LA Fitness membership dispute

L. A. Fitness Club, San Diego, CA;

and the corporate headquater in Irvine, CA.

Complaints - a membership contract dispute

I recently noticed that I was wrongly charged through my credit card account

by LA Fitness for a membership I had not agreed on.

It seems that Carlos, a representative at the LA Fitness center on Kearny

Mesa, San Diego, CA, hadn’t canceled my trial membership. On August 25,

2006, my husband and I stopped by Wal-Mart in San Diego Area and found a

couple of day coupons for LA Fitness facility in the cart we used at the

store. After shopping we found a LA Fitness location across the store, so we

walked in to check out the facility. The front desk person called Carlos to

accompany us and he suggested us to sign a trial membership to give us a

week access to any LA Fitness centers in California. Since we lived in

Whittier, CA, I asked Carlos if there was a location in our area and he told

me while looking at the computer that the nearest one was in Santa Fe

Springs. I told him I wasn’t sure if that was close enough for me to have a

membership. At that point he told me to just keep the trial membership for

five days to try out and call him back to cancel it. I told him that I

wouldn’t have enough time to really try the five-day trial since we were on

the way to Mexico and wouldn’t get back home for a couple of days. Then he

specifically said it was really five working days to cancel and wouldn’t

count the weekends. He said he would cancel the membership and refund the

$40 sign-up fee if I called him within a week.

After I came back home in Whittier I tried two different locations nearby

and felt that they were just too far from me. On 9/1/06 at 3:41 pm, I called

Carlos at the San Diego location and told him that I wasn’t going to keep

the membership. He said that was fine and we hung up. Then I recently

noticed looking at my credit card statements that I was charged for a full

membership. I tried to call Carlos back but was told that he was no longer

at the location.

This just wasn’t right and I was upset about this. The following is a list

of the charges I found on my statement.

8/25/06 $40.00

9/15/06 $29.99

10/15/06 $29.99

11/15/06 $29.99

11/15/06 $118.98

I then was directly to the corporate office in Irvine, CA to resolve this

issue. A customer relations rep. said the membership had to be cancelled

within five days, not seven days, and offered me only $60 refund or two

month period of membership since they couldn't even find any written record

of cancelation of my membership. I told him I would like to take the case to

a court. He said I would lose the case since I didn't have a written record

of cancelation and flankly told me to go ahead and sue their company.

Amy

Whittier, CA

Comment On This

The law firm of Berger & Montague, P.C., located in Philadelphia PA, is currently prosecuting a class action suit against L.A. Fitness International LLC in federal court. The suit alleges that L.A. Fitness’ cancellation procedures for its monthly membership agreements are unfair and deceptive because members are charged additional monthly dues even after they have attempted to cancel their memberships. L.A. Fitness denies these allegations. We are currently gathering facts in support of these claims. If you have any information concerning L.A. Fitness’ cancellation procedures or practices, please contact Kim Walker toll free at 1-888-891-2289 or 215-875-3000, or by e-mail: info AT bm.net. For more information about this case, visit our website www.bergermontague.com.

Berger & Montague, P.C., attorneys are licensed to practice law in Pennsylvania, and some of our attorneys are licensed to practice in additional jurisdictions, including New York, Florida, Delaware, New Jersey, Maryland, Washington, D.C., California and Connecticut. Our firm litigates cases in state and federal courts throughout the United States. On occasions where the firm practices in jurisdictions in which one of our attorneys is not licensed, we associate with that court on a "for that case only" basis and/or associate with locally licensed counsel.

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Comment On This

This is similar to an issue I'm having with LA Fitness as well. The corporate office "managers" can conveniently find no documentation of my phone call in which the manager cancelled my personal training membership and told me I would no longer be billed. Sure enough, I was billed again the next month. I have called several times and these so-called managers refuse to connect me with someone who supervises them. It does not appear that they mind using deceptive tactics to get and keep costomers. Telling a customer that you will no longer be billed and then billing their credit card is CREDIT CARD FRAUD! I will continue to pursue this with LA Fitness and my credit card company until this is resolved. Be careful!