Advice - LA Fitness cancellation charge

LAFitnessCSA, you say you just charge this cancellation fee? Without stating it in the contract? I joined online (Group Peak, any Club but London) and I suppose the contracts for joining in a branch may be different to mine, and I notice that online contract has changed in the last couple of weeks or so. But even the new one still doesn't mention any cancellation fee.

Why not? Because people who read the contract would simply march to J.J.B. or Spirit or LivingWell etc. etc. or click to their page on The Web, as most of these contracts and prices are very similar, and something that odd would, if clearly visible, would put people off.

The L.A. Fitness contracts are very unclear. My contract stated that the first payment for online memberships should be by card payment, and that was payment for an initial term of one month, and subsequent payments would be by direct debit.

Then my contract said that any member can cancel after the initial term. I thought it was obvious L.A. Fitness were saying this was the initial month, where, understandably, if the cooling off period is passed, the customer must pay one month's subscription. So it seemed clear that cancellation could be at any time after the first month, where cancellation notification is given before the advance payment is taken for what is to be the last month's membership.

However I just received a letter from L.A. Fitness telling me it is impossible to cancel. The L.A. Fitness terms misled me. I thought I understood them. But that's not really of uppermost relevance in the situation concerning me, as no-one who experienced the performance by L.A. Fitness which I was subject to (and that is actually all members of the club I'm in I can only suppose) would continue to be bound by the original contract agreement after suffering L.A. Fitness's behaviour.

In any case L.A. Fitness have clearly and completely breached the contract, so I am not cancelling, merely refusing to deliver my money anymore when L.A. Fitness are in breach. When there is a clear breach of contract, the suffering party does not need to continue their side. I learned that most simple point in a simple London law school. L.A. Fitness ended the contract, not I. The basic relaxation facilities were offered at most around 30 percent of the time I have been a member and I would be in the second half of annual membership if L.A. Fitness had not breached the contract.

I looked at the terms of the contract, they are full of notices to the effect that L.A. Fitness will cancel your membership at any time should you seem to be annoying, unnacceptable etc.

L.A Fitness has seriously breached the law of contract and I am withdrawing from continuing with the contract. But L.A. Fitness hasn't answered even one of the many communications I sent. The contract has stopped because L.A. Fitness has breached. I am asking L.A. Fitness for compensation as well (not discount from future months memebrships because only an insane or very desparate person would stay at that club), though I'm not so hopeful that I will get this before going to court, if at all. I don't mind doing that, it's what it's for, nothing else, and nothing else is for that where a contracting party breaches and is unreasonable.

But going to court is mainly for the true facts to be heard. I didn't make the law, I didn't determine if compensation is in law allowable in this case, I didn't and can't determine how much if so, and I don't know anything about evidence - advised, helpful or required, allowable or unallowable.

Then again, maybe it's because I feel so degraded, abused and threatened by L.A. Fitness that I'm not expecting anything much personally. But at least that these true facts now are conveyed, noted and recorded in a court of law by oath. It feels like the 'laws of the bad street' L.A. Fitness are prescribing and abiding by without giving choices, and one feels now and has felt up to now the opportunity just to cower without being struck in ways again is one to be grateful for, at this time.

One thing which worries me is that L.A. Fitness might set a credit recovery agency on me, after their breach of contract, because I will not pay the rest of the fees. I guess it is possible that I will be taking L.A. Fitness to court for breach of contract and find that they have put creditors to seek the rest of the months' payment of the anticipated annual contract.

Would that happen?

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Another thing is - please don't ask which club I have been a member at. I have no doubt that there are members at that club who don't know, who don't even think of using the relaxation facilities or swimming pool, very few people ever do in fact, wheras the gym area is always buzzing. I am sure there are plenty of people who come in just for classes or the odd gymnasium use and think the staff of that L.A. Fitness club are 'sweetness and light'. So if I mention the club's name, there would probably be people living in a different world who speak up for it.


The staff usually seemed like they could be 'sweetness and light' to me until I found the murk:

"Does anyone want sex?" over the loudspeaker, a male member of staff, 10 minutes before closing time when the changing rooms of one sex had nearly 10 persons in them, and naturally I don't know about the other.

"[My name], I think you're hot", over the loudspeaker from a member of staff of the opposite sex 5 minutes before the club closed with a few people in the changing room I was in. I didn't know and still don't know who said either comment, there were a number of members of staff of the relevant sex working near that time on both nights.

A member of the fitness team bending over and oiling the jogging machines when people were running on them. It was ridiculous. That happened on my last visit and I vowed I certainly would not return. I was reminded it had happened a couple of times before though then I had thought it so bad and odd I kind of laughed in disbelief (though also anger) and left, forgetting soon about it, as if of a different world from ours. It clearly breached just about all Health and Safety Laws, not to mention respect for clients, while the member of staff could claim he was ensuring health and safety provision for his clients. I put myself in the position of the persons using the running machines when he suddenly leaned over and oiled the jogging platforms on both sides, and I was sure I would have fallen over in shock. I had to gear up for a really angry remonstration if that man had started oiling the rowing machine I was using right beside him, it caused me distress, but he walked away. I don't know how the people on the running mahcines did not fall over.

To LAfitnessCSA, as you say you work for L.A. Fitness, you are adding to the woes that company has caused. Your remarks in the reply you give above are going against what is agreed in contract law. The online contracts DO say that L.A. Fitness agrees to be bound by what you state is only a goodwill option:

transferring your membership to someone else is part of the contract: "6.6 You may not cancel a prepaid annual contract but you may transfer it to another person or you may join another LA Fitness Club".

There is no mention here of paying any administration fee for that, not 50 pounds or any other amount is given. And you claim that deceit (hiding a charge for a service which thus appears to be free, and contractually free), is goodwill? Oh dear.

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What pinkshoes says above about always sending by recorded delivery is really true with L.A. Fitness. In my experience, they come across to me as so cowardly they are the type of organisation who wouldn't disrespect Royal Mail because it would be to blaringly blatant of the type of company they are in very notable and not very infrequent cases if they did. It only costs One pound, Eight pence to send even quite a packed letter by Recorded, Signed For post, first class (not guaranteed, but often next day post in the U.K.) You can buy the postage and print it online (royalmail.co.uk) onto an envelope or a sheet of a4 paper and cut out the address part to stick onto the envelope.

I sent a number of faxes to Head Office. Days ago I phoned to ask for the fax number, pleased I have been keeping transmission receipts before that, where no faxes, emails or letters have been replied to. I made sure afresh to get a fax number this time in case they change it regularly because they're probably one quarter staffed and, as pinkshoes suggests and so many other people's problems seem to back up, they probably bin half of the communications to them, and that would be an ideal excuse, a changing fax number.

The person who gave me the fax number sounded nice and was sensible also, telling me to keep a copy of the fax transmission receipt myself, and also to phone a good while afterwards to ask if the fax had been received. I did this but they told me in Member Services that no such fax had been received a number of times. I checked the number on my successful fax transmission receipt and it was fine. I had to fax another number where I could check and fax into that home machine to make sure it was working correctly, as, of course, it was. I had really important stuff sent just before that and L.A. Fitness made me think it mightn't have gone through despite the success receipts.

L.A. Fitness have caused me so much distress in my life it is so far beyond acceptable.