I’m moving, so today I tried to cancel my local gym membership and when cancelling, they said that “it’s a 30 day notice for cancellation so it’ll charge once more on the 10th.” What?? I argued that makes zero sense, but it’s their “policy”. Any way around this? I’m thinking about just going to my bank and freezing my checking account so they can’t charge my account, it’s $50! I’m going to need every dollar I can get for this move.
Thoughts? Is there any angle I’m not seeing about this? I would just freeze my debit card, but when I signed up years ago, I didn’t have my card yet so I signed up via bank number, so is it possible to even freeze my checking account?
Gym wants to charge me $50 as a final fee when canceling, thinking about just freezing my bank account to circumvent this. Thoughts?
byu/Matt_butchr inFrugal
Posted by Matt_butchr
18 Comments
I set my VPN to a location in California and lo and behold, under My Account there was an option to cancel and there was no fee.
YMMV but try it. CA state law.
You need to check the laws on this one… this might be borderline writing a blank check type deal… the bank might honor the charge.
They’ll just send it to collections
Your best bet is reading over the contract and finding an out in there that lets you be annoying enough to let go.
Make sure you tell them you are leaving the area, sometimes this help , but gyms can be a real pain to cancel, so good luck, be nice, I’m sure they can screw you if you are not nice. Wouldn’t hurt to casually call or ask someone what the policy of for leaving the area…
I’ve been paying that 30 day fee at a dozen different spas since 1979. I don’t think there’s any way around it.
Most gyms require 30 days notice. It’s shady though
VPN to California might work if it’s a larger chain
I wanna quit the gym
There’s probably better advice, but I was in the same situation. When I signed their paper, which I probably should have refused, I wrote in “please reconsider :)” next to the notice about the additional charge. A month later and no charge on my statement!
Read your contract carefully. Is it clear enough that this would have happened? Then let it go. Lesson learned.
Not clear? Then dispute it. Say you dispute the final fee, point out the parts of the contract in your favour. Ask them to explain the final fee, and to explain what cost they’ve incurred that justifies the fee.
You can email them directly cancelling thejr authority to charge your credit card. You can cancelled direct debits through your bank. Tell the gym you expect to be invoiced and you’ll make payment yourself.
If 30 day notice of cancelation is in the contract you signed there is a chance it gets sent to collections if you don’t pay.
Read your contract
Can’t owe what you don’t plan on paying.
Leave a 1 star review on Google Maps to warn others.
This happened to me when I graduated high school and I was leaving the state for college. I tried to cancel my membership and they wanted me to finish the rest of the contract upfront because I was canceling before the 12-month contract ended. They also wanted me to send a letter to their headquarters with a payment with like a cancellation fee.
I went back to the gym another day during a different hour and spoke with a different worker acting like this was my first time trying and they just canceled my membership on the spot on the computer. You may get lucky or unlucky with an employee who just wants to be such a worker.
Ive done this. Worked like a charm. $50 isnt worth going to collections over.
If you signed a contract with that in it…. you signed a contract.
Make sure you post it on their reviews about shady billing.
What does your contract say?