i tried to update my credit card so they won’t send me daily fucking emails that i “owe” them $30 (because a gym membership definitely needs to be a cOnTraCt, sure, sure), but the website didn’t work, so I tried calling their “automated” system, whereupon after entering my info to the robot, it gave up and connected me to a guy who i had to speak do and do it all over again.
then they made the poor guy literally ask at the end ‘are you satisfied with my service today’
This is why I used Privacy for my gym membership. They tried to charge me during Covid when they were closed and I just turned off the card they were using.
Also, check out https://port87.com
It automatically sorts things based on subaddresses, so you can give the gym yourname-beefcakegym@port87.com, and you’ll get a label named beefcakegym where all their emails go. Then if they pester you, you can just block that address.
Full disclosure: I built and run Port87.
This is built into some email services, where you with address+label@email.com, you can set the label to whatever you want and it all goes to address@email.com. unfortunately many sites will incorrectly claim that + is invalid in am address.
Yeah, Microsoft is a notable one that does that. That’s why I made it so Port87 supports both the plus and the dash. I haven’t found any place that doesn’t accept a dash in an email address.
Lots of places support the subaddressing, but I don’t know of any others that are built around it like Port87. Like, where all email to a subaddress goes to a matching label automatically.
Automatic sorting is a nice addition.
In practice very few places accept the plus sign as a valid email
And if they don’t block it outright, this trick is rather well known and easy to filter out. It takes a minute to write a function that removes anything from the + to the @.
Gmail (and maybe others) ignores periods in the address. Only use labels in combination with extra or removed periods, and filter any address without a label and the wrong periods. If they remove the label, it goes to the bin.
What do disposable email addresses and spam filters have to do with canceling a gym membership? I don’t see anything on that page referring to banking or credit card transactions.
OP mentioned getting emails, but the topic at hand was changing their card, not hiding from the emails. Any email service is capable of blocking a domain, why would a special email service be of any use in this case? They weren’t spam emails, they were missed payment reminders.
Blocking emails doesn’t stop the payments, either.
So you off handedly throw out “turn off your card” as if that’s the simple and obvious solution, with no other detrimental effects, and then tried to shoehorn a plug for your email service into this?
You just saw the words “daily emails”, the tiniest sliver of a possible opening to plug your thing, and you took it, regardless of it was on topic or not.
In essence, you dropped spam for your spam filtering service.
I was actually talking about my own experience canceling a gym membership. As mentioned, I used a Privacy card, which is locked to one vendor. You can turn off that specific card, and nothing else is affected. That’s how I canceled my own gym membership, when I couldn’t do it in person, because the gym was closed during Covid.
I mentioned my email service because it has a very similar feature to Privacy, I’ve also used it when going as a guest to a different gym, and OP mentioned getting constant emails from the gym. This relates to both their and my experience.
Blocking emails doesn’t stop the payments either.
That’s why I was talking about Privacy. Turning off a Privacy card does stop the payments.
as if that’s the simple and obvious solution, with no other detrimental effects
If you’re unfamiliar with Privacy, it’s basically like a disposable email service, but for credit cards. You only use a Privacy card with one vendor, so there aren’t any downsides to turning it off.
If you think that my comment is unrelated to OP’s situation, then I really don’t know what to tell you. Maybe try canceling a gym membership and see for yourself.
Why are all gym memberships like this? The first thing I check before starting a service is how easy it is to end it. I’ve not been able to find a single gym with reasonable terms.
This is something that needs to be regulated somehow.
In the meantime, one could always pay with a prepaid card and then just never add funds when you decide to quit. Then just “return to sender” any mail they try to send you.
its a purposeful way of extracting money from a group they know wont fully utilize what they are selling.
they want you to sign up, and forget about it. its a scam.
Yeah, that’s why I’m alright sticking to the exercise I can access for free: walking, cycling, longboarding, calisthenics…
I feel like I’m in better shape now than I was when I had an actual gym membership
You’ve also described why I tend to avoid a lot of subscription based services.
yep, eeeeveryone is moving to this model for that captured audience.
roller skating mahn, thats where its at!
My husband is a roller skater! I always think people think we’re an odd couple, with my board and his skates on the trails
people think we’re an odd couple, with my board and his skates on the trails
harness him up and make him your longboard puller! screw what people think, most people suck.
Its not a “scam” by definition because you are getting what you pay for. But yeah its predatory as fuck.
Given that many tell you how easy it is to cancel when it’s not, those are scams.
Why are all gym memberships like this? The first thing I check before starting a service is how easy it is to end it. I’ve not been able to find a single gym with reasonable terms.
I do the same. So many gyms have abusive terms which is an immediate deal breaker for me.
There are handful I’ve found that aren’t bad offering true month-to-month service. Give notice by phone or email by X day of the month and your membership ends at the end of that month. Miss that date? You only have one more month beyond that then.
For years Planet Fitness had a good deal they’d only run for a couple of days a year where you could prepay for the entire year for $99 (or later $120). You didn’t give them your bank info, no “credit card on file”. You could literally hand them the cash and 365 days from that day your membership would expire with zero action on our part. That was the best membership deal I’ve seen yet. I don’t know if they still do that.
In the meantime, one could always pay with a prepaid card and then just never add funds when you decide to quit. Then just “return to sender” any mail they try to send you.
If you’re using your real name I would imagine they’d send the debt to collections which would cost you even more when your credit score tanks and you try to buy a car or house.
I think the YMCA still might have good terms, but I haven’t checked. That’s where we used to go.
If you’re using your real name I would imagine they’d send the debt to collections which would cost you even more when your credit score tanks and you try to buy a car or house.
Probably important for people to know, but I doubt it would be terribly impactful, and I’m so done playing their games. There’s always something that hurts my credit score anyway, so I just assume I’ve already lost this battle before it began.
I do the same. So many gyms have abusive terms which is an immediate deal breaker for me.
I had a gym want me to sign a contract that they could take photos of me and use my likeness for promotional material or whatever else. They can fuck off with that. The manager actually came in and tried to tell me nobody was going to use photos of me. Okay, then take it out of the contract.
This was on top of the usual, “to cancel, you must send Certified mail via eagle to Mordor with exactly seven stamps all from different sets in a black envelope on yellow paper with the date that we read the contents written in green ink on the outside.”
I had to deal with that shit when my Dad was alive and I needed to cancel his membership for him. He was 62 and could barely walk on his own. They forced me to bring him there, in person, in order to cancel a gym membership he had had from years ago that he couldn’t even physically make use of. Absolute fucking bullshit.
They can’t get money from your card if you tell your credit card not to pay them.
Then all you have to do is block the email address.
If they want to talk tonyou then they’ll have to call.
Gym membership is the only chargeback I’ve ever done.
When I signed up I put my wife and myself on my credit card and we used it for a long time. We decided to cancel and I called them up, waited on hold for almost an hour, finally got through and they told me that I could only cancel mine, as I was the only one talking to them. I told them my name is on both accounts and it’s my credit card payment information, I’m not paying for them anymore, and the outsourced customer service guy literally just repeated his script. He also told me that I would still be on the hook for some reason for 3 more months of membership, nothing he could do.
Called my credit card, picked up immediately and the woman was extremely nice and understanding. Within 20 minutes my money was back and any future payments were blacklisted to them.
Name and shame, it was 24 hour fitness, but from what I hear this happens with all the major gyms.
I had a gym tell me I could only cancel by mail, so I sent them a certified letter. They kept billing me and eventually the letter got returned because they never signed for it. So I just disputed the charges from every date since I’d first sent the letter. After I shared the scan of the returned envelope with my bank the first time they made every subsequent chargeback real easy. I think they billed me two more times after that before they finally stopped - unsure if it was because they were blacklisted or because of the fees they got charged.
I was told I could only cancel in person AT the gym I signed up on. I told them I was literally in another country and couldn’t go and that I would just call my bank. Lo and behold somehow they magically were able to.
Right as cold/flu season was taking off, the location near me went and removed over half of the equipment cleaning stations (paper towel dispensers & spray bottles), so I decided to cancel my membership. After hearing so many horror stores like yours, I was shocked at how easy it was, since I was able to cancel mine online.
Although, I did quickly learn that I had also effectively prepaid for another 3 months, so even though I cancelled on October 31st, and was not charged for anything after that date, my access didn’t end until January 31st. I think part of it was credits from the COVID times, but I never went back to test it, so if anyone reading this is thinking about cancelling, be aware that you may have access for quite some time after cancelling!I think it was something like prepaid for me too, and the credit card lady was like “Oh yeah that’s bullshit, you want me to claw the money back?” and I was like “uhhh yes please”. Very scummy practices. I’m glad you had a much easier time than me!
Highly recommend privacy.com to create virtual credit cards for stuff like this.
Also, see if your own credit card will allow virtual cards. I have at least two where I can create virtual cards and one that allows me to set them as single use, continual, or trial card that will validate but not charge.
I use Chime. Usually for just small payments occasionally.
This is baffling. In Korea, you pay up front. You pay for a month, go to the gym for a month. Pay for a year, go to the gym for a year. The more time you pay for, the better the deal you get. WTF would anyone subscribe to a gym? That’s not incentive to go to the gym, that’s incentive to quit going to the gym.
My fitness gym (Germany) has subscriptions, but there is also one that can be canceled monthly, which is offered at a discount, especially at the beginning of the year, because of the new year resolutions, so people who regret it can cancel quickly. It is still available later in the year, but is then about 20% more expensive than if you enter into a contract for 12 months, which is still billed monthly and not all at once at the beginning. There is also a student discount that saves you around €200 a year. You can cancel online or on site, I’ve already done it once and it went without a hitch. So it seems to be a bit more convenient here than with OP. Although I would love a prepaid option as you describe.
Shit like this makes me happy the EU regulates this BS. Here you are legally required to make it as easy to cancel as it is easy to sign up.
I was on the phone with AT&T for about 4 hours for work. I just kept getting passed from one department to the next.
NGL, I keep logs of that shit and I get a real boner doing a charge back about how I don’t approve and then when my CC is like why, I send them the documented proof of a company’s fuckery. Timestamps, who I spoke with, how I did due diligence in trying my best to cancel but the shit hole company made it a hassle.
Did it four times in a decade and not a single rejection from the CC to get my money back.
Simply block them
My gym offered refunds while it was burned to the ground
Chargeback!
I’ve had great success in saying I’m cancelling/leaving because I’m moving away. I picked a random area I knew wasn’t close to any of their chains and said I loved everything but unfortunately needed to move on. I’ve had 3 different chains immediately end the contract for me over the phone or in person doing this with no hassle.
The time I tried to quit one to swap to another gym, I had to make 3 calls, email multi-paragraph statements of why I was leaving and wait multiple months before they finally stopped charging me.
You can just filter and/or auto-delete the emails. You know that, right?
I had to close my bank account to cancel mine. I moved and didn’t want to head all the way back to go in person to cancel. They wouldn’t accept a cancel request online or over the phone. Why is it always gym memberships that want to be next to impossible to cancel?
