Crunch Fitness ripoff deceptive membership cancellation process billing New York New York

My wife is pregnant with twins. We attempted to cancel her gym membership with Crunch Fitness, Miami Beach for medical reasons in June, 2006. We were told that to cancel, we had to deal directly with the corporate head office. The membership cancellation procedure is quite onerous, requiring a registered letter with medical diagnosis, signed by a doctor, a $50 money order cancellation fee, and provides for an unspecified 'waiting period': "the cancellation will not take effect until you receive written confirmation" from them.

Nevertheless, I assembled the cancellation package and duly sent it via registered mail. I received postal confirmation that it was received and signed for on July 17, 2006.

Regardless, my credit card account is still being charged for my wife's membership, months later. I never received "written confirmation" from Crunch Fitness, and all my attempts to contact Membership Services by e-mail and website have been ignored. I did finally get through to an agent by phone at the membership services number: 888-310-6011, after waiting an hour, and she confirmed that my wife's membership was cancelled on July 24, 2006, but said she couldn't help me with crediting my account, and that "someone would call me back". I never received a call back, and after my account was charged the following month, I called again and, again, after waiting a long time, got through to an agent who rudely told me she couldn't help me, to "call back later", and then hung up on me (!).

Crunch Fitness makes joining very easy, assures you that cancellation is simple and easy, and allows pretty much any Crunch employee to "sign you up" for a membership. But to cancel, you need to complete a very difficult procedure with a very hard to reach "Membership Services department" (they do not list any membership cancellation contact information anywhere on their site).

I believe that this is fraudulent business practice. I believe that this company directs its employees to make membership cancellation very, very difficult, and knowingly and systematically continues to charge members' accounts, after cancellation, "in error".

Ramie
Miami Beach, Florida
U.S.A.