So here i was, young and stupid and looking for a gym join. I stumbled into a Fitness USA location pretty close to where i worked at the time, and the equipment seemed decent enough, so I decided to ask about how much it would cost to join.
The salesperson told me that they had a limited-time special offer for students that had techically already expired (alarm bells should have been blaring in my head by this point), but if I signed right then and there, he would postdate the envelope for me to make sure i could enjoy this great ($35 buck a month) offer. Right. I did ask him about what it would take to cancel it, and was told that it would be no problem and that i could cancel it any time. Yeah, right. Taking the salespersons word (a thing I know now to never do) for it, I went ahead and signed the contract.
I went to the gym for the semester, but I was taking a full course load the next, so I decided that I'd have to spend more time exercising my brain and not my biceps. So, I looked up the companies website and started looking for a number to call so i could cancel. Except their website gave no contact info whatsoever. None, no address, no phone number, no e-mail, nothing. They were, ironically, registered with the Better Business Bureau, and finally I found a number to call form their profile on the BBB website.
After the phone rang for a while, a lady answered the phone. I had barely gotten out the words ".. Cancel my gym subscription" when I was transferred, without warning to an automated message informing me that I had to write a handwritten letter on the special form I could only get from the gym. I sighed and hauled myself over to the gym and collected the form, and was assured that I just had to fill it out, send it in and it would get cancelled.
This I did, though my request was firmly rejected, after waiting for a month for a response. Apparently there were only three clauses for getting out of the contract: death, dismemberment or relocation to somewhere far away from the gym.
I'm still arguing with them, and have nothing to show for it but a ruined credit. I did learn my lesson though: NEVER SIGN THE LINE WHICH IS DOTTED UNLESS YOU'VE READ EVERYTHING!!! Its the salespersons' job to distract you from doing so, but don't let them.
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