jeff yen

24-Hour Fitness is run by assholes

Okay, get this. From start to finish, my experience with 24-hour fitness has been nothing but a story of scam artists and assholes.

First, the beginning. I'd just moved to an apartment complex where there was no gym, so I needed a gym membership. The 24-hour fitness was about half a mile away from the new apartment, so I figured I'd get a membership there. No problem. I walk up to the counter.

Me: "Hi, could I see a price list of your services and membership options?"
24: "Umm.... we don't have one."
Me: "You don't... have... a price list?"
24: "Uh, no. Let me get a counselor over here, he'll give you a tour of the place and get you set up."
Me: "I can see the whole gym from where I'm standing. The one single machine I need is right there in plain sight. I don't need a tour, I just want to know how much a membership will cost me."
24 [to salesman]: "Hey, can you give this customer a hand please? He's going to need a tour."
Me: "Whatever."

[Tour ensues, with a large amount of irrelevant and useless information, combined with several poorly veiled sales pitches. Afterwards, salesman and I sit down at a desk.]

[Salesman pulls out a FUCKING PRICE SHEET.]

[I stare at the price sheet in disbelief.]

[Salesman blathers on about different memberships, etc.]

[I pick the cheapest one that allows 7-day access.]

Salesman: "Okay, that's going to be $39.95 per month."

Me: "That's fine." [I pull out my credit card.]

Salesman: [About to run my credit card through the charge machine] "And then your sign-up fee is going to be $186, and we're going to add two months onto that, so when you cancel your membership, your last month will already be paid for."

He says this like it's a great deal.

Me: [Stops him from swiping the card] "What?"

Salesman: "It's just a standard sign-up fee, you know, for processing."

Me: "So you're saying, you're going to charge me $186 to type my name into a computerized form, and mail me a piece of plastic?"

Salesman: [Pause.] "Oh! This weekend, you lucked out, it's actually ending today, we're running a special for half price on the sign-up fee."

At this point, all I want is to work out and not worry about how much of a bunch of asslickers these people are.

Me: [Scowling severely] "Fine."

So I become a "valued member" of the 24-hour fitness family; i.e., a sucker from whom they will milk as much money as they can. Seeing as I'm getting screwed on membership fees and what not anyway, I decide to make the most of it, and actually start going to the gym on a regular basis. Now I'm moving out of town. There's a much better gym within a mile of where I'm going to be living, so I decide to cancel my membership. I go into the club and up to the counter. I tell the girl there I want to cancel my membership. She tells me they can't do that at the club, I have to call their customer service department.

I briefly wonder why, and now I know. They don't want people getting murdered with blunt objects at the front desk.

The conversation I just had went like this.

24: "Hi, this is [asshole] speaking, how may I help you?"
Me: "Yeah, I'd like to cancel my membership."
24: "I'm sorry to hear that sir, may I ask why?"
Me: "I'm moving out of town."
24: "Oh, is there a 24-hour fitness near where you'll be?"
Me: "There's a gym within a mile of my new place of residence, but it's not a 24-hour."
24: "Well, have you checked to see if there are any 24-hours nearby?"
Me: "Look, [asshole], I'm just not interested in continuing my membership, okay?"
24: "All right. Well, it looks like there's another billing date coming up on the 25th, so you will get another charge on your card."
Me: "What?"
24: "Well, you see, we require 10 business days' advance notice before cancellation, so you will receive another charge on your card."
Me: "I already paid the last month in advance when I signed up."

I'm pinching the bridge of my nose as I say this, because otherwise the pressure inside my skull would cause my sinuses to explode all over my keyboard.

24: "Right, so your membership will be valid until September the 24th."
Me: "I'm going to be living 500 miles away from the only club for which this membership is valid."
24: "I'm sorry sir, but our membership agreement...."
Me: "You're telling me, I'm going to be paying you people 2 extra months for a membership I won't even be able to use?"
24: [asshole covers his boss's asses for them]
Me: [Eyes tightly shut, bridge of nose well pinched] "Fine. Do it."
24: "All right sir, and..."

Click.

For all of those considering joining a gym, know this:

24-Hour Fitness is run by a bunch of assholes, and they will screw you out of every penny they can.

I don't blame [asshole] for what happened, he's just a lowly phone rep bound by corporate policy. That doesn't make him an innocent, it just makes him a little dingleberry in a big sewer. But I like to think I have some empathy for people in his position, so in all fairness, I'll say this: I'm sorry I hung up on him. He probably doesn't feel great about what he does, and he probably hears from pissed-off people all day long because of the sleazy schmucks running the company he works for. He might not really be an asshole, he just works for them.

I had to hang up on *somebody* though. Sorry, man. Kick your bosses in the nuts for me, because they're worthless parasites on society.