Complaint Review: LA Fitness - Orlando Florida

I noticed your name on a few of the other rip off reports, are you the La Fitness "rebuttal spokesperson"? Well, like I had mentioned, why would'nt La Fitness allow a FAX, which would save countless hours time and money for its members opposed to waiting in line. It seems, from what I have heard that only La Fitness and Bally total fitness "never" received the mail... most other clubs, which are much larger chains allow their members the convenience and luxury of cancelling by mail, fax or walking into the club, it seems only Gold's Gym, Bally Total Fitness and La Fitness are the only ones that and individual may need to certify their cancellation due to so many "lost or never recieved" cancellations. Fax is a relatively instant, time effective, cost effective as well as accurate way to track, store and record information. I gues the "uppermanagement/owners" presume that it will take more effort, time and money for a customer to certify their mailings, ultimately resulting in more effortless months collected by that company. The fax serves the exact same purpose as the certified mail, would be a lot more convenient to allow members to cancel at their home facility. Accorking to the La Fitness website homepage: "Whether you want to slim down or tone up, have more energy for work or for your family, or just look and feel better--we're here to help" just not help when one decides to leave. Thank you.

Bryan wrote: "Nowhere does it state to use certifed mail with signature confirmation or any other extra tool." Of course it does not state to send one's cancellation notice via certified mail. It is not a requirement, but an OPTION to anyone who would like proof that his/her cancellation request was received. It should be obvious that when said cancellation notice is required to stop bank drafting of one's account and potential loss of money, that said notice should be sent via certified mail or some other method that would allow one to PROVE that it was received so as to have possible recourse in situations such as this one.

Per the cancellation policy of La Fitness and per the actual cancellation form of La Fitness states: "How to stop your monthly EFT billing: You may stop the continued billing of the monthly dues through EFT and cancel your membership by providing written notice of your request 30 days prior to your next billing date. Send the written notice to LA Fitness, P.O. Box 54170 Irvine, CA 92619-4170. Nowhere does it state to use certifed mail with signature confirmation or any other extra tool. Many people send tons of letters per day and the likleyhood of letters being lost in the mail is minimal at absolute best. I have 4 friends in my community who tried to cancel with LA Fit, how funny, the corp office claimed never to receive those as well. Assuming that La Fitness does have about 200 clubs averaging 6000 members per club, if they "did not receive" cancellation notices for 1 out of 15 members that equivilates to about an extra $2,400,000 based off of an average EFT of $29.95 per month! Sounds like easy money to me! Why can't a person walk into LA Fitness to end their membership, why can't LA make it easy to cancel online, why have to wait in long postal lines for certified mail, why can't an individual use La Fitness's "live chat" option to cease any undesired membership, they already took first and LAST month's dues when an individual enrolls. Think of how many millions of dollars per year fast food industry makes just off of a forgotten order of fries for $1.49, these dues lines are between $25.00-$35.00. It seems that customers are seldom right, but there are ways to satisfy everybody, what would LA Fitness lose by eating their pride for this member, they would only gain public PR.

It would probably be in the gym's best interest to refund money to everyone they have crookedly taken it from since LA Fitness will lose valuable customers and rapport. As I stated, they refused to refund anything to me. As far as sending in a form to cancel a membership goes, I think it should be made possible for customers to cancel memberships online. That way the LA Fitness corporate office is not overwhelmed by mailed-in papers, and electronically, procedures will be more efficient. Many LA Fitness customers have had similar problems with cancelling their membership (as is evident on this website alone), so obviously it is a problem only beneficial to the gym (in the short-run). In the long run, if problems such as mine persist, the gym's reputation will diminish (just as the bank accounts of its customers).

It sounds like the LA Fitness rep tried to help you by stopping the billing and refunding the past 30 days. Wow .. no other gym I know of will actually refund anything. That was a very nice gesture on her part. As for the form that she claims she can't find ... when you originally mailed it, did you send it via certified mail? With a signature confirmation? Delivery confirmation? Tracking number? Anything? If you have proof that you mailed the cancellation form (i.e., post office receipt, tracking number, etc.), you can clarify this situation real quick by providing said information to LA Fitness' corporate office, as this will prove that they made a mistake and they must honor whatever was on the form. If you did NOT obtain any form of delivery confirmation or tracking number when you mailed your form, then you have no proof if they received it or not. Chances are, they really do not have it and are not trying to "rip you off." (Seeing as how they actually REFUNDED money to you, they are NOT trying to rip you off, obviously!) If your form got lost in the mail, that is NOT LA Fitness' problem.