I am another sucker who went in for a tour based on their newspaper ad about "$1 down, $10 a month!" yeah right. After a tour of the club (which I admit, was nice) with the salesperson hastily shoving everything down my throat so fast that I could barely understand everything he said, we sat down in the sales mans office. Then he went into his speech about memberships, told us all of the membership options which I immediately knew I could not afford.
I asked about the $1 down, $10 a month ad and was told that it is $10 for the first three months then it goes up to $54 a month! Not to mention you are locked in for 33 months. Then the only way to get out of it is to upgrade your membership (which costs $150 initially, then you pay at least $40 a month). And even when you do that you have to pay for another 90 days after cancelling.
All I could think of in my head was that, sure I will only pay $1 today, then if I change my mind I have to pay over $100, and three months of about $40 just to get out of it. And it's not like they let you think about it over night. The sales people are so sleazy and tell you that if you don't sign right then and there you can't get these prices and it almost doubles if you do decide to sign up later. I declined, telling him I simply don't have the money. He told me this and that about $1 now, and I declined again telling him that I don't have the money now and still won't have it being that I am a full time student.
This is when he got extremely aggressive and I actually felt at some points that I might cry. He tried to say that they don't need members, that it is a privilege for them to even want you to go there. I wanted to scream at him "IF YOU DON'T NEED MEMBERS WHY ARE YOU SO DESPERATE FOR ME TO SIGN UP RIGHT NOW?!" Well I just kept looking at the fine print on the back of the contract which stated that the contract could be completely cancelled if you do it within 3 days. So I decided to just sign up so I could get out of the guys office and cancel the next day.
I went home and followed the instructions on how you have to bring a written request in person to the gym that you sign up at within 3 days. I wrote one up, even leaving a line for a witness to sign just so that if there were any questions later I could prove that someone who worked at the gym saw it and signed it. I went in the next day and submitted it, signed it in front of the secretary, and had her sign as well. She made copies and also made copies of the "cancellation request form" that I filled out for Future Fitness.
A few days went by and I called Future Fitness just to make sure everything was ok, since I was worried that it was only a secretary who I spoke to (I was told no managers were available). Who ever I talked to on the phone pulled up my file and informed me that my membership was in fact cancelled. I thought it was all over and everything was fine. I should have known better.
I don't look at my bank statements all the time unless it seems way off. So I missed the first charge taken from my bank account from Future Fitness AFTER they told me I cancelled my membership. My boyfriend had been with me at the tour and did the same thing I did, and cancelled the same way as me at the same time. Good thing because if he didn't I never would have seen the letter he got in the mail from Future Fitness two months after we thought our memberships were cancelled. It said that they had billed him for the month and he had insufficient funds so they were going to also bill him a fee of $30.
I can't believe I had been so foolish to think everything was over after a simple signing of a couple papers. We called the gym and of course no managers were available, and they referred us to the main Future Fitness accounting office who of course told us they knew nothing about us cancelling. My first reaction was to talk to my friend who is an attorney and she was on my side. But she said before we go and actually sue to try something not so harsh. I filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau, and am going to keep calling but if nothing happens I am going to be forced to take legal action. For some people $54 a month may not be much but I am a full time student and my account will be overdrawn if this much is taken out. Do NOT sign up with future fitness no matter how nice it seems. There are plenty of other gyms that have members and they don't have to beg them so sign up.
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