Fittingly Mad: I Want Out of This Relationship...

Sat, 05/12/2007 - 2:00am by FitSugar

...my relationship with my old gym, that is.

Has this ever happened to you? You join a gym and at the end of the term of your agreed contract, you decide to cancel your membership and try another gym. Simple, right? WRONG.

Turns out that when you sign the papers to join some gyms, you are signing your life away. I am not going to name names Gold's Gym Crunch Liberty, but I have found that the process of canceling my gym membership is one of the hardest things to do, ever.

Here is how it went down. When I called to cancel, they told me I needed to cancel it in person. When I showed up in person, they told me I needed to send a certified letter (who sends certified letters anymore?). When I sent the certified letter my credit card still got charged for a good 6 months after canceling the membership. It came to the point where I had to just cancel the card that was being charged. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if they were still trying to charge my card to this day.

I've heard many other stories just like my own and it just does not make sense to me. Why do gyms make it so ridiculously hard to cancel your membership? Did I miss something here? Gym memberships should not be this binding. I would really appreciate it if gyms could just take a cancellation for what it is, a simple cancellation, and leave the hard feelings at the door.

Bonus points if you can name the television show (no longer taping) that had an episode on this very same problem where one character can not get out of his gym membership so he brings along a friend to help.