For some reason my boss wanted to go to the gym early 2013, (he was hitting the Cisco CCNP books pretty hard). I came along to not give support but yeah it was kind of fun to pop to the gym, we joined one in baker street, I then went like once in March 2013 and then that was it, I just never went after that. I have to admit when I joined I knew it was for a solid 12 months (contract or what ever) but come Aug 2014 they are still taking money out of my account and the last time I went was like March / April 2014. I should have cancelled earlier myself, (march 2014?) but doesn't the gym have some care to its customers? Like if I never went ever again, would they still be taking money out of my account in 1 year, 3 years, 5years, until my account is closed through natural processes? That's deeply unfair to continue withdrawing money from what is a NON customer that you are not providing any service to? Yes the onus is some what on the customer to cancel the membership but there is some responsibility, some due fair and responsible application of membership details they should have to follow. This is a gym that is a Business I understand that but as an example. If a milk man delivered his milk to a house and found that every bottle of milk he delivered remained in place and was not drank, would he not enquire to amongst other things, is the person still living / live there, are his services required? I think this is a often occurring situation and the very fact that the GYM is writing to me asking for the direct debit to be reinstated and my outstanding balanced to be paid (even though I have on the phone cancelled the membership 25 days ago or what ever). They know all about people signing up and not coming to their services which is fine during the agreed normal agreed set period be it 1 week, 1month or a year contract. For people that sign up and if they don't wish to attend that is their choice but when the account CONTINUES beyond a fair time frame and they have had ZERO relationship or service provided to the customer, at which point they are in the wrong to continue with out even a basic warm call to the customer / email / letter. When my account hit the 12 month mark and they could see I had basically never even used their services should it be customary, polite, ethical? that they freeze my account until getting in touch with me and confirming my intention to remain with them, surely that is correct because other than that they are basically stealing right? Maybe not in law but in ethical treatment of the public and customers they have a responsibility to not only mail merge people about reduced prices or that a new store is opening but also keeping in touch those customers who fall out of use, especially people that have not even been with them for 16th months, 24 months, 36 months? I think this is a loop hole that is being abused. Isn't their guidelines for fair Business use of direct debt, like if you receive a direct debt payment from some one and it is a repeat service, your customer has to have at least use the service of you even once in 5 years or some thing? My account should have been reviewed and I be consulted if I wished to continue the service. The gym is LA fitness and I am tempted to just pay the £50 and give them an ear full on the phone. Am I completely in the wrong? (the gym quote is excellent and I have no problem with any branch member of staff or issue, I just don't have the time or motivation, but if I did I would highly recommend them).
You read (hopefully!) and signed the contract. That would have detailed how to cancel once the minimum time had elapsed. Would you expect your mobile phone provider to give you a ring and say "hey you haven't made a phone call this month. Did you want to cancel?" Course not. Cancel now and chalk it up to experience. I paid for a gym for two years. I had been three times and the contract was for a year. I just never got round to cancelling it. We've all done it but its nt the gyms fault.
I doubt any nameless corporation would go, oh they haven't used our services in a while, lets speak to them and lose some easy revenue. You wouldn't expect Spotify or Netflix to do something similar as they are making easy money off it. If you owned a large business I'd be surprised if you would do the same, it's not like you'd expect the person to go "Oh wow they rang me up and reminded me to cancel my services with them, I'll recommend them". There's no real positive for them to be honest with you and review your membership, and the onus does lie with you to cancel it.
IMO it's exactly what I'd expect, and perfectly normal. No company is going to ring up customers to reduce their overall income, unless they're obliged to.
Best possible Customers: 1: Customer who recommends your services to Abramovich 2: Customer who gives you money in exchange for nothing 3: Customer who sabotages your competitors Why would you want to loose any of them? So its understandable that they didn't do anything to remind you to cancel.
That is the entire business model of modern Gyms, you're part of the ninety percent that subsidises the gear and equipment for the ten percent that actually use them. They'll happily charge you forever until you tell them to stop, in fact they're reliant on it. I agree it's kind of scummy, but that's life.
I did this too, if it makes you feel any better. It's annoying as ****, but I just kept meaning to go and putting off going and before I knew it I'd spent 3 months' subscription on nothing at all. Basically I'm not paying for gym membership again, it's money pissed into the wind even if you do go (buy some weights or a bike instead, it's an investment that never goes away) and when you get too busy to go it's a headache cancelling and renewing it.
Wouldn't you notice and do something about it sooner? I mean, whenever I get my bank statements in each month I have a quick glance down to see if there's anything irregular. It's quite handy as I've sometimes caught things where I thought it was a one-off payment but it turns out they continue to charge monthly (xbox live springs to mind here). An unwanted £50-75 bill would certainly be on my list of priorities to sort out if I knew I could just phone up and cancel. You can hardly call it a scummy tactic if you agreed to it before hand. After all, you could decide to just turn up at any time and make use of it? It just so happens that you don't do that, from their perspective it may even look like they're doing you a favour "Look, we didn't cancel your membership so you can still use us whenever you want, hassle free". It's your own money, you should really be the curator of it. And if you're not, you should accept the pitfalls and costs of not being so. All depends on the individual really. I never used to be a gym person, but my younger brother wanted to bulk up a little (he's naturally super slim, didn't like people assuming he wasn't physical capable) so he joined. Eventually he became really keen, and this summer he managed to convince me to join. I could see the benefits, but wasn't sure I'd have the drive to keep up with it. Thing is, now I thoroughly understand why a gym can be a great resource. Maybe I've lucked out, but all the people that go to the gym near me are really friendly, helpful people. After sticking with it for a couple months with my brother, he's now gone off to the US so I have to motivate myself. Having access to loads of high-end equipment and people who know how to use it is invaluable. I've learned so much from observing the regular gym-goers and asking questions about technique etc. I'd never get that at home. A decent set of variable weights might cost you the same as 6 months of membership at a decent gym/health club. Add to that the larger things like benches, racks, bikes what have you, and it's expensive, not to mention you need so much space. Where I live, I simply wouldn't ever be able to find the space to house even a very modest home gym setup. I can't find space for my PC parts, never mind a weight rack and small bench. Never mind having access to a good sauna, steam room, pool and jacuzzi.
Seems rather strange to accuse them of this when you have not cancelled it yourself. I joined "The Gym" for a few month, when I feel I'm no longer getting my £11 worth, I cancelled my membership. Simple.
It is not all bad, the very aura of a gym membership gives me the confidence to join in spouting condescending nonsense about reps this and pyramids that in the company of my equally vacuous friends. Theoretically my 5km run times have improved by around 25-30% and I would happily tell anyone who will listen that I am able to bench press a small family saloon. Conversely if I cancelled my gym membership I would instantaneously balloon to a positively bovine weight and be unable to leave my home due to crippling neurosis and self hate. None of this is particularly desirable or possible unless you spend all of your free time at the gym, once you come to terms with this you may be able to finally let go your hate and unhealthy attachment to this impediment (if you call them they will play on this, so leave them alone if you really just want to quit AND QUIT). My advice is to just try and stay fit, if you do not go to the gym it is wasteful and there are many other things you can do much more frugally. Either way it will take effort, I am sympathetic that it appears to have been a waste of money and that tricksy gym practices are geared for this but the opportunity was undeniably there if you had wanted to make something of it.
As far as I am aware much like mobile phone companies they are under no obligation to contact you regarding your contract unless you default on your payments. Much like a phone contract if you get to the end of the term they have no reason to contact you to ask if you want to continue the contract etc because alot of the time people would just cancel at that point and the Gyms would lose a good portion of money, as was pointed out above theres a huge number of gym members who go a couple of times then never again. Most of these just cancel when the contract is up and that's that but from time to time people forget and that is when the guy are laughing all the way to the bank. Akin to a phone contract if i got to the end of my 2 years o2 would not ring me to see if i wanted to upgrade or cancel just in-case I do cancel it, its better for them to just let it keep going and bill me for it. Unfortunately now its canceled that's all you can do the gym will maintain that you have an obligation to cancel if your no longer using the service, and even with the argument or well cant you see i clearly do not use it, most will reply with something like we cant keep track of all the members usage. Chalk it up as a mistake and move on. Also one thing I do is with any contract or any month payment I have a calender appointment monthly for some or just at the end of the term for the others reminding me its upgrade or cancel time.
