You are responsible for the dues in the month in which you cancel plus the following month, during which you may use all services included in your membership.” Please include your name, address and phone number to verify your account with our records. “You may cancel your membership by sending a certified letter to the gym location in which you initially joined stating your intent to cancel. To give you a better sense of what I had to do, take a look at the cancellation instructions (taken directly from Workout World’s website). However, several months later, after I had moved back to NYC, I found that it wasn’t quite as easy to cancel as the nice lady had indicated it would be when she took my money. The equipment was good, the staff were helpful, and the friendly sales rep assured me that I was just signing up for a month-to-month membership, and could cancel at anytime. Sadly, when push comes to shove, it is often far too difficult to get out of these monthly agreements.įor instance, years ago I was living in New Jersey for a 3 month period of time, and thought that I would join Workout World, one of the larger gyms in the area. When you’re signing up, they’ll claim that you’re paying monthly, and that you’re not committed to anything. What’s more, you’ll typically have to provide all sorts of proof for why you’re terminating early.Īnd while this practice is questionable in itself, it is perhaps even more egregious when gyms make it difficult to cancel a month-to-month membership. (We hate contracts which is why we don’t lock anyone into our online fitness program.) However, if you leave early, then you’ll often have to pay a fee – much like you would if you were to break a contract with your cell phone or cable provider. Often gyms will get you to sign a contract for a 1 to 2 year period of time by coercing you with a preferential rate. However, often years later when you want to cancel, you’ll find that you have to jump through all sorts of hoops just to get it done.įirst of all, if you’re in a contract, then you’re going to find it considerably more difficult to cancel your gym membership. They sign up, often on some alluring special promotion, and don’t think much more of it at the time. What Happens When You Try To Cancel Your Gym Membershipįor many people, they don’t even consider that canceling their gym membership is ever going to be a source of stress.
In this article, I’m going to provide specific instructions on how to cancel your membership at many of the biggest gym franchises in the country, while also exploring why these memberships are so tough to cancel in the first place. In fact, I’ve been there myself, so if you’re dealing with this right now, I know your pain… Yup, many gyms around the world – and even many of the otherwise good ones – thrive on locking you in and practically throwing away the key, leaving your credit card to be billed monthly until the end of time. You see, the gym industry thrives on making it incredibly easy to join, but painfully difficult to leave. Whatever the reason, you want out – but for many people it isn’t nearly as easy as it should be.
Or you could have just decided that working out at a gym isn’t for you (and that you’d rather work out at home). You could be moving, you could have gotten injured, sick, or simply found a gym that you like better. Now it might seem kind of strange that a fitness site has an article on canceling your gym membership.Įven though there are a great many reasons to join a gym (which I won’t be covering in this article), the reality is that there are also various situations where you may need to cancel your gym membership.
How To Cancel Your Gym Membership Without Going Insane