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Report: #445023

Complaint Review: LA Fitness - Hemet California

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  • Reported By: whittier California
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  • LA Fitness 220 North Sanderson Hemet, California U.S.A.

LA Fitness unauthorized charges, impossible to cancel, Hemet California

*UPDATE Employee: LA Fitness The Truth from a current employee Nationwide

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I signed up for LA Fitness in Downey, California and the salesperson never disclosed to me the cancellation process and the "20 day" processing time it takes to cancel. The credit card they had on file was cancelled so they charged me 29.99 plus 5.00 because the could not bill the card. In order to cancel I had to physically go and get a cancellation form with a bar code and request cancellation in writing. The girl at the Hemet location said once I paid the 29.99 plus the 5.00 fee it would be canceled.

I gave her a new credit card number for the sole purpose of paying this charge because they said if I didn't pay I would continue to get billed. The girl said this would be the last charge. A week later LA Fitness charged my card $29.99 again. I never authorized my card to be used for future charges. I consider this a fradulent charge. When I called the Hemet location the girl I spoke to said that it takes 20 days for cancellation to process. What a rip off.

Lizette
whittier, California
U.S.A.

This report was posted on Ripoff Report on 04/19/2009 09:03 PM and is a permanent record located here: https://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/la-fitness/hemet-california-92545/la-fitness-unauthorized-charges-impossible-to-cancel-hemet-california-445023. The posting time indicated is Arizona local time. Arizona does not observe daylight savings so the post time may be Mountain or Pacific depending on the time of year. Ripoff Report has an exclusive license to this report. It may not be copied without the written permission of Ripoff Report. READ: Foreign websites steal our content

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#1 UPDATE Employee

LA Fitness The Truth from a current employee Nationwide

AUTHOR: Sympathetic Employee - (U.S.A.)

POSTED: Friday, April 24, 2009

Hello, I am an employee of LA Fitness. You're probably thinking that I'm going to be super biased in this entry and if that is the case I challenge you to read this whole thing and then tell me how you feel. I welcome any questions or comments and I will do my best to respond to them.

Reading all of these posts is quite disconcerting. The things you've written about certainly show that there are quite a few of bad apples who work for LA Fitness who unfortunately give the entire company a terrible name. I can assure you however that if some of the things I've read about were to happen in my club, those employees would be kicked out the front door ASAP. You see, I am one of the customer service managers at my location, and I seem to be one of the only ones doing his or her job. The customer's in my club are for the most part happy. I am on a first name basis with most of them, and I try to spend time on the gym floor everyday talking with members and making sure we're meeting everyone's expectations.

To those members/former members who have had legitimate problems with LA Fitness, I sympathize for you as I know first hand how difficult it can be dealing with this huge company. However for many of you, I feel that your problems could have been avoided if you had read the agreement more carefully. Now I understand most of you are pretty miffed with LA Fitness, but all I ask is that you please hear me out. I would like to address your concerns in the following areas: Sales, Customer Service, Cancellations, and those annoying "collection agency" calls. I will offer my view of the problem as well as a solution to make the best of it.

Sales: These people exist for one reason, and that is to sign you up for a membership. It is their job to sell you memberships and they can get paid very well when they do a good job. They have a lot of pressure from bosses to sell a lot. I feel that the problem comes not from the corporate level, but rather at the club level. Some sales managers form friendly strategies and some form unfriendly strategies. A good, friendly sales manager can really help a gym. All of the sales managers I know personally are good people who really get along with the clients, and even work out or play racquetball with them. People go to them for help and often get it. I apologize to those of you who have had trouble with the unfriendly sales people. They lie, make promises they can't keep, and have absolutely zero accountability. As long as their numbers look good there is somewhat of a "don't ask don't tell" policy. The company seems to be taking steps to crack down on this, but with the size and the scope of the company its tough to have great accountability. The best way to avoid problems down the road with these people is to get every promise they make you in writing because without it there's very little that we (the customer service people) can do to help you.

Customer Service: As I previously stated I am a customer service manager. We handle everything from billing to keeping the bathrooms clean. In fact, you can probably use the cleanliness of the bathrooms to determine how much help you'll get if you approach us with a problem. I must say, the bathrooms in my club are typically very clean. Just like with sales, there are quite a few bad apples in customer service, however those of us who do our jobs really truly want to help you. Any legitimate complaint can and should be handled that day. Again, "legitimate complaint" is something that is LA Fitness's fault, and not just a misunderstanding of the agreement. In order to help you all we ask for is a piece of evidence that shows that it was indeed LA Fitness's fault, such as a receipt or bank statement, or even a medical notice. Without proof unfortunately there isn't too much we can do to help you simply because of the size and scope of the company. There are rules and red tape in place in order to maintain equality and fairness among the members, yet ironically these rules sometimes work to hurt you. Case in point, cancellations....

Cancellations: You can join now and cancel anytime! Despite what you may think, this is true. However when the agreement states that youmust provide 20 days notice before next billing date to cancel without getting charged again, you should assume that the company is going to enforce that. You may think that this is stupid and ask "if i can sign up so easily how comes its so hard to cancel?" Well, I'm going to tell you. Our billing system is completely automatic, as it should be due to the number of transactions that go through every single day. Once a transaction is posted there's no way to reverse it. The number of days that it is posted before the billing go through can vary. Sometimes its posted just 2 days before the billing, but I've seen it as many as 5 before. So without the 20 day rule, Member A could try to cancel 3 days before the next billing and it turns out ok, but when Member B tries to do the same thing he is informed that his billing has already started to go through. This creates a problem. LA Fitness's solution to this problem is to make it a rule that EVERYONE has to submit their cancellation at least 20 days before the next billing. This way no matter what, the cancellation will always be received before the billing is posted. Now as to why you have to mail it in and cannot cancel at the front desk, I'm not sure yet. It isn't unheard of though, as I know of other popular gyms that also have this rule.

Collections Agency Calls: These calls occur if your billing information comes back declined. However, they do not come from collection agencies but rather from LA Fitness employees who are standing at the front desk of LA Fitness. These calls began as a service to the members to let them know that they need to update their billing information. It used to be that we could only call members from our own club but about a year or two ago they changed it so that we could call a member from any club nationwide. All we do is push a button on the computer and up comes a random account whose info came back declined. The club that gets the clear up gets credit for it, and much like sales, these numbers are closely monitored. Again, some clubs form friendly strategies, and some form very unfriendly strategies. Personally, when making one of these calls, I never lie to anybody. Unfortunately, I have heard of other clubs lying to people to get the clear up. People will say things such as "I'm calling with the corporate office" or "I'm calling from a collections agency." These people will get angry with you over the phone and harrass you throughout the day. These people do not leave notes that they have spoken with you and so later in the day I might call not knowing you already received 6 calls that day. I apologize to those of you who have to experience this but I assure you that this is not typical of the entire LA Fitness company. If any of my employees were to use such an unprofessional tactic you can be sure that it will be their last clear up call.

In summation, please be sure to read everything carefully before you sign it as this will certainly avoid trouble in the future. Keep in mind that there are those of us who work hard every day to make your gym experience the best. I truly believe that LA Fitness is a great place to work out and a good value too, as seeing that they have many and quite diverse things to offer. If I am biased, it is only because the several clubs I've been to have good, helpful, and reliable managers. If you don't believe me just ask any one of my members.



Sympathetic employee

Anonymous, Pennsylvania

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