Any advice about cancelling gym membership?

girlfunky

Hi, Has anyone got some advice about cancelling gym membership? Specifically LA Fitness membership.

Perhaps you successfully cancelled yours without too much trouble or even perhaps you used to work for LA fitness and know of the best way to go about cancelling?

I am currently registered with LA Fitness and will be moving away from the area and will be moving more than 25miles from any other branch.

May 2006 is the last direct debit for the 12 month contract I currently have and I do not wish to cancel the direct debit until I am absolutely certain I will not be "fleeced" out of more money. If it helps to know more info I currently have 1 direct debit set up which covers membership subs for my husband and I.

Any help whatsoever is greatly appreciated! Thanx in advance!!!

shelly

I'm not 100% sure as I've never had gym membership. Do you get contracts with gym memberships? If so I'd have a look at it and see how much notice you have to give because if you have to give a month or two then they will still want paying. Iv'e read threads on here where people have cancelled DD's before they should have and then getting allsorts of hassle because the gym still wanted paying throughout the notice period.

I'd give them a call and say you want to cancel and how do you go about it. Maybe they will be really helpful and surprise you

enajaluap

I cancelled my gym membership with LA Fitness about a year ago now. I logged into their website and clicked on the contact us button and wrote them a nice little email saying I would like to cancel. I then had a reply from the administrator for the actual gym I was a member of saying that all was well and I had given a months notice of cancellation. No probs... or so I thought.

To cut a long story short, they took another 3 months worth of payments from my account and I only got it back because I harrassed the administrator.

My advice would be to contact your gyms administrator - speak to him/her face to face next time you go. Ask them when they will be taking the last payment and cancel your Direct Debit with them straight after that date.

Hope this helps?

Paula

girlfunky

Thanks for all your help. I will def be talking to the membership manager about it and ask them to put their last date of DD in writing. I will also be sending a copy of that letter together with an official cancellation letter (mentioning the agreed last dat of DD) and sending it to that manager by special delivery.

Hopefully that way they will not be able to prove that the letter has not been received as its been signed for.

I will post the outcome soon so hopefully this thread wil be able to help more people.

Thanx very much!

missk_ensington

I tried to cancel Fitness First and they called me around 13th May and said they had my letter but I would have to pay mext motnh as well because it was received after 9th of the month. Now I dont have a copy of that latter with the date on it, but I'm fairly sure I posted it a good 5-6 days before 9th, and besides I'd called them several times before that.

Contemplting phoning them now on reading this thread, perhaps they're trying to pull a fast one on me??

Astaroth

Under contract law it is the date the letter is sent that is important rather than the date that it is received however you obviously need to be able to prove the date of posting to argue it on this basis.

missk_ensington

I'm trying to think back to when I sent the letter and I'm sure it was before 9th, and that will be date marked on the formal correspondence that they should have. Am I the only person who feels exhausted with trying to stop people fleecing you in one way or another!?

girlfunky

ok so heres where im upto so far:

1, I called the membership manager of the club and the receptionist told me how to cancel the membership. I have 3 choices:

Send a letter by recorded delivery to the club

Hand deliver or fax a letter into the club

Call in to the club to fill out a special form which they have, it has a carbon copy attached so you get to keep a copy

2, I decided that as a DD is going out of my account tomorrow I would send a fax and then call abit later to make sure that it is received.

3, I sent the fax and then called to speak to the membership manager. She confirmed that the fax had been received and that 31st May's DD would be the last one.

So all in all it seems easypeasy, both the receptionist and membership manager were happy to help and were not obstructive in any way. Just going to wait until the end of June to make sure the DD has stopped. Will post more when it is all over and done with!

Even though ive cancelled i still get the feeling that i should have gone into the club and filled in the form (it sounded abit more official that way). Time will tell.

Thanks for everyones input!:j

PIppa

Girlfunky

Once the dd has been collected on 31st May, I would contact your bank and cancel the dd. They will be unable to collect any further payments accidentally then!

Mikeyorks

PIppa wrote:

Girlfunky

Once the dd has been collected on 31st May, I would contact your bank and cancel the dd. They will be unable to collect any further payments accidentally then!

Totally sound advice. Having gone this far it would be daft to let them raid your Bank account again?
If you have online access - find the DD and delete it. If no online access - go into your Branch and cancel it.

shelly

Very good idea about cancelling the DD but I wouldn't do it online. I'd go into the branch and do it, and get some sort of confirmation from them. Hubby cancelled a DD to some co or other via his online account but for some reason it didn't go through properly and the following month they took their payment as usual. Took ages to get it back.