We are senior individuals (60 and 55) and just joined LA Fitness. They said we had to take an 'orientation' to learn about the club. Unfortunately, due to business travel my wife did this on her own. The 'orientation' turned out to be a high pressure sales pitch for personal training.
When I called, my wife was distraught and said she signed for 12 personal fitness sessions for $ 550 and we would lose 50 % of this if we canceled. The wife took one session and decided it was too much and she would have a hard time doing two/month for six months. I told her to cancel and take the hit.
Upon my return from business, I had a letter from LA Fitness stating that 'I' had 8 personal fitness sessions scheduled per month for 6 months. I got my wife to produce a copy of the contract she had signed (but apparently not read), and realized they had signed her for 48 sessions at a cost of $ 2549, $ 549 of which had already been billed. (By the way... These automatically renew!)
These contracts are written tougher than you would get from a used car salesman, and once LA Fitness has you, apparently their business model is 'no mercy'. By the terms of the contract, LA Fitness was 'nice' enough to allow us to cancel for another $ 1000. On April 7, my wife canceled both the membership and fitness training sessions, figuring to cut our losses.
I called tonight (April 9) to see if I could reason them down to a lesser amount since $ 1550/ hour seems a ridiculous amount and found that they had not canceled either as instructed, although on April 7 they said they had. The telephone operator told me they needed $ 1000 from me BEFORE they would accept my cancellation! He said he could accept an over the phone payment. Until this amount was received, I would continue to be billed and he was trying to save me money by avoiding future billings.
I told him that I wouldn't pay except after receiving a written invoice from him for the amount they felt was fair and confirmation that I was no longer bound by the contract. He stated that their accounting structure could not invoice and insisted on a complete phone payment first or they would continue to bill. I then informed him that the credit card he has on file for me is no longer valid (I have killed it), and if he wanted payment of any sort, he had better learn to invoice.
We ended agreeing to disagree...
I have no idea where I am on this now but will certainly be talking with an attorney. Health clubs (at least in this area) are very competitive. I know my wife was stupid to have signed a contract without reading it, but anyone who picks this health club had better be really wary!
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