We went through this recently, it’s a scam all the way up to corporate where they have a team of lawyers prepared to fight.
They tried to sell training to my wife, wife said no just gym, then they started billing our credit card for training - unfortunately I didn’t notice the bogus charges for a few months.
I called gym, got the run around. I googled, saw the scams and class action lawsuits so I knew what was going on. Went to gym and got copies of both contracts. The training one was obviously fraud in that my wife’s signature was on top of yellow highlighter and the letters N/A and offset by an inch and at an angle. In addition all boxes that needed initials had her initials offset from box so they were actually inside the paragraph next to the box (my wife is very meticulous about how she signs and initials docs, always on the line, in the box).
I sent docs to credit card fraud and told them it was fraud - they reversed all charges that they could - there is a 90 day limit, anything beyond that was a goner.
I recommend you google and read about how these scams work and what methods you can employ to get out of the fake contract, these companies have built their business model around this crap, so you can’t just talk to the manager, or the training manager or the district manager (I talked to that guy and he tried to scam me even further, details are boring but what a snake).
When I talked to credit card fraud department they seemed very familiar with the scam and basically it boiled down to saying that the signature was invalid, not my wife (even though it looked like it, she did not sign that doc).
Don’t wash your sweatsuit. Ever.
Show up every day during the peak workout period.
Park yourself in the middle of the most popular equipment.
Work up a solid sweat.
When the manager says something to you, point out that you’re paying to be there.
So that actually works? You can just cross out the parts you wouldn’t agree to and the gym was like, “OK, sure, we’ll go with that”? I always thought they would laugh in your face and tell you to move on. I mean, who would sign for the company on the altered contract? The salesman? I doubt it.
Yeah, it might end up being that way. I’m going to go talk to them and see if they do have a cancellation fee to get out of the contract–if they do, and it’s not insane, I’ll just pay it. I need to read through the whole contract to make sure they don’t have some kind of auto-renewal clause, but I’m also going to send a certified letter to their cancellation department stating that I do NOT want to renew.
Ugh, this is annoying. All I wanted to do was find a gym that was close to home and not too expensive.
Doubt all you want. If they don’t agree to your proposed alterations, they can always choose not to contract with you. And there will generally be a period for corporate review before the contract is final.
At the very least, a great many form contracts contain language that may be irrelevant to your particular transaction. Our preference is generally to cross such language out. We’ve done this on leases, contracts for the purchase of goods and services, home purchase offers, certain mortgage documents… If you do not want to be bound by language in the contract, don’t sign a contract including that language.
Disclaimer, we are both attorneys, and she teaches business law. A big part of this depends on knowing which are the integral portions of the contract, and which portions are less vital. Also, depends on the seller’s willingness to complete the deal.
Don’t sign something if you can’t see what you are signing! Make them print it out and sign the printed copy. (After you have read it of course.)
X Sign Here__________________________________
A woman I know did this sort of thing after a bad gym experience. She spent the hour or so she would have spent exercising standing by the gym’s door telling people her story.
The gym called the police, who responded and determined what she was doing was legal. The gym eventually caved, but it took a while.
Yeah, I’m not nearly brave enough to do that. Though if I can’t get them to see reason there will be some scathing Yelp and Twitter and FB comments going out.
Since you were misled, you could also contact your state’s Attorney General and file a complaint with the consumer protection division.
Or, make an appointment with the location manager, explain that his/her staff lied to you, and tell him you expect him to make it right. If the manager pushes back, you can tell him you’re perfectly willing to call the AG and file a fraud report. That might make them more accommodating.
That’s what I’m going to do. My company offers a small number of legal consultations as a benefit–I plan to take advantage of one of them if the manager gives me trouble.
Yes, the gym representatives can refuse to sign the contract with the changes you made. That’s their prerogative. A negotiation isn’t done until both parties sign to indicate agreement and you can’t make them agree. If the company wants to argue that the salesperson wasn’t authorized to sign the contract, they still have to get you to sign a new one in order to enforce those terms against you.
If they do refuse to sign it, they’ve done you a favor, by letting you know that the contract isn’t going to work the way you want it to. Now you can go find another gym.
But if the gym representatives do sign it with those changes, that’s going to be enforceable in court, in a credit card dispute, etc.
In fact, when it comes to learning lessons about these things, my advice to Infovore for next time: never ask the employees what’s in a contract. Read it for yourself. If you’re not sure what it means, ask for clarification and make sure that they write in the clarifications onto the contract. A lot of companies want to talk about the contract and don’t show it to you until the very last step when you’re not likely to read it. Since the contract overrides anything they told you verbally, get that contract out front as soon as you start asking questions.
I have gone up against companies, local councils and even the Inland Revenue when I considered I was being unfairly treated and always used the same format.
Document everything and keep copies. Write a letter politely explaining the situation and your desire to resolve it fairly. Include a reasonable offer such as paying x amount of dollars to cancel. Ask for a response within whatever time scale you think is reasonable. Send it in such a way that it has to be signed for (in the UK we call it recorded delivery). If you don’t get a response within that time scale send another one asking the same questions. If you still don’t get a response write again informing them that you intend to cancel the charges unless you hear back in seven days. Assuming they don’t reply, cancel the payments.
If it comes to a court case you will be in a position to show that you have acted in a fair and reasonable manner to try and resolve the dispute and they will look like a bunch of scammers.
You will see that the price list will have month by month prices at being about twice as much as yearly contracts.
They are trying to trick you into letting the payments go for a year. You should be able to pay for usage, but you have to pay pretty much what the monthly fee is for that.
Yesterday, I got a call from the lady I’d talked to at the main office. (I had not expected to hear any more from her after she told me the contract was for 12 months.) She said she explained my situation to her supervisor, and what they could offer was to stop the contract as of this month (so I won’t have to make any more payments after the May one I already was charged). She said that was the best they could do–they couldn’t provide any refunds for what I’d already paid.
Given that I never expected to get any refund and had pretty much written off the rest of the year already, I was happy to take the offer, thank her and hopefully put this behind me.
I wrote down her name, phone number, and details of the call so if they charge me again in June I can call back and complain, but I think I might have dodged a bullet here!
Just to be safe, I’d call the credit card company and have your number changed as well as seeing if they can refuse all charges from the club.
That way, they can’t charge you again (hopefully) and if they try and then bill you or send you to collections you’ve got a letter stating that you’ve been released from your contract and no further charges should be generated.
Actually, re-reading, it doesn’t look like you have anything in writing. You might want to call back and see if you can get something in writing stating that you are no longer in a contract with them and you will incur no more charges.