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Comment by ryandrake | Hacker News Reader

Although not software, gym memberships are notorious for using all manner of slimy tactics to keep you paying. Online reps can't do anything, your local gym somehow never has a "manager" around who can do anything. You can "freeze" your account but then they can just arbitrarily unfreeze and start charging you again. Very close to having my CC company issue a charge-back to our local gym for fraud. Very shady and hopefully these can be made illegal.

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There was a chain of gyms in Boston that famously required you to go there in person to cancel. When they closed due to COVID, they continued charging their members. The closure prevented members from both cancelling and making use of gym services.

That got shut down pretty quickly, but it's telling that they even thought they could get away with something so brazen.

The Economist magazine doesn’t let you cancel your online account online. You have to call. But they closed their call centers due to covid, so there is no way to cancel your account.

Yes! Cancelling my 24 Hour Fitness membership was a nightmare. I also found out that the name is not indicative of their 6 AM to 8 PM hours. Horrible experience all around.

One of the largest gym chains here is called Fit for Free.

It’s very much not free.

I’m going through this with LA Fitness. They closed their location in downtown Bellevue, WA. The next closest location to me is many miles away, and I’m not going to take an Uber there $10 each way. I’ve been in person and was told to send them a form via mail. I did that 2 months ago. They charged me for March and they just slapped a charge end of April. I’ve called them, was told to come in person again, and told to send another form in the mail. I have no recourse, and I honestly pray these predatory, dishonest criminals have their entire company shut down.

It should be illegal for any gym to force you to come in their physical location or too require mailing in forms to cancel.

I just called my credit-card company to block a company playing similar shenanigans yesterday. The credit-card representative seemed to think it would work.

Many credit card using banks now offer "virtual" credit cards, which are one time or max amount or time-dependant expiring cc account numbers. These do a great job of neutralizing the abuse of power you get recurring payment dark patterns.

Yes, this is a terrible practice. When I wanted to cancel my Planet Fitness membership during the pandemic I ended up using a third-party service to cancel it for me. It was well worth the 1-time $14-or-so fee to another company to send the required letter. Could I have done it myself? Probably, but after dealing with them I just wanted to pay once and never have to think about it again, well worth it.

A gym I had a membership with wouldn't let me cancel in person and insisted I do so via registered mail. So incredibly slimy.

That's one option that always works, and people don't seem to get that. While it's scummy that you have to do it that way (that's obviously bollocks), this would also be the way to tell them to stop charging you if their customer support won't pick up, their email server rejects yours as spam, the web form is broken, that sort of shit (people elsewhere in the thread mention a million-and-one instances of this, not realizing that there is another way). Send them a letter and be done with it.

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