Crunch Fitness Membership

Business Information

Name: Crunch Fitness

Address: 386 Park Avenue South

City: New York

State/County: NY

Zip/Postal Code: 10016

My wife is pregnant with twins. We attempted to cancel her gym membership

with Crunch Fitness, Miami 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 onerous, requiring a registered letter

with medical diagnosis, signed by a doctor, a $50 money order, and an

unspecified 'waiting period': "the cancellation will not take effect until

you receive written confirmation" from them.

I assembled the cancellation package and sent it registered mail. I got

postal confirmation that it was received on July 17, 2006.

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, waiting a long time, and 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: almost any employee can "sign you

up". They assure you that cancellation is

easy. But cancellation is in fact an extremely difficult process with a very

hard to reach "department" (they do not list any membership contact

information anywhere on their site or materials)

I believe that this is fraudulent business practice. I believe that this

company directs its employees to make membership cancellation very, very

hard, and knowingly and systematically continue to charge members' accounts,

after cancellation, "in error".