| rev:text
| - BEWARE!
I believe it was back in 2007 when my best friend and I decided to get gym memberships at this 24 Hour Fitness. She signed up for the month-to-month option where they debit your monthly fee from your account. I was not comfortable with this and after severe pressure from one of the "trainers" (a.k.a. used car salesmen), I decided to pay ahead, IN FULL, for a 3 year membership. It was a 3 year membership, end of story - this was not a continuous membership in any way, shape, or form.
My friend and I usually went to the yoga classes but we did use the machines and pool/sauna as well. I decided to bring my mom along once and let her use one of my guest passes. It was then when things turned south. One of the "trainers" decided to try to talk us into getting personal trainer sessions and measure our BMI, total body fat, etc. tests. After going the rounds several times as to why we weren't interested (spending about an hour of our time there), we left the gym, having not signed up for these services.
Since I was already a member of the gym, this Bozo unfortunately had my phone number and began calling me, non-stop. He called about every hour or so for a few days (I am NOT over exaggerating). It got to the point where my husband had to intervene and ask him to quit calling me. The next time I went back to the gym, this "trainer" GLARED at me the entire time. He watched me move from machine to machine. It made me incredibly uncomfortable. I actually considered asking for special permission to move my membership to another 24 Hour Fitness, even though my particular plan was only for their gym. The location happened to be convenient for me so I thought it would be better to just call and speak to the manager instead, so I did. I called and told the manager what was happening and let him know that I was uncomfortable to use the membership for which I had paid dearly. The manager apologized and assured me it wouldn't happen again.
Well, he apparently DID speak to the "trainer," (as he should have) because the trainer was even more angry when I returned. He still watched me and glared, only this time, he stood up and made it very deliberately obvious that he was trying to physically intimidate me. I had had enough. I was less than a year into my three year membership but I couldn't stand going there any longer. I finally quit showing up. I really should have asked for my money back, but they had explicitly told me that it was non-refundable. I was a very busy person and didn't have the time or energy to argue the situation so I just decided to cut my losses and move on.
Over two years later, my mom called me, telling me she had received something in the mail for me from 24 Hour Fitness. Odd, I thought, because I have never lived with my mom in Arizona, so how did they get that address for my name? Furthermore, I had moved to the east coast. My mom was visiting me anyway so she brought the envelope with her. I opened it up and it basically said that my membership was up and I needed to call them. Confused, I called and explained that I had paid for a 3 year membership (and that was all). I said that I wasn't sure why they assumed that I should automatically be signed up again when I didn't opt for the continuing membership. I also mentioned that I hadn't been to their gym in almost 2 years. The lady on the phone was nice and gave me a confirmation number for my "cancellation." I told her that didn't make any sense because there was nothing to cancel, but whatever.
About two weeks later, I began to get incessant phone calls from an unknown 800 number. I Googled it to find people who were outraged - it was a collection agency for 24 Hour Fitness. Seriously, WTF?? Like I said, this was a 3 year, NON-CONTINUOUS membership. Nevertheless, I STILL called them and RECEIVED A CANCELLATION NUMBER INDICATING THAT I WOULD NO LONGER BE USING THEIR GYM! Add to all of this the harassment and physical intimidation that I had to endure by their trainer and I was LIVID! I contacted the gym and let them have it. I told them that they had sent me to collections for no reason and that their staff had harassed/intimidated me and I DEMANDED that they remove me from collections, as there was nothing to collect! I explained that my husband and I always have attorneys on retainer (this is true) and if they did not act immediately, we'd be suing. That day, they removed me from collections. I did check my credit report a while later and thankfully, there were no adverse marks from this incident on it.
A few weeks later, a former coworker of mine told me that he had just been wrongfully sent to collections by the same gym.
Seriously, stay away. I will NEVER have another gym membership again. I refuse to be scammed. I would rather invest that money in my own workout equipment.
Thanks a lot for robbing me blind, 24 Hour Fitness!!!
|
![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)
![[cxml]](/fct/images/cxml_doc.png)
![[csv]](/fct/images/csv_doc.png)
![[text]](/fct/images/ntriples_doc.png)
![[turtle]](/fct/images/n3turtle_doc.png)
![[ld+json]](/fct/images/jsonld_doc.png)
![[rdf+json]](/fct/images/json_doc.png)
![[rdf+xml]](/fct/images/xml_doc.png)
![[atom+xml]](/fct/images/atom_doc.png)
![[html]](/fct/images/html_doc.png)