SCAMS
 

So I just had a really horrible experience. I will share!

So Bally Total fitness came to my workplace with a little booth setup selling to-good-to-be-true membership prices. I signed up for a gym membership with them after carefully reading the contract (1 page) agreement and verifying that I could opt out at any time...

I'm sure you can guess what happens next, but there is an interesting story inbetween...

Me and my wife visit the gym, finally, and I could hardly believe how terrible it was. Small, cramped, dirty, uncomfortable... I mean, I don't know for sure why, but I felt like I would get gonorrhea if I fixed my gaze on any particular spot in the gym for too long. The staff ignored me to the point of us basically walking in without "signing in" showing ID, or anything. The pool had so much chlorine that I came out feeling like I had chased 2 bottles of Southern Comfort with a half-measure of Drain-O the previous night. Needless to say, I was ready to get rid of my gym membership.

So today I call and try to cancel. I don't ask for a refund, just my membership canceled. Apparently, this is "impossible". I have signed on for a 36-month membership that I am "contractually obliged to pay for in whole". To end my membership, I must buy my way out which comes to some figure that Solomon himself might have gaped at momentarily. So I yell at the Call-center guy for a bit and insist that this is not true, and even if it was they'd better damned-well make an exception, etc... And I eventually ask to have a copy of the contract mailed to me. Turns out, this isn't like some kind of common-place thing. Not at all like the simplistic act of mailing a letter. No, to receive the evidence (that I have apparently signed in blood) I must first offer a monetary sacrifice, something to appease the dark gods who are doubtlessly the taskmasters and overlords of this entire operation.

I will be placing a call to the better business bureau today to find out what exactly I can do. Feel free to share your similar stories. I will be providing further updates as events warrant.

I am judging this thread to be General which you may have not been able to find as that we have renamed General.

But yeah that's a totally ridiculous story and given my experience of sports club membership offices, not remotely surprising.

Side note:

??

This is a recent development. (Imagine my surprise to discover what happens upon weaning oneself off of the internet - normal human interactions start occurring!)

UPDATE: The better business bureau doesn't have a much better set-up as far as service level goes, but I'm not looking to make enemies with another large organization, so I am playing nice very patiently. :(

I liked the big letter Oz thing better.

<is also surprised to hear nique is married>

Oh! Oh! The Church of <is sued into oblivion>

I see what you did there. And I approve ;)

Nique, be patient until you can get a copy of the contract. Take a look at how much it would cost to buy your way out compared to hiring a paralegal or lawyer; it might be worth getting some formal legal counsel.

I wish you luck in getting out of this unscathed, and congratulations on the nuptials :D

I am missing something... or I am a little dense. But who says it can't be both?

And yes, thank you! I am pretty excited about being married myself.

I doubt a actually taking legal action is a viable option, but I am familiar with the structure of customer service they have in place. If I am not mistaken, this will merely turn into a battle of wills. Since I stand more to loose and have the advantage of experiencing both sides of this kind of situation I think I can eck out a victory.

By the way, if anyone wants to know how to get your way with HP, I can help with that!

You are entitled to a copy of your contract for free - it is a CONTRACT between parties. It is not some commodity.

If you get nowhere with the BBB then call your attorney general for your state. You will get results eventually, guaranteed.

EDIT: Yes I would like to get my way with HP. They sold me a laptop, the power jack broke, I sent it in for repairs, they replaced the motherboard, now the wireless card is broken and the caps lock doesn't light up. They actually broke more things than were previously broken. It's horrible. I have a laptop that may as well be a desktop.

Let me know if you know SEKRETS.

Looking at this it's actually really weird that they didn't give you a copy of the contract when you signed up. Every gym I've ever signed up with - which is like, four of 'em now - has given me a set of the membership papers.

Worst comes to worst you could probably just stop paying them? If it's an auto-billing credit thing see if your bank or whomever can block them from making further charges or barring that, just cancel the card. They might ding your credit rating or something but past that what are they going to do, stop letting you go to their club that you don't want to go to?

Mum accidentally overpayed her Rogers Cell/Internet/Cable phone bill.

By $8000.

And when she caught the error and called them, they had said "We will return it in CREDIT." Which, you know, that shit don't fly.

Mom made all the phone calls she could and got nowhere, they were seriously not going to return any of it.

I got on the phone and discovered that yelling, threats of media attention, etc. was enough to get you disconnected twice, but calling back with your lawyer and your local newspaper editor (thank god Orillia has like, NO news, that he'd actually sit through it) and I got somewhere- they said they'd give me the money back and a free $200 credit towards our next 3 months.

Which is -much- better.

edit: yeah I was aiming for the whole "General point of the thread" rather then specific advice to Nique, since Shiney pretty much covered it.

Arguably more on-topic than the advice thing as Nique asked for stories but not really so much for the advice.