Entertainment Gab

Oh LA Fitness is just the absolute worst. I had a very similar experience to the OP.

A few years ago I did a tour of one of their locations and they gave me one of those complimentary fitness assessments by one of their trainers. They said that for $90 a month I would get 3 training sessions, and if I signed up that day, they would throw in a 4th free. I was trying to get into shape for the first time and didn't know what I was doing, so I decided to sign up.

But first, I asked, "I'll be moving soon to such and such city. Are there locations there?"

The sales manager said, "Oh yeah, that's like our main market, we have a ton of locations."

So I signed up.

It was okay at first. I'd make my appointment, go in and get trained. It was a different trainer every time, but whatever.

Then I'd notice that there were fewer and fewer appointments available. Sometimes there would be nothing available for weeks on end, so I'd end up scheduling all 4 in one week to get my month's worth, as they wouldn't roll over.

Then I'd go in for my appointment, and they would inform me that it was pushed back by a couple of hours. Sometimes it was canceled completely by the manager. I'd ask why wasn't I called and informed, and they'd explain that they were too busy.

Then one month I managed to get 3 sessions in, but because they kept on cancelling, I hadn't gotten to use my 4th before the end of the month. I tried to complain, and they told me, "You're only paying for 3 sessions a month. That 4th session is only a favor to you if the sales manager is available to train you himself, the training staff are not obligated to train you that 4th time. You can always upgrade your training package though if you want more sessions."

I was furious at this point. LA Fitness was screwing me over and just stealing my money at this point. I went home and on a whim checked the locations in the city I was about to move to. There wasn't a single location there. There was one in the suburbs, but it was an hour away from where I would be living.

I called the store manager to complain about everything that had transpired. How my sessions were never with the same trainer, how they were always being rescheduled or cancelled without notice, how the sales person has lied to me about the new city locations. I thought the manager would be sympathetic.

Instead he was completely combative. He said that they are indeed very busy and do have to move appointments sometimes, and they don't have time on to call every time they did. And that his sales staff would never lie to their customers, and that obviously I was the one lying.

I demanded he just cancel my contract. He said no. I demanded again. He said no. I again demanded he cancel my contract. He let up a little and said that the only way to cancel was to come into the gym in person and fill out a cancellation request form and they would mail it into corporate, and my request would be considered but not guaranteed.

I asked if there wasn't just a corporate number I could call.

He said, "NOPE! There are no corporate numbers it can call."

And he hung up.

I went to the website. Found a corporate complaint number. I called. Explained my story. The woman was very sympathetic and told me that managers behavior was unacceptable. She agreed to cancel my contract, but I still had to pay an early cancellation fee which was like $200. At this point I just wanted to be done with it and paid the fee.

Fuck LA Fitness.