Gold's Gym Contract Scam

I walked into Golds Gym with my 16 yr old daughter, and paid by ck for a one yr membership for both of us. The contract is of course multiple pages, and unfortunatly, I relied on what the salesman said - and trusted in the reputaion of Golds Gym, rather than read it. I had been a member previously, for one year only. He said he'd explain it all. He didn't say not to read it - but he did see that I wasn't going to take his time to do that. "After the first year, if she (my daughter) wants to continue, we can give her a low monthly fee, see if she likes it." No. After a year, they debited my account 29.99 ea month in my then 16 year olds name. My husband thought I authorized it for her, I thought it was for something else - it's not clear in the shortened letters they use on the bank statement, and we didn't catch on for 7 months. Gold's knows she hasn't walked in that gym since the end of the first year, and you can bet they know we don't read contracts, and they bank on it. I trusted them to do business in good faith and to verbally explain something so important. NEVER again will I go to Golds and never again will I sign w/o reading. And now I have read TONS of other people's complaints, who have been unable to cancel! She said she canceled mine right on the phone, but would not refund the 300.00 they took out of my account, and said I still owe 59.00 because I stopped payment at the bank in June, so two months still need to be paid. This is fraud! Why didn't they bill us for both our memberships, why only my daughter??? These people know exactly what they are doing, listen to the different things they tell people about how you have to cancel!

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Wow, I have somewhat of a similar complaint, I joined golds gym March 2002, along with my 3 children who were then teenagers, I cancelled two of the mamberships, and there were 2 left, a membership for me and my son, now while having the membership I was only going occasionally, mind you I never renewed my contract, $52.00 was taken out every month for 8 years, so this march, I told them that I wanted to cancell my membership, and I was told that It was needed in writing, I told the person on the phone that i was moving, he in turn told me that I needed some documents stating where I would be going, I was like this is crazy, so I then placed a stop payment for that account, since then, I have been receiving calls from a collections agency, saying that I owe $252.00 and that if I dont pay it that it would go negative on my credit rating, this is an out and out SCAM, what can I do to rid of this problem

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Wow I had about the exact same issue as the commenter. I also was told by the person signing me up (who I also relied on as a representative of the gym, I have never had issues like this with other gyms) that I was just paying month to month and had no contract. I was told that all I had to do was give a two months notice to stop payments on my credit card. I went ahead and paid for the final month. Earlier this year I go to cancel my account and they say I'm under a contract and that it ends in September. That's all. That it ends in September. I haven't even been to this gym but a handful of times, and now I'm getting charged for a full year. I say fine, ok I got duped into a contract. Then I find out they charged me for September and TWO charges for October. I call the gym and the VERY RUDE man at the desk tells me I am under a contract and to call abcfinancial. I call and talk to abcfinancial supervisors. They say there's nothing they can do because I signed a contract AND SIGNED FOR A YEAR RENEWAL. What?!?! They have no concern for customer relations. Their very misleading representatives at Gold's Gym care nothing about customers. It's all money. I am going to be disputing the charges on my credit card. This is ridiculous. The fact that they won't even refund me the money or believe anything I say is ridiculous.

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Hi i came across your complain as i was researching if this is common because couple months ago i walk in to Gold Gym and requested a month to month membership as i might not needed after summer.I decide to cancel today and they would not let me because i sign a year contract, but that not what i discuss with the rep. How did you get to fix the problem, because they told me they cannot do anything and i dont know what to do next?