Consumers often bent out of shape trying to quit gym

Joining a gym can be expensive and intimidating. But it can be more expensive and intimidating to quit.

Lots of us make the commitment — about one in five people in the Seattle area belong to a health club.

State laws aim to protect consumers from high-pressure sales tactics, unfair advertising and super-long-term contracts. But getting out of a membership isn't easy.

Consumers report that automatic withdrawals of their monthly dues, a lot of small print in the contracts and complicated rules make it hard to stop paying for a membership if you've moved away or quit using it.

Health clubs sometimes keep sloppy books and don't always follow through by actually canceling memberships, complaints to the state Attorney General's Office and the local Better Business Bureau show.

It's easy to sign up for a membership at the front counter of a club, but members must cancel in writing or call a national customer-service number. Often, there's a charge. At Gold's Gym, members have to fill out an application and include the reason they want to quit.

Read the fine print

The fault isn't always the health clubs': Many members don't read their contracts and end up unwittingly committed to 12 months of payments. Instead of properly canceling in writing, they close credit cards or checking accounts to thwart automatic withdrawals. But then clubs turn members over to collection agencies, and that hurts their credit.

At one point during a billing dispute with Bally Total Fitness, Luke Thoburn was getting four calls a day from collectors.

The club had agreed to cancel his membership when he moved from Los Angeles to Carnation, he said. But after he sent the club his new address, they sent him a bill for $800, saying he wasn't far enough from the nearest club, in Bellevue, to free him from his three-year contract.

He refused to pay, and they turned his debt over to a collection agency. After about eight months, he was able to prove he was no longer a member, and Bally canceled the charge.

"It was a real hassle," Thoburn said. "It soured my opinion of all clubs."

Washington passed a law in 1987 to rein in health clubs' high-pressure sales tactics and outlaw lifetime memberships.

State law makes it illegal to have more than a one-year contract in Washington state. Clubs must give you three days to change your mind about a contract, and the cancellation process must be clearly laid out in your contract.

Dana Cooley, a local apartment manager, says he signed up at the Capitol Hill Gold's Gym and agreed to have his $31 monthly dues taken out of his checking account on the fifth of every month. But the first month, the gym took the money out on the wrong date, and he bounced a check.

Cooley says he called a customer-service number in Colorado several times to try to cancel his membership and the recurring charge. The club agreed to stop withdrawing the dues automatically but wouldn't cancel his membership.

"Right now, what I'm planning on doing is not paying the $31," he said. "Obviously, it's going to be a mark on my credit."

Shaun Kalinowski tried to cancel her Bally membership after she separated from her husband, with whom she had shared the membership. The club wouldn't let her, even though she had moved.

"The contract in question does not give Ms. Kalinowski the unilateral right to cancel her membership contract for any reason or no reason at all," a letter from the company read.

Bally offered to let her quit — for $231.25 — but canceled her husband's month-to-month part of the membership because he was not the primary member.

"It's a contract," said Matt Messinger, a Bally spokesman. "When it comes to quitting our health clubs, if you're a month-to-month person, you're more than welcome to stop coming and stop paying your bill.

"But if you've decided that you're going to make a commitment to fitness ... that's an obligation."

Cooley says he never used his Gold's Gym membership, a sentiment common among people trying to quit. But health-club representatives stressed that not using doesn't mean a thing.

Don't buy on impulse

Bally's Messinger compared a membership to buying a car. It doesn't matter whether you use it — you still have to make the payments.

"The biggest mistake that people make, especially when it's the new year, is they go shopping on impulse," said Brooke Correia, a spokeswoman for the Boston-based International Health, Racquet and Sportsclub Association.

Health-club employees say attendance spikes in January and drops off around Valentine's Day. Some members who haven't seen results try to quit and get out of their contracts, said Terry Cantlon, a fitness manager in Houston who worked for several years in Seattle.

Cantlon believes that many billing disputes are motivated by other emotions involved with quitting the gym.

"They feel bad," he said. "Embarrassed, shameful, lazy. ... I think that's why there's more buyer's remorse and more complaints in this industry."

Chuck Matheny thought he had successfully canceled his membership at the Arlington Gold's Gym. He agreed to put his membership on hold and thought that it would automatically cancel. Then he got a big bill and a threat about sending him to a collection agency.

Besides being annoyed that he had to settle the bill, Matheny was hurt. He had worked out at the gym for several years and felt he had been a model customer.

"I just couldn't believe their attitude," Matheny said. "It was like having some member of your family take money out of your dresser."

Seattle Times staff researcher Gene Balk contributed to this report.

Emily Heffter: 206-464-8246 or eheffter@seattletimes.com