The Gym Membership Racket
By Daniel Miessler on January 28th, 2008: Tagged as America | Culture
I realized a few days ago just how underhanded the gym membership business is. They prey on those who lack self-discipline and then craft legal terms that are designed to milk them for as much as possible. Observe.
- The contract is for a pre-determined amount of time. It cannot be cancelled, and it’s auto-renewing. If you move away to Madagascar or Saskatchewan for 40 years, that money will just keep coming out.
- If you do ever get around to canceling after your contract is up, don’t try and do so over the phone. No, you have to come in to the gym to cancel.
- Fine, so you drive in and tell them you want to cancel. Fill out this form. Huh? Can’t I just tell you I want to cancel? No. Fill out this cancellation form.
- Whatever, so you fill out and hand them the form. Oh, we don’t take these. You have to mail them out of state or fax them to this number. What? I’m at the gym I signed up at! Nope, you have to mail it in or fax it. Oh, and no — you can’t use our fax machine.
So there you have it. They’re essentially building in a set of annoying, time-consuming tasks into the cancellation process that they’re relatively certain will cause problems for most people who join gyms.
Basically, if you’re too lazy to work out on your own then you’re probably also too lazy to 1) remember to cancel, 2) get off your ass to drive to the gym, 3) fill out the form, 4) remember to mail or fax the form. And if you fail in any of those steps the money comes out until you die.
Yeah, nice little scam they have going. But they won’t get me with their little game… I just faxed my form in and I’m done with that crap.:
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You might appreciate this article on the subject.
http://strengthsystems.wordpress.com/2008/01/12/choosing-the-right-gym-part-2/
After working in the fitness industry as a personal trainer for a number of years, I left having witnessed what could only be categorized as abuse. The amount of underhanded, sneaky practices that are hard set into the industry, typically by the corporate structure, are too many to count.
At one point there were allegations made that one gym was signing up illegal immigrants with false social security numbers, then calling and threatening to turn them over to the INS and have them deported if they wouldn’t pay.
Comment by Anthony — 1/29/2008 @ 12:02 am
I considered a gym membership at one time and as soon as I got to the “Oh, we need your bank account information…” I went “You’re a Gym. I’m not giving you my bank account information.” That was the end of it.
Comment by Jordan Lund — 1/29/2008 @ 12:33 am
Australia has introduced specific legislation to combat this kind of consumer-unfriendly service. Still it has it’s limits, with the dominant gym chain in this country requiring an “exit interview” when you want to leave. Which is basically a sit down session where they try to convince you not to go.
Comment by JoSummertime — 1/29/2008 @ 12:57 am
Some gyms outsource their trainers, and the deal with them is the same.
The leverage used is that people who go to the gym often have low self-esteem, so they’re particularly vulnerable to having some real in-shape fast-talking guy or gal get them all signed up into a bad deal.
There are certain kinds of businesses that attract slimy get-rich-quick characters, and gyms and gym training are two of them.
Comment by Anon — 1/29/2008 @ 2:01 am
I recently dropped Bally Fitness after being a member for the past 9 years because they started offering 3 year contracts only. I joined Lifetime Fitness because they don’t offer contracts as part of their business model. Granted there was a lot of sales puffery, but I can admire a company that says we want you to be happy with our services and if you aren’t then we want you to cancel. They gauge their performance on the number of cancellations they process, which is something you can’t do if your members are locked in a long term contract. If only cellphone companies would operate this way.
Comment by John Foster — 1/31/2008 @ 1:38 pm
ROTFLMAO!!!!
The same gym of which you were a member of just started 14.99 a month, month to month NO contract…
Comment by Steve — 2/6/2008 @ 9:38 pm