My husband and I have a complaint against Future Fitness, a local gym that has several locations in your viewing area. This is what happened:
On July 24, my husband went to the gym to cancel our memberships, memberships that we had been willingly paying for, out of contract, for several months.
My husband was expecting for the memberships to be cancelled right then. He was informed, however that we would continue to be charged for three months as stated in the contract. The contract in which we were no longer tied into.
After receiving attitude from the owner, my husband, the primary holder on the memberships was given only ONE cancellation form to complete and was led to believe that he was cancelling both memberships and that after the 3 month period was up, we would no longer be charged.
Quite disgusted, we contacted the BBB of NJ to express our anger about the situation to them. The BBB contacted Future Fitness and was given a response of basically, "it was in the contract they signed". Upon receipt of the response we had accepted that we would be charged for the three months, shame on us for not using a magnifier to read the contract when we signed up, but the response from Future Fitness also stated that only one membership had been cancelled. We said wait, we filled out the form we were given. ONE form, not TWO.
The owner knew completely that we wanted to cancel both memberships, especially since the primary reason was that I was pregnant and we knew we would not be using the gym, especially since we hadn't used it in so long anyway and were wasting our money paying for it. My husband obviously wasn't the pregnant one, so why wouldn't the owner give TWO forms to complete, rather than ONE? I'll tell you why. Because he operates a shady business and simply wanted us to cancel what we thought was both memberships but continue to charge us to get a profit from us.
This prompted us to contact the Consumer Affairs department of Gloucester County, where the gym is located. When we got a response from Dept. Of Consumer Affairs in mid October they were unable to help us with our new complaint, being misled by the owner and only being given one cancellation form to fill out.
All we wanted was for my membership to be cancelled as of July 24 when we thought we cancelled both memberships. At this point, my husband called Future Fitness and asked to speak to the supervisor of the Accounting Dept. Probably 2 days after I spoke with Consumer Affairs. They gave the phone to someone other than the supervisor she told my husband "it was all a misunderstanding and that we would no longer be charged for my membership.
So what happened next. November 1st comes around and we are charged the $34 for my membership. Surprise, surprise! I contacted Future Fitness and am given the run-a-round from a manager named Adam who sounds like he's trying to help, but is just helping to prolong the process of getting this resolved. He told me he'd call the lady from accounting to see if he could straighten it out and he'd get back to me, almost two weeks went by and after I left two messages for him, he finally returns my call, still without an answer.
I told him how frustrated I was and that finally got the ball rolling a bit, but not in my direction. He claims he spoke with Arlene, from accounting, and she said that I still had to complete the Cancellation form, which I should say Adam told me not to fill out when I first spoke with him because he wanted to help me resolve this issue and try to get my money back.
So basically this woman lied to my husband and now, with five days before I am to give birth to my first child, I am still dealing with the aggravation from Future Fitness. I am at the point where they can keep the money they charged me for November, I'll go and fill out the cancellation form to cancel my membership and continue to be charged $102 for the next three months with access to the gym, but I want to bring any and every ounce of negative publicity to their company that I can.
The entire time we've gone through this drama with them, they keep informing us about how successful they are, how many satisfied customers they have and how it is such an honor to be a member of their gym. If they are so successful, then why not just cancel my membership as of July. They have sooooooo many happy members, and I have already paid dues from July through November and would have fulfilled the requirement of the cancellation policy, what difference does it make to them if I don't go to their gym anymore.
I was given the "opportunity" it was called for a three month credit, but why would I want that, I just want my membership cancelled as of July. I just want them to stop taking money from my account after we were misled and lied to. Let me add too, that when you sign up at this gym, you meet with the owner, and he tells you that he only allows a certain number of people to join and that he wants to make sure you are really going to take advantage of being a member. If he only allows a certain number of people to join, then why not cancel my membership keeping the money he made from my husband and I and let some other people fill our spots. He'd rather have me try and bring as much negative attention to his gym as possible.
I was just told that the owner will be in touch with me on Monday, November 20, to see if we can resolve this. I hope that I can bring some aggravation to them as they have brought to my husband and I.
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