On 3-Mar my 18-year-old daughter was given the high pressure sales pitch, on site, to join Bally Total Fitness. She refused for a while but, when the selling tactics got stronger, she signed up to shut the salesperson up, figuring that she would just cancel later.
They did not give her a copy of the contract, but I understand this is a common practice of theirs.
In NYS, the settlement of a previous suit brought against Bally Total Fitness by the Attorney General gives consumers a longer cancellation period. Nonetheless, she wrote up a cancellation, made copies, and sent it via registered mail to the location where she signed up. She has the registered mail receipt. This was mailed on the third business day after the contract was signed.
The letter stated that she wanted to cancel and would like to have her $50 deposit refunded.
A week later she followed up only to find that her contract had not been cancelled (surprise!). She has made many calls and visits to Bally in the interim period, with no success whatsoever. Today they hit her account for another $50, including overdraft charges. Up until now here's what she has gone through:
1. Called headquarters. The person with whom she spoke said that they didn't have her in the system yet and she had to go back to the local branch, see the salesman who signed her up, get her id number and call back.
2. Went back to the local branch. Salesperson wasn't in; they told her to come back in a couple of days because they couldn't cancel the contract without him. (I don't know why, but ok.)
3. Two days later went back to the local Bally's, obtained her id number and was told that she had to call corporate headquarters again to cancel and she should be in the system.
4. Called headquarters. They told her that she had to cancel at the local Bally's.
5. Went back to the local Bally's, this time with a parent in tow. Once again they said they couldn't do anything and she would have to call their headquarters again. Still, we left another copy of the original cancellation letter.
6. Anyone seeing a pattern here? Ok, called headquarters again. This time there was no answer.
7. Tonight was the icing on the cake. After the $50 monthly charge plus overdraft, was told by the salesperson that it wasn't his problem, she had to call the 800 number and, oh by the way, there's a new 800 number to call but they don't have it. So, it's a mystery 800 number now. We have no idea what the new number is or when it will be published. Maybe we'll find out after a few hundred more dollars.
No matter, because I'd be willing to bet that if we did have the new 800 number, we'd have a whole new runaround routine to go through.
We are getting tired of playing games, running around, and making phone calls to cancel a contract for more than a month now. Daughter is a full time college student and works part time. It is disruptive to have to find time to run to Bally's and make futile phone calls just to cancel a contract that should have been cancelled weeks ago.
Then the salesman told her that, if she had come in for her 12 trial workouts, it would have been easy to cancel. Yeah, I just bet.
Folks, you can't make this stuff up. Un-freaking-believable.
I called the Attorny General's office a few days ago and they mailed a complaint form to be filled out. I had hoped that we would not have to resort to this. Bally's doesn't care about litigation, won't cancel the contract, won't refund the deposit, and won't stop taking money from the account. I don't know how many months and how many dollars will disappear before there's any result from the AG's office. It could take a while, I suppose.
In the meantime she is left with a Hobson's choice — either keep paying for something she isn't using, or risk going to collections with its attendant credit problems. There are no good choices here.
Deb
Slingerlands, New York
U.S.A.
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