24 Hour Fitness Refusal to reinstate membership. Poor customer service. Desire to rid club of old contracts on annual fee structure for more lucrative monthly memberships. Carlsbad, California

I have been a member of 24 Hour Fitness since the early 1990's. After many different contracts due to expansion of club from old to the new levels of active, sport, super sport, and ultra sport I had finally come to own a Keep Fit Plus all club membership with a $54 dollar annual dues requirement. My membership came due March of 2009 and due to an error on my part I did not renew in the allotted time. When I realized my error it was too late to keep my current membership according to the service representative I spoke with at that time. Instead I purchased a two year CostCo special. That has now come to end and again I tired to get my old membership reinstated to no avail.

I was once again told by a "service representative" that my old membership was too far in the past to be reinstated but they could offer me a month to month deal ranging from $19.99 to $89.99 a month. So for a mere $239.99 on the low end to $1079.88 on the high end per year I can have the equivalent of access to clubs that I had for $54.00 a year after investing close to a thousand dollars in sign up fees for my original lifetime membership and upgrade to all club access. Guess I am missing the lifetime piece and more importantly this company's reputation is being upheld by an outsourced customer service center in a foreign country.