Planet Fitness — Attraction in Cleveland

Edit to respond to owner follows original: ----ORIGINAL--- This membership is basically a scam to get your checking account info.

2 stars because I actually enjoy the gym. In fact, I helped a friend sign up for what I thought was the same deal.

No commitment!* Except it turns out that her agreement has a contract and she didn't have a checking account the only way to stop the $20 a month is to close my bank account. (The bank advised against a stop payment since they can get around it by changing the cost, and it will expire in 6mo. Plus getting one costs more than the monthly gym membership.)

They claim it's impossible to cancel her membership or to remove my account from it without putting a new account in. If she wasn't pregnant I'd ask her to show up and drop weights on the floor loudly til they kick her out. When I suggested that they needed her to get kicked out they said they'd call the cops on us.

If it sounds too good to be true... there is a reason why they only allow memberships with ach draft - their business model is trapping people into a slow bleed from their bank accounts. (They would clearly rather lose my business on top of losing hers.)

A single line buried in the agreement doesn't really mean much for a place that advertises 'no commitment' extensively. Furthermore, we came in asking to sign her up for the deal I got; my account was a few weeks older and does not have the year-long contract. She wouldn't have signed up for the contract nor would I have offered to put my bank account information down. ---REPLY--- I have spoken with the manager more than once and at great length. (Asking for someone with more authority to exercise discretion got me a call from a guy who wasn't even allowed to hang up on me.) All I get is "we buried a line in the contract (which another person signed), give us $60 to stop draining your bank account."

And just to be clear, even if I had signed it this is simply NOT how contracts work: you advertise the memberships as "no commitment". If you're going to offer a premium plan on WORSE terms than that you can't hide it in the fine print and play 'gotcha', but you can count on people who need to cancel without penalty to be unable to take you to court over it.

There was pretty clearly a breakdown in communication during the sale, as well as when I updated the checking account (getting a new checking account is a huge hassle I don't care to repeat). By contrast, the yearly fee was actively brought to my attention and the timing explained to me...

I’ve been coming here for 2 years and this is what I’ve noticed….. 11/18 TVs have been broken for MONTHS. Happens all the time over the two years I’ve been coming here. Water fountain is broken. Glass in parking spots. Yesterday I walked out and a full pizza was on the sidewalk entrance. I can’t make this up. My car was hit out in the lot. Directly in view of the camera. I was told by management to make a police report and only then could I review the footage. Made it that day. Came in the next day and asked to see who hit my car and took off. I had white scuff marks on my bumper so look for a white car parked near mine…. I was told that they couldn’t show me the tape bc it would put the other client of the gym at risk. That was told to me by the manager Morgan. Then she tells me she reviewed the tape and you can’t see anything bc a big WHITE work van was parked next to my car. My bumper had white streaks on it. Guess who hit me!?!?!? That’s all FACT. If you come to this place, don’t expect much. Complaints fall on deaf ears and nothing is ever fixed or resolved. I just asked the assistant manager Keith why the TVs have been broken for months and he told me LACK OF STAFF. “There is only two of us here today and the wind storm knocked out the power so I have to reset the TVs.” They have been broken and frozen on one image or blacked out for MONTHS. Most days you have grown men rapping and singing at full volume and dancing in the mirrors. Makes for a prison yard atmosphere. Very cozy!! Come here with very low expectations. As I type this, a woman is having a full blown volume 10 conversation on her phone on the treadmills. That happens daily. Nothing is ever said.

Yours in suffering,

A loyal...

DO NOT GO HERE. Let my headache save you from dealing with them. This place is a SCAM with ludicrously predatory business practices. Theyre a tick thats been draining money from my account despite my not being a member since the pandemic hit. The only way to cancel your policy is by actually going in person or mailing a physical letter. They do have a website and you can change all kinds of other information so it’s suspicious that in 2021 the only way to cancel a monthly membership is by the most arduous & inconvenient methods possible. Complaint Boards (dot) com is riddled with similar stories of the ridiculous steps people have to go to (either through ABC financial that backs them or directly to their bank to block the transactions)

I called them calmly and in good faith to try to figure out how they are somehow still charging me despite me not setting foot in their gym since before March 2020. I talked to MYKE. And judging by his immediate dismissive tone and subsequent attitude, Myke left me with the very strong impression that this was not the first time someone had called to ask why the company he’s working for has predatory billing practices. I started that call with the assumption that this was an honest mistake and by the end of it Myke convinced me that all of this is entirely intentional.

There’s lots of great, smaller gyms. Go to a place that won’t prey on your wallet...