A few years back I saw an add on tv about a "30 days trial Membership" at Bally Total Fitness. It sounded interesting, so I thought I'd give it a shot. A friend of mine ended up joining with me.
Talking to the rep wasn't so bad. He wasn't "pushy" like a lot of people say gym reps are, but was actually really nice. After asking about the trial deal he informed me it was in fact a membership plan, with the difference of having 30 days to cancel with no fees instead of the usual 3. I agreed and signed up.
About a week into my buddy decided to cancel his membership since he wasn't the athletic type, and I did kind of talk him into it in the first place because of that. After about another week I decided that working out wasn't as fun by yourself as it was with friends. The other problem I had was with other groups of guys sitting in the free weight areas, NOT actually using them, but sitting around and trying to pick up on girls.
So of course I gave my friend a call and asked him what he did to end his contract. He told me to just talk to the guy that signed us up. So I gave him a call and he informed me to come down to the gym with my membership card. When I showed up he just took my card, gave me he card, and told me to give him a call if I change my mind. "I don't need to sign anything? Just give you my card?" YES, it's just that easy, right? HA!
About 3 years later, I get a letter from Asset Acceptance LLC that says "ACT NOW! And we'll give you a 50% credit towards your debts!" What debts? After reading through the page, I noticed it said "Bally Total Fitness" at the top.
Of course I gave the Collections company a call first, and they informed me that my membership was never actually cancelled. I asked them if I could receive a copy of my contract, but they didn't actually have that, just my information. I asked if Bally might have that information, and was told that my debt was actually "transfered" to this company, and that Bally would no longer have anything to do with this problem.
I've yet to receive anything besides the little letters that say "You own us thousands of dollars, BUT SETTLE NOW FOR 50% OFF!" I've also tried getting through to someone "of importance" at Bally, but aparently they are not an open door company, and are not obligated to give out such information.
If anyone knows anything that might help me out, please contact me. But I'm afraid a full time student can't afford to throw money around to random companies that know how to write a letter but have no actually documentation on such debts.
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