12 June 2007

The Scam that is LA Fitness

How hard should it be to cancel your gym membership? Just a few years ago, I walked into 24-Hour Fitness, said "I want to cancel" and they said ok. Done deal.

Fast forward to a week ago. My wife wasn't using her membership and my kids didn't like their Kids Klub play area. "I'll just cancel the account!" I thought. So I call up LA Fitness. "You can do it online. We can't do it here in the gym."

So I create an account online and go to the cancel option. Here's what I'm greeted by:


I have to mail in a crappy form for each person in order for them to cancel the account.

Fine. Gyms make most of their money from people who don't cancel and don't attend. This just seems like it's a little bit harder than it should be.

So I mail in the forms. A little over a week later I check back at the gym to see if the accounts have been canceled. Nope! Why not? They have no idea, because that's all handled by corporate and they don't even have a phone number to give me (I later found out that they seem to 'lose' an awful lot of mail that isn't sent CERTIFIED). The most they can offer is to have someone from corporate call me.

And call me they did (though not when they said they would). To be honest, I was actually surprised. But the guy had the audacity to require a reason for canceling. Here's your reason: I don't want to give you any more money. It's a good thing my credit card has better customer service than they do. What's more is you have to give them 30 days notice (basically one more time they can charge you) BEFORE they start counting on that "last month" that you paid for when you start up.

Case in point: If you sign up at LA Fitness, be aware that it's going to take World War 3 in order to end the membership. Save your money and your sanity and go ANYWHERE else.

Update 5/6/2008:
In the comments below, Duane pointed us to the BBB page for LA Fitness and called out Aylin Medina (phone (949) 255-7330) as the person to call to cancel your account with zero hassles. I recently called her to cancel my last remaining LA Fitness account. She was very nice and I had my account canceled inside of two minutes. If you call her, make sure you have your LA Fitness barcode handy. Thanks Duane!

Update 1/20/2010:
Apparently there has been a Class-Action Lawsuit against LA Fitness. It looks like you might be able to file claims for post-cancellation charges. More information at www.gymsettlement.com.

260 comments:

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Anonymous said...

I emailed everyone from corporate (look above for emails) and received a phone call the next day. If you go that route you will get a cancellation the same day.

Unknown said...

This place is like Hotel California.
"You can check in anytime you like, but you can never leave"...I cancelled my membership in 2006 at least I thought so until they told me thay had been garnishing my wifes bank account for years without us know it. Now conveniently there's no proof that they got any cancellation and we are out the money...Dont worry LA Fitness you'll get whats coming to you...if this business is still open by the end of the year, then I'll have no faith left in humanity...I vow to fight LA Fitness until I die.

Anonymous said...

Aylin canceled mine in 2 mins! Big thanks to this Blog post.

Anonymous said...

I had no problem canceling a one year personal training contract, which I had only used three months of. I provided a doctor's note and they canceled it immediately. Very fair business practice. Aylin Medina is a pleasure to work with.

Beana! said...

i just emailed aylin, orlando, and adriana. lets hope this works. im trying to cancel my training sessions. i dont mind paying 50% of what is owed because its only 240 and it was a contract for 3 months. i just hope it cancels and they dont charge me ever again!
aylin just messeged me back! great!

Beana! said...

i got a call today from rob in the corporate office, he said they have canceled my training sessions, i just hope its true. he said ill be able to see it got canceled on my account but as of yet there is no change.

Personal Trainer online said...

One should avoid taking alcohol, smoking and be stress free. A good night's sleep followed by a healthy breakfast the next day is essential.

Personal Trainer online said...

One should avoid taking alcohol, smoking and be stress free. A good night's sleep followed by a healthy breakfast the next day is essential.

Unknown said...

'aylinm@lafitness.com'
'Adriana@lafitness.com'
'orlandog@lafitness.com'
'mikeu@lafitness.com'
'robertb@lafitness.com'
'robb@lafitness.com'
'mindys@lafitness.com'
'suzzieh@lafitness.com'
'LouisW@LaFitness.com'

I got mine cancelled in a couple of hours by emailing all of these people. I don't know who really ended up cancelling it but someone did.

Anonymous said...

I canceled my gym membership Dec 8th 2010. Since I paid last months membership up front my membership finally cancelled Jan 5th. My personal training membership expired Jan 8th. However personal training accounts and general gym membership are "different" and the PT membership auto renews so even though my gym membership was no longer valid they continued to charge me for PT fees. It took me two months to notice they were still charging me. I called up on March 8th and they refunded March 5th's payment but refused to refund Feb 5th payment. It took 3 phone calls with the last one last over 45 minutes and me telling them "I would report them to the BBB, I would dispute the charge as fraudulent with my CC and would post 10 times a day on twitter with the hash tag #LAFITNESSARECRIMINAL. They continued to tell me they had no obligation to to refund my charge and I hung up. They called back 10 minutes later and told me they would refund Feb/Mar.

Lesson learned is threaten them with taking the fight to Twitter and they will fold.

Anonymous said...

I sent an email to all the email addresses provided in the comments and got a response in 5 minutes! Thank you!

Anonymous said...

Haven't started the process of canceling yet, but I tried Aylin's number this morning and she still has a voicemail. I am disappointed in the trainers these people hire. Are they certified? Was told I would jsut come in on the days I didn't meet with a trainer and I would know exactly what work to do on that day. Yea right. Still have 10 months on my contract. I keep you all posted.

Unknown said...

LA Fitness is absolutely ridiculous! Their cancellation policy is set up as a ploy to keep the last month's service charge. I was sharing an account with my brother, and I wanted to cancel. They charge me every month on the 28th and my brother on the 24th.

I went in person to the gym and got the cancellation form. I sent in the form on the 14th, which is plenty of time before the 28th. When I saw that I still got charged on the 28th, I called them up to complain. They gave me the corporate number. When I phoned them, their excuse to having charged me was that they didn't receive the form on time. What liars!

So the second month, I sent it certified and paid almost $5, plus my time at the post office and additional frustration. I have proof that the cancellation form arrived on the 21st, still almost a week before my charge date, yet, not only did they still charge me, they had the audacity to charge me on the 24th with my brother's charge.

I was furious. My brother called up the gym and they told him that he needed to come in person and show proof of the certified mail. I told him that was ridiculously to have to make an extra trip. They do not have a fax number!

I called up a couple of hours later, and the next person told me that I needed to bring in a copy of my statement showing proof that I was charged. At this point I was so mad that I had to go through such a hard time to cancel my service and nobody could give us a straight answer. I asked for the corporate number again and I was told that they do not provide the number. He basically told me that he couldn’t help me and that I need to come in person to speak to the Operations Manager. In this day and age, I have never experienced the need to cancel anything in person-it is usually done via email or fax! These LA Fitness employees do not know what they are doing, nor do they care about the customer.

Then, they told me to come in on Monday to speak with the Operations Manager. I told them there is no way I am coming in. They need to figure this out and call me on Monday to tell me that it is resolved. They asked if I wanted to leave a message for the manager, is this guy kidding me? The manager on duty told me that the Operations Manager was very busy and that I should call back on Monday to follow up. What great customer service huh? This man named Lance in North Miami Beach didn't even care and was practically mocking me. I told him that he needs to make sure that the Operations Manager is aware of my situation and that HE needs to follow up with me! I have already put in enough effort! This business is so ridiculous, they are definitely a case for the Better Business Bureau to investigate. Next thing you know, on Monday when I call, they'll tell me that it is "TOO LATE" again. Who knows?!?!?!

Anonymous said...

I called Aylin and cancelled hassle free. Thank you so much you're my hero!!

Anonymous said...

As a Florida resident myself, (I see a few others Floridians posting here.) I printed out the statutes pertaining to cancellation of LA Fitness. Specifically this one, subsection 2... And went into my local LA. Walked out in 10 minutes w/o a membership, even though they told me that I had to mail it in.

YOU CAN FIND ANY STATE'S STATUTES ONLINE FOR FREE JUST BY GOOGLE SEARCHING " Statutes."

559.3903 Contracts of membership; right of cancellation; how exercised; entitlement to refund; right not waivable.—
(1) Any person who has elected to become a member of a club may cancel such membership by giving written notice of cancellation any time before 12 midnight of the third business day following the date on which membership was attained.
(2) Notice of cancellation may be given personally or by mail. If given by mail, the notice is effective upon deposit in a mailbox, properly addressed, and postage prepaid. Notice of cancellation need not take a particular form and is sufficient if it indicates, by any form of written expression, the intention or desire of the member to cancel the contract.
(3) Cancellation shall be without liability on the part of the member. The member will be entitled to a total refund, within 10 days after notice of cancellation is given, of the entire consideration paid for the contract.
(4) Rights of cancellation may not be waived or otherwise surrendered.
(5) Any purchase made by the member prior to cancellation will be void. If upon demand of the club the member tenders to the club all merchandise received in the same condition it was received at the time of purchase, the member shall receive a total refund for all purchases made prior to cancellation within 10 days after notice of cancellation is given.

Anonymous said...

Email Aylin Medina...sent her an email last night and got a confirmation email of cancellation this morning...thanks to everyone here!

Anonymous said...

Based on the info. posted, I just sent a short email request to Aylin Medina - aylinm@lafitness.com.

Within 2 minutes, I received an automatic email confirmation of my membership cancellation, including confirming my last payment was the final payment and membership expiration information (use of gym permitted through next month as the last month was pre-paid at enrollment). I also received a separate email from Aylin stating my membership was cancelled and to let her know if I had any further questions. Not to mention this all occurred after 8pm EST (5pm PST)!

Thanks to all for the information!

Anonymous said...

I've heard about horror stories about LA Fitness last year, but I didn't know to what extent the scam is until I went through it myself.

I also got very frustrated with LA Fitness in Conneticut. I called them thinking it would be easy to cancel my membership via phone, but instead, they told me to come to their facilities to get that done. Sure, fine, I'll do that. I drove out of my way to get it cancelled. When I arrived and request the cancellation, all they did is print out a crummy piece of paper and told me to send that "cancellation form" myself to their "corporate headquarters". I was in shock. I took a look at what they printed and it was easy to see that the form can easily be done digitally. Why is it so easy to start membership the day I walked in, but so difficult to end it? I remembered that when I first walked in, all they did to start my membership was to punch my info down in their computers and emailed me my membership confirmation within 5 minutes!

I asked why to the lady in the front desk and she told me, "corporate headquarters get so much requests, they can't possibly keep track of all of them, so you have to send a physical cancellation form to get it done right." At this day and age, we all know that that is total bullshit.

I sent in my cancellation form last week, and according to my tracking records (which I paid extra for), it has been received by them since Monday. Still, I got no confirmation email from them.

I just emailed Aylin Medina, so I'm hoping to get myself outta this soon....

Anonymous said...

I was able to cancel my pro results membership over the phone. I spoke with Nicole 626-335-5474, who was very polite and helpful. She was able to process the buy-out payment (50% of remaining sessions) right over the phone and sent me a cancellation notice via e-mail. Praise the lord. Goodbye forever LA Fitness, and screw you.

Gwen said...

Oh my gosh, I can't believe how nice & helpful Aylin Medina is! My sincere thanks to all of you for your posts about contacting her (aylinm@lafitness.com) to cancel a membership! After reading so many horror stories from other customers (sending repeated certified letters that LA Fitness claims it never got, getting the run around from the corporate office, ongoing charges after your membership is supposedly terminated—charges which LA Fitness refuses to refund!), my attempt was as painless as it gets. I emailed Aylin this afternoon and she responded within a couple hours. I asked if she could call me to complete my cancellation over the phone and she called promptly. She emailed me a confirmation receipt stating that my cancellation had gone through, and sure enough when I checked my LA Fitness account just now, it's no longer showing I have the personal training membership. Of course, I'm going to check my CC this month to make sure I am not charged, but I took down Aylin's # (1-949-255-7330) to call in case there are still problems. If there are, I am confident she will help. Thanks again, Friends, for spreading the word about her!

jdg said...

I am in the same boat as a lot of you. Signed up for 6 months of training sessions. I have been cancelled on numerous times, have had a trainer that was not certified, and a trainer that worked out my one leg and time was up so he said that was it. And I said you can't do an excercise with one side and not the other so he left and I continued. I also had an argument with another member and the fitness director watched, didn't intervene and reported it to the general manager. I then had to tell him what happened, he said corporate would call me but never did. I have called corporate several times and spoke with Kain who was not helpful and mimicked me. I had a lawyer call for me threatening a claim and still they weren't budging. So I was about to file a claim and came across this post so I emailed Aylin this afternoon and hopefully will be able to get it resolved with her. We need to get FoxNews or some reporter on this. It needs to be brough to everyone's attention. Hopefully will hear back from Aylin by Monday. Will follow up.

jdg said...

followed up per everyone's suggestion with Aylin Medina. She emailed me back the same day saying they will cancel my training memebership with no charge. And that I would receive a cancellation email to the email on file, which of course the person who signed me up put in a random one so I replied back saying that and hopefully all is done. Wish I knew to contact to her from the beginning. I have learned to google prior to signing any contract. Thanks everyone.

Anonymous said...

I followed everyone's suggestions to email Aylin Medina, and I did get an email back within 15 minutes of sending, although she said that it would be $960 to cancel the personal training. That is absolutely ridiculous!

Anonymous said...

I spoke with an extremely rude man named Rob who quite frankly needs to be FIRED, I repeat FIIIRRREEEDDD *starts foaming at the mouth* because of his rudeness. However, he did cancel my account within 60 secs with no problems because he was really eager to get off the phone with me.

Anonymous said...

I also have had the same experiences - I had called Aylin and she seemed sweet but never got back to me - then I emailed them all - Ron at Corporate canceled my Pro Results Contract after I provided a doctors note - which of course was lost the first time it was faxed!

I had my so-called trainer scan the doc notes and he implied it was easy to get a doctors note - the nerve!

However - I received a confirmation regarding the Pro Results Contract and the buyout fee had been waived - however - I need to watch my account as I hear many times this is not over! But I had a pleasant experience IF it really goes down like this - Thanx to this site!!!

Anonymous said...

I would also like to add to the above post - mine - that my trainer - whom I had scan my doc notes for me - was not only condescending - but informed me that MI - where I live - has a law that will not take a doc note for contract terminations - he said it would be up to Corporate - and I guess Corporate agreed - personally - as I was re-injured during my assessment - and I stated that - I think they were afraid of a major lawsuit... I did get injured - although I have previous injuries - and my Ortho docs were all standing behind me....

adam.bragman said...

Aylin was great. LA fitness is such a piece of trash. From the locations, to the staff (excluding Paul, trainer at the Mid-Wilshire location, great guy), to the equipment, and of course the cancellation process as well. This company sucks my dick and deserves every dollar they got sued for.

Thank you for this.

Adam

Paul Martinez said...

I am going through the same thing as well accept the "online form" is not loading on any of my computers from multiple internet connections. This is ridiculous.

This has to be illegal to be able to use little weird tactics to prevent you from cancelling but make it look like they are not doing anything.

CHIP FITZPATRICK said...

WE LIVE IN CERRITOS CALIF AND THE SAME THING HAPPEND THEY HAVE BEEN BILLING ME SINSE LAST NOV I FOUND OUT WITH MY BANK THEY HAVE BEEN DOING THIS NOW IVE SENT IN THERE APLICATION AND NOW SAME THING STILL PAYING FOR A SUBCRIBTION CAN ANY ONE TELL ME WHAT TO DO ITS LIKE 450 DOLLARS WE DO NOT HAVE WE MOVED OUT OF STATE BACK THAN NOW I GUESS ITS THE FRAUD DEPARTMENT ,,WEAS A PEOPLE SHOULD NOT HAVE TO GET RIPPED OFF 562 569 1428 IN CASE THEY WANT TO REFUND ME BACK CALL ME AND TE;LL ME HOW MANY TIMES I HAVE USED IT SINSE I STOPPED IT RIPPED OFF

erin22 said...

I have had such an awful experience with LA Fitness, I signed up and supposedly payed my first and last month dues and they said "there was no contract if i didn't want to pay i didn't have to- I ended up cancelling my bank account, and they call me everyday. When I try to go online to print out a cancellation form, i cannot even get to the page without entering a method of payment, and who knows how much they will charge me! I am so upset. I WISH someone would sue them, my friend actually worked there and knows how dishonest the company is, which is why he quit! Something should happen and they should no longer be able to cheat their customers.

erin22 said...

I have just sent an email to Aylin Medina, however is it Sunday so I am not expecting a reply until at least monday. I truly hope that she will be able to help me with this!

Anonymous said...

Can anyone tell..what if we don't pay the training fees. Will LA fitness sue or send it collection agency??
Any help on this.

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Anonymous said...

I am more than grateful that I have come accross this blog! I signed up for PT last year and was happy with my trainer for the most part(not really)...I was then accepted into school that I had been waiting a lont time for and had no idea when my acceptance would happen. I am not able to work while I am in school and thought that it would be super easy to cancel and go on about my life! NO...they've frozen my account twice and come up with EVERY excuse in the book as to why it is NOT POSSIBLE to cancel my account. I will try to contact Aylin and see what happens. This company is seriously a joke! no wonder they have a law suit going against them! Wish me luck and thanks again for all the amazing info! I will follow up!

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Victor said...

Yeah i called aylin medina but she didn't pick up her phone so i sent an email. It was responded and my account canceled with the automated receipt in my inbox within 5 minutes, great service! Much better than the crap staff they have at the gyms. I completely recommend going to her.

Anonymous said...

Like most gyms, these guys have a number of incompetent and half-assed personal trainers that either have a supremely inflated and false sense of themselves, each of which contradicts the other like a bunch of airheaded dumbasses. One, named Bill, was laughable. Not only does the guy have a gut and man tits (eventually claiming he hates cardio and that the lifting he does can take its place + pushing a bogus diet), but he had the gall to claim that a guy who's stocky, extremely fit and muscular doesn't need to do cardio but if anything "bulk out". The sales techniques these guys use is insulting. They will try to make you feel small, no matter how in shape you are, in order to undermine your confidence and push your towards an overpriced personal trainer membership that you can't get out of. The language they use is annoying, and tells me these guys are meatheaded business majors. "It's a win-win if you sign up." Yeah, a win-win for LA Fitness. And they play the good cop /bad cop routine so obviously. Their marketing, like other aggressively marketed gyms is, to a) inspire insecurity, and b) give you a "life line" by signing up with them and talking about nonsense like "GQ models" and what not. It's pretty obvious, isn't it? Anything for the almighty buck, even if it means deluding hapless schmucks who fall for their degrading garbage and meathead mentality. Whether they actually believe what they say is a good question (it all sounds like a disingenuous crap used to ply people into memberships), but regardless of whether it's malice of stupidity, either way, it's insulting and stupid.

This company cares about money and will do anything to get yours, filling your head with lies to keep your coming and paying. Their trainers are a joke (as most are), as being a trainer does not require any certification. DO NOT sign up with them. Look for a local gym, and avoid this corporate commercialized crap.

Anonymous said...

My husband works there and I can tell u they treat there employee's even worse. Tell them if they don't do good one day they lose there job. Really?? Come on! The retard that's my husbands boss told him he stayed until he got done what his boss wanted him to babe done(make a sale). Called my husband incompetent, and in so many words told him he was a loser. Fired a guy that had to go pick up his son.. I want the owners to know what this crappy guy of a manager us doing. You want to get mad at the people that work there but I promise you the people you are yelling at deal with alot of flack. Lay off!!

Anonymous said...

so my fiance and i decided to cancel our membership because we found a gym that better suits us. When we went in to cancel they gave us printed papers to mail in to corporate. I thought this was fishy so i went online and looked for an easier way... and i found this posting. so i decided the best course of action would be to write the date i wished to cancel my membership and the reason why on the mail in forms i was given, i then scanned the pages and attached it to an email that i sent to aylinm@lafitness.com, orlandog@lafitness.com and adriana@lafitness.com . in the body of the email i stated that i wished to cancel my membership as of the date and the reason provided on the scanned forms i attched. I also stated that i would still be mailing in the forms by certified mail. 30 minutes later i received a confirmation email confirming the cancellation of my membership with my final dues listed (which was my normal amount) it also stated that my membership expires two months from today which includes the application of pre-paid dues at the time of enrollment.so.. hopefully its really over and done with at that time. I am keeping copies of everything i am sending them just to be safe.

Will post back in a couple months... or sooner if something goes awry...

Anonymous said...

I tried for over a month to cancel my membership. My husband is getting deployed soon, so we wouldn't be near a gym... Legit reason right? They still gave me crap about it at the front desk of my local LA Fitness. They printed the form out for me though, only to realize that it wasn't even MY information... And be sure to put a fake phone number on your membership form if you do sign up. They called me EVERY day for over a month asking me if I'd like to join after I'd joined?? Wtf! Anyway... I finally found this sight (THANK GOD) and e-mailed ALL the people listed from 2008-current. I immediately got a response back that my membership had been cancelled and my last months dues would be refunded. THANK YOU THANK YOU for this information!!

Anonymous said...

I cancelled my account by emailing Aylinm@lafitness.com last month. Like others have said, pretty much within the hour I received a confirmation email from her. She broke down the remaining cost and date of cancellation.

Customer service lives. Unfortunately it plays a good game of hide and seek.

Anonymous said...

It is October 2011 and Aylin is still at LA Fitness. I emailed her today to cancel my account and I received a confirmation email from her within 5 minutes. Hopefully this goes though and it was really that easy.

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Anonymous said...

Yep, I understand everyone's situation. Mine is by far the best example of how low they will go...my husband was 8 months into a year long deployment to Iraq when I decided to do some personal training to get back into some sort of shape after putting myself last (after the kids, caring for the house, lawn, animals, working 2 businesses) for almost a year. I only wanted 3 months of training...they got me to sign 12 mth with the PROMISE to cancel when we moved, which was going to be 1 month after he got home from war. Well, to my surprise they wouldn't cancel the training contract but was happy to cancel the gym membership because we moved out of the state. Now I have an active training membership but not a gym to use it in. I moved to the DC area and if you are familiar with the area, the "25 mile rule" could literally mean an hour commute to get to a gym with this crazy traffic! Anyway, I've all but hired a lawyer, and I talked to Aylin but she wasn't able to cancel. I wish it were that easy, I wonder how everyone just talked to her and she helped you out? I am sending her another email tonight and hope that something mysteriously changed and she will cancel it for me.

Anonymous said...

Thank you for the email addresses. My club was just sold to LA Fitness and I don't like their club. So dissapointed. I have had a brief membership with them before and went through the archaic paper process once already. I hope I can cancel through email!

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unhappy said...

Help me! I just cancelled my membership but they still want me to pay for my personal training which I still have for 6 months. The personal training is pointless and a waste of money. Any way I can get out of it? What does my doctor note have to say?

cory said...

the fact that this shit has been going on for over 2 years is completely fucking rediculous. i signed up for personal training for 12 months at $116 a month. the charges should have ended in november. suprise suprise they charged me for december. i called to ask why they charged me and they said it was policy and that personal training reverted to a month by month charge. i go in to cancel but they said i had to cancel with the operations manager and that hes only in monday threw friday. so i go in and cancel and the guy goes threw both cancelations on the computer and the things DO NOT CHANGE. he even seamed puzzled about it. he ended up printing out 2 formes for me to mail as a precaution. i got a confirmation email that my personal training has been cancelled. of course, once this happened and i realized what was going on, i suddenly "lost" my card. how unfortunate. i will never go back to these people and the first sign of any more trouble with them i am reporting them to the bbb. i will not go threw this shit with them. sorry for the cursing.

Anonymous said...

FORGET ABOUT SENDING REQUIRED PAPERWORK BY CERTIFIED MAIL!!! ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IN ORDER TO CANCEL YOUR BALLY/LA FITNESS MEMBERSHIP IS CALL THE CUSTOMER SERVICE (1713-893-5986) AND SPEAK TO jennifer z. WHO'S GOING TO piss you off SO MUCH THAT THE SUPERVISOR WILL CANCEL YOUR MEMBERSHIP faster THAN YOU THINK!

"our time is valuable, so let them do this for us!"

I sent the required form on December 2011, 3 months after they were still charging me for my membership.. it was pointless to cancel my debit card.. and then the miracle occurred! Thank God for the customer service.. JENNIFER Z. solved my problem better than i thought.. all she did was simply be a ... rude person who didn't let me finish my sentence plus she was NOT able to professionally explain why the problem happened in the first place. To confirm that she does not meet the requirements to be a customer service assistant, she puts me on hold without any notice and transfers me to the supervisor because she couldn't handle the conversation? Anyway, that was exactly what I wanted, my card was cancelled within 2 min PLUS i was refunded for the last two months. That's what you call a fast service, if you know what I mean ;)

Natalia H. said...

FORGET ABOUT SENDING REQUIRED PAPERWORK BY CERTIFIED MAIL!!! ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IN ORDER TO CANCEL YOUR BALLY/LA FITNESS MEMBERSHIP IS CALL THE CUSTOMER SERVICE (1713-893-5986) AND SPEAK TO jennifer z. WHO'S GOING TO piss you off SO MUCH THAT THE SUPERVISOR WILL CANCEL YOUR MEMBERSHIP faster THAN YOU THINK!

"our time is valuable, so let them do this for us!"

I sent the required form on December 2011, 3 months after they were still charging me for my membership.. it was pointless to cancel my debit card.. and then the miracle occurred! Thank God for the customer service.. JENNIFER Z. solved my problem better than i thought.. all she did was simply be a ... rude person who didn't let me finish my sentence plus she was NOT able to professionally explain why the problem happened in the first place. To confirm that she does not meet the requirements to be a customer service assistant, she puts me on hold without any notice and transfers me to the supervisor because she couldn't handle the conversation? Anyway, that was exactly what I wanted, my card was cancelled within 2 min PLUS i was refunded for the last two months. That's what you call a fast service, if you know what I mean ;)

Anonymous said...

After reading all of these horrible stories I made a few calls and got in touch with Mike at 949-255-7200. He was able to cancel my account within a minute, he said I should not receive any more charges and sent me a confirmation e-mail right away.

Good Luck!

Joseph N. said...

Confirming that emailing Aylin works like a charm. [aylinm@lafitness.com]

Send her an email with your barcode ID and give her a day to complete it.

Anonymous said...

I cannot believe the only option they have is freeze your membership and keep paying $15 a month or pay 50% what you owe them. I dislike their policy and I am not going to stop here.
That Ms Medina is so rude! Period!

Anonymous said...

I am about the enter the seemingly impossible world of canceling my membership AND my personal training session.

I called a couple months ago to cancel my training sessions and the lady I spoke to said I could either freeze my account for $15 a month (up to 3 months) or pay half of the rest of the total owed. This is obviously not an option.

I happen to like my personal training sessions but as a soon-to-be graduate, I can't afford both my student loans, rent AND a gym membership. Something has to go...

SO I just emailed Aylin Medina to see what she can do for me. I've decided that I might play the "I'm moving back home to Hawaii and there is no LA Fitness there" card and see if that will get me anywhere.

I am very disappointed in how difficult it is to cancel the membership. I workout at the LA Fitness on Miracle Mile in LA and I love my trainers and the staff...but this is really putting a damper on the situation.

Good luck to everyone and I think we have ALLLLL learned a valuable lesson about gym memberships.

P90x, here I come!

Patrick said...

I have had the same problem with the Pro-Results that people on this blog have been having for years. Stuck in a 12 month contract..however I sent texts to the manager asking to cancel within the first month and he is denying I ever asked to cancel (I stupidly deleted the text 2 months later thinking it was taken care of and now have no proof). Dealt with corporate to no avail because they believe the manager who says I never asked to cancel. I spoke to a regular corporate employee and demanded they cancel the regular membership for me...they did it in 2 seconds and sent me a confirmation with no extra charges. However...I am still locked into this Pro-Results. I have emailed all of the people listed above and will see what happens...I may be screwed. I told my bank these charges are fraud and to disallow any charges from them in the future...so maybe collections will be at my door soon haha

Dhval said...

LA Fitness (Harrisburg, PA )

I have been member of LA fitness for 1 year (two times). Its always hard to cancel gym membership and you would always end up paying one or two months extra. The real scam is the personal training program. I joined the program along with a friend and was told that personnel training fees would be split-ted between two of us. We were greeted very warmly on the first day, after signing the contract skeletons started falling from the cupboard. For first 6 sessions had 3 different trainers, nobody had any idea of what exercise we did or should be doing and even had conflicting training facts.

My exercise journal was entirely blank but I was glad to have my 3 page photo copy of diet program. Things started to get even worse nobody took any measurements or had any future fitness path. At times trainer didn't ask a single question before starting and just showed me how to squat and pull strings for 30 mins. When I complained to George I was told that I should have told him earlier nevertheless he gave me two 10 min sessions to compensate. I went practically every week day for 1.5 hrs but had no idea what exercises to do. My iPhone app did a way better job.

After discussing with other friends I requested gym to cancel my personnel training sessions and then to my horror I was told that I don't "understand" terms and conditions because they are too complicated for me. I was given a number in California because local people do not have full authority, in exact words "they can only pass my credit information".

After calling the HQ in California I was told to contact my Local gym membership because I am in contract and I would be billed anyway with or without services. Guys at gym did understand my grievance but were reluctant as I was in contract and only way out is if I move out to a place which doesn't have a LA fitness, get a Driver License there and send copy of it as the new address prof. The worst they put everything on me and laughed at my naivety cause I signed the contract. I don't understand how can their lawyers make such a one sided contract. They shamelessly agreed to poor service but there is no way out, I wish I was not that gullible. My only comfort is that after reading this there would at-least one less victim.


Bottom line: NEVER enter into a personnel training contract and watch your credit card for unexplained charges from "La Fitness". As I would vote "La Fitness" as worst American business, they put wall street to shame.

Anonymous said...

Keeping the dream of fairness alive... I just called Aylin Medina 949.255.7330 at corporate (as mentioned in this thread). Within 2 minutes, she took care of my cancellation. Thank-you to all who posted here over the past few years!

Unknown said...


I have left a scathing review on LA Fitness here in Fountain Valley, Orange County, California. They passed me around but what really pissed me off was that I was told I needed to talk to a manager just to cancel my account.

I have no contract, my contract was up to expire this week and I just want to cancel it. I only attended for 1 month and paid for 3 months, the payment was done on another person's (who I signed up with) credit card and I did not want that person to be charged again. That was all. I also fell from a hover board (lame) and my elbow is hurt, what more can I explain?

It took me basically from 1:30pm to 5:00pm straight to get cancelled. The front desk person at this LA fitness branch insisted I didnt really need to talk to the manager and all I neeeded to do was give my email and phone number and I will just get a confirmation email cancelling my account but I did NOT receive this email.

I had to call LA FITNESS - IRVINE to make sure, and it was indeed cancelled. The guy GEORGE double checked my account, after 3-4 people in the Fountain Valley branch passed me around like a used up bubblegum.

Unknown said...

Look at you silly SEO people inserting your dumb links here. STAHP!

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