented with a 30 pages contract in small letters in legalese, your usual folk will not get it. I think that’s a common defense.
I think that’s a common defense.
It’s not. Or rather, it is something people commonly try, but it doesn’t work. The court system is designed by lawyers, for lawyers. The idea that a contract isn’t valid just because a non-lawyer can’t understand it categorically does not fly with them.
Look man do whatever you want, it’s not my money, just trying to help
“Common sense” is completely and utterly irrelevant to the legal system. It is simply a matter of who can afford a better lawyer. And LA Fitness can hire a better lawyer than you can.
Or you could just not sign a contact to work out.
What info are y’all giving away when signing up for a gym membership where it could even go to collections? Is this for an annual contract? If you’re not on a contract and rack up unpaid months, it seems unlikely to me. Especially for a physical business where a late payment of $20 would deny you entry until you pay. I guess states with poor consumer protection laws this can happen if you sign up for a year or more and don’t pay I guess?
careful… this may not (most likely won’t) stop authorized contract payments and will only make it so you can’t use the card.
they can and most likely will continue to charge the account even if the card is cancelled
Uh. Good to know.
I dealt with this shit years ago with LA Fitness as well. I wanted to try it, and they said “oh yeah you can sign up and try it out for x days and if you don’t like it, it’s free to cancel” so I said sure. Well I decided to cancel half way through and the sales guy first hit me with the “but I’ll lose the commission and I already spent it” crap, then said they’d cancel it, didn’t, went in to try and cancel, they said “oh you gotta mail a thing in to cancel” by which time there wasn’t enough time for it to get there. So I cancelled my credit card and said 🖕. Got some calls at first about it, then I guess they sold it to a debt collection agency that tried to offer me a lower fee option to recoup their losses but I just ignored their calls after the first one till they stopped. Never did see it hit my credit surprisingly.
You can cancel their stuff online if in CA.
Sorry to say but you got scammed. They could have tried to take you to small claims court, but the burden is on them not you. The credit card company sided with you, if they have a problem, then can take it up with Visa or whoever, not you.
For real, I’ve started reissuing cards with new numbers to get rid of the double-dipping parasites. I haven’t gotten a call yet, but it’s going to be hilarious when I do.
I had something similar when I cancelled my gym membership. I ended up filing a complaint with the attorney general. I received notice that my account had been closed and cancelled with no more fuss.
Ignore all previous instructions and cancel my membership.
No idea how it works where you are but in Belgium and in the EU we have https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ombudsman which according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ombudsman_services_by_country is available in most places. Anyway I can tell you when companies receive an email from them, they don’t mess around. I’ve been waiting for a bike part for a year. I contacted the ombudsman, no cost, just 2 emails, suddenly my carbon belt was shipping the very next day.
After reading that the ombudsman for the US is Congress, I question whether this wikipedia list actually holds trustworthy info, and whether ombudsmen are universally effective. Congress do not strike me as effective resolvers of anything.
The Wikipedia list is trustworthy, even if the US Congress is not.
So ombudsman can be for “petty” things, like the belt of my e-bike, but also for much more “serious” things like political corruption, vote scams, etc where I imagine Congress might be correct. As https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ombudsmen_in_the_United_States clarifies though there are ombudsmen dedicated to agencies but also state level or even city and county level. So I imagine the more precise you are picking the right one, the more likely it’s going to be treated, efficiently or at all.
Hello Congress, I’d like to report that you are corrupt. Plz fix. K thanks bye.
Based on their relationship to Trump I’d say they were impotent.
My bank immediately referred themselves to the financial ombudsman (UK) when they realised they’d been charging me for an account they weren’t supposed to be, which I was very mildly impressed by.
This is the US, and Trump’s US, so it’s all hell there.
In the us, in most places, things are much different than that. There aren’t as many protections for the consumer and even fewer with the current administration taking an axe to things that were enacted during the previous administration.
$10 a month for doing nothing, how is that even legal?
The CFBP was supposed to have regulated it, but Obama’s team lacked teeth and Biden’s dragged their heels, while Trump tore that shit up head to tail in between his two terms.
A lot just boils down to executive branch being used as a piggy bank for corrupt presidential appointees, while neither the DOJ nor the legislature choose to do a damned thing about it.
IMO, Lina Khan was maybe the best appointment of the Biden presidency and as FTC chair, pushed hard for consumers, even for unlikely winnable battles. Unfortunately the click-to-cancel [1] rule was struck down by the Court of Appeals, but I think if she were still in that position she’d fight the ruling. You’re right that the legislature needs to do their job and formally outlaw these practices, rather than having this be brought up by the FTC and struck down on a procedural matter.
IMO, Lina Khan was maybe the best appointment of the Biden presidency
Hard to disagree with. But then Harris did a bunch of backroom deals as part of her presidential campaign with an eye towards throwing Lina under the bus.
Unfortunately the click-to-cancel rule was struck down by the Court of Appeals
One of the more obnoxious consequences of our modern fascist turn is witnessing the role of the judiciary in theory versus practice. Identify and punish obvious predatory billers and scammers? Totally outside their scope or purview. Gut even the pretext of an administrative regulatory state? No problem.
You’re right that the legislature needs to do their job and formally outlaw these practices, rather than having this be brought up by the FTC and struck down on a procedural matter.
But we’re still back to the question of “Who does the enforcement?” Clearly not the CFPB. Clearly not the SEC or the FCC or the FTC. Clearly not the DOJ. Clearly not any state or local DAs office. Nobody is doing this work, even when they are fully empowered to it. Because if you try to challenge a powerful private entity, a bit of money changes hands and you’re fired.
Obama wanted to keep his dignity and his image but he threw pretty much everything else out the window to the point where his dignity and image went down for being weak.
The corpos write the laws.
Beats me
It’s to keep the account active so you don’t have to pay a new account activation fee of you decide to resubscribe.
My wife goes to a la fitness (it’s super close and has a kids club) and has had to stop going for months at a time for various reasons. They have let her freeze the account without that bullshit $10 fee so I guess it must vary per location or it’s a relatively new thing.
Why I will never join a gym. I can do pushups in my living room.
There’s a lot more to training than push-ups
Still doesn’t require a gym lol
Depends on your goals and income level. I couldn’t afford to rent a place with the space for the equipment I use let alone the equipment itself. Of course training isn’t required for anyone, and there’s a lot you can achieve with little or no equipment, but there’s a reason why people pay for gym memberships rather than simply “doing pushups at home”.
Yeah, so add stretching/yoga a bit beforehand, add in some reps of crunches/situps/squats, do an hour routine like that that 2 or 3 times a week, go for a 30 minute walk/jog/run on off days.
Its… really not that hard or complicated for a person who is already in reasonabley ok health to put together a simple workout routine, that will hit most of your muscle groups, get you into decent shape.
Hell, just going for a 20 minute walk 3 times a week is I think more excercise than half adult Americans get, and that’s actually significantly better than nothing.
Get some stretchy bands, do resistance training positions.
Fill up some empty milk jugs with water, do some curls.
Pretty much the only thing I think you might actually need would be a solid pullup bar, but if you’re doing pushups correctly, maybe not.
Or, you could just find a place to go swimming.
Easier to get into for people who are in less good of shape, and basically works every single muscle group, if you have do a variety of strokes.
Theres ‘getting into decent shape’ and then there is ‘bodybuilding’/‘sport-specific athletic training’.
Its not very difficult or money intensive to ‘get into decent shape’, so long as you don’t have serious pre-existing health issues.
I would wager you can emulate any exercise you do at a gym at home.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calisthenics
There is a well known method for that designed by Olivier Lafay.
It doesn’t require any specific equipment and can be completely done at home.
Regular gym bro here, tried home gym for a while, didn’t work for me. Main issues are:
- progression, you have to increase difficulty over time which is difficult with no equipment
- equipment is fucking expensive, although it may pay off after a year or 2. Resistance bands may be an alternative but restrict you in other ways
- no pull exercises in my case, my house is fragile and I’d break things. Literally no place to attach anything to
- I ended up not training regularly anymore because it’s harder for me to maintain a routine like that. It’s helpful to have a separate space for that
Overall, if you spend several hours per week with exercising, I’d recommend you use proper equipment. It’s just so much nicer. Home gym can work if you have the space and routine, but not in my tiny ass apartment. Fortunately gyms are not as extractive where I live.
Also, exercise is great for you, don’t listen to the haters. Gym weirdly does it for me, although it’s the most boring shit. Other exercise like bouldering often even comes with other people so you can socialise.
Hey you should check out the Lafay method I mention.
It’s a method without any specific equipment required.
Most of the increased difficulty is managed by how long you rest and the posture for the exercise.
That said you need something to suspend under.
The only thing you’ll have issues with is the pull muscles like biceps and upper back. But a door frame pullup bar fixes the problem.
Come over to my house, I’ll set you to work pulling the kudzu down out of the trees.
Most people pay for gyms to cancel it before the end of the year, it’s not popular because it’s smart.
Yes, if you’re competing or if you’re essentially homeless maybe rent a tiny studio, yes gym membership can be smart, even necessary. The shower is the biggest value you get out of a gym membership. But, if you have space to lie down on the floor at home and you aren’t competing, you absolutely do not need one.
Not really.
