The member pays their first and last month's dues when signing up. You will find this on the Membership Agreement, and even in their online enrollment form on their website where it states, "The following memberships start with first, last and one time $49 activation fee."
The cancellation section of the membership agreement states that, The Member's prepaid last month's dues will be applied to the outstanding balance, if any, explaining what the Club's obligations are when a member cancels their membership. The personal trainer processing your enrollment will in fact explain this during your pre-enrollment interview.
But once you have enrolled and paid your initial dues including your last month's dues, everything changes.
What they don't tell you is that the operative words in the Cancellation Section of the Membership Agreement are if any, meaning that this obligation only needs to be met by Vision Quest if there is an outstanding balance on the member's account.
Thus, if Vision Quest can assure that the member has no outstanding balance when they cancel their membership, then Vision Quest has no obligation to the member regarding the pre-paid last month's dues. To that end, they have created a Cancellation and Acknowledgement form which states:
"I, %, wish to give my written notice of cancellation effective thirty (30) days from the next bill date on my membership agreement, which will include one more Electronic Funds Transfers dues debit within my thirty (30) day notice."
This "one more Electronic Funds Transfers dues debit" that they have included on the cancellation form that does not appear on the membership agreement, and is to cover the one month's worth of membership dues that will come due during this 30 day notice period. Since no more membership dues come due following the 30 days notice period, this is in fact the member's last month's dues.
In other words, by signing this form the member is unknowingly and/or unwittingly agreeing to a "new and improved" set of cancellation terms, different from those they agreed to when signing the membership agreement, which are affectively authorizing Vision Quest to withdrawal their their last month's dues from the member's account despite those dues being paid up front.
Since the member now has a zero balance at the club, Vision Quest gets to keep the prepaid last month's dues along with the additional membership dues withdrawn. The monies paid upon signing up with the club are non-refundable, and this signed cancellation form is used to ostensibly legitimize the additional withdrawal if it is challenged. The final results:
The member has now double-paid their last month's dues and has no recourse to getting a refund.
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