I was eating in Greek town and filled out a ballot to win a one year membership with Extreme Fitness. Then in the next few days somebody from Extreme Fitness called me to say that I won a gym membership!
Because I'm naive like that and because the location was fairly close to my house I decided to go check it out (and bring all my gym clothes and everything). Once I got there they set me up with a sales person and they explained to me that I won a 6 month membership (not a full one) and I'm still thinking that I'm lucky until they said that I had to purchased the other 6 months to make it into a full year.
I told them that I wasn't interested in purchasing a gym membership right now because I was still in university and was using my school's gym but I was keeping an eye out for a good gym in the area because I would be graduating soon. The sales person was very aggressive and kept telling me about different payment options and kept pressuring me to give him my credit card number or a void cheque.
In the end, I decided not to go forward with it but I asked them for a day pass to check out the facilities (because I genuinely was looking for a gym in the area that I may go to after graduation), but the sales rep said no. I felt terrible. Here I am with all my workout clothes and I even paid for parking (there was no parking on the streets) thinking that I won a gym membership, but in fact, I wasn't even allowed to test out the facilities for one day.
Now that I work at the bank, I think the best advice I can give to anyone who insists on signing a contract with these gyms are to never give your credit card info out (they will keep charging you, even after you cancel) and to open up a new account altogether for these guys to charge. Once you're done with the gym, close the account down completely so no more payments can go through.