LA Fitness — Attraction in Irvine

I workout here because I am now on a contract and cant get out of it. I would like to warn you if you are planning to join.... join at ANY other LA fitness location. This gym will swindle you, pressure you and management doesnt follow through on what they say. It took me six message and calls and the manager NEVER returned my call about cancelling my contract because of the poor treatment I received by 2 different staff on the first two hours of the day I joined. That is pretty bad if your ataff literally can make a person want to cancel their membership within two hours of joining. That might be a record. The sales person was nice but he didnt offer me the best deal. He got me into a single club which limits my options and never once mentioned the multi club option which is only 5$ a month more. Had I known that when I signed up, I wouldnt have to pay the $99 change fee less than a month later which I found out about it today. Secondly they got me all excited about a personal trainer who never took me around the gym to show me anything more than a few exercises with equipment only in the corded off training area. I can no longer access that equipment because I had to pay either 200 or 220 for a personal trainer. He literally told me I "could figure it out if I looked at the posters." Then said, "You need to pay 200$, $220 or you are on your own and we will mot offer any help." Yep, thats right they wont give you a tour explain the equipment and where it is, even tell you the cardio is upstairs or point you towards the dressing room. You are left completely on your own unless you give them more money. The last thing you should know is that I called the manager who apologized and said she would get back to me and let me have a training session with another trainer. Did she call me back? Did I ever get this free mysterious training session they brag about in all their advertisements? Nope, she waited until I could no longer cancel my membership, which is what I had asked for. From my understanding I could only cancel with her within 7 days, but she was never there and would not return my calls until I finally caught her at work. Thats when she made all those empty promises so I naively believed and didnt cancel at that time. . All in all if they can make money off you, they will be helpful, but if you simply want to know anything about anything you are completely on your own. It is the worst case of bait and switch I have ever experienced. The equipment, the cleanliness is all top notch but they have no customer service skills. My advice sign up at ANY other LA fitness location. You can still use this gym if it is more convenient, but any other LA fitness has...

The worst LA Fitness I have even been to, dirty, broken equipment, unprofessional staff who don't care about what they do and what they say. Too bad that I have no other choice because it is close by where I live. Otherwise, I will never want to come here. I helped my cousin joined LA Fitness last year. He rarely uses the membership. His dad asked me to cancel it for him since he was under my account. His monthly membership was due on the 12th each month. I went in at the end of last month to cancel his membership. After telling the staff in the office to cancel his membership, he told me done, your cousin's membership had been canceled. This staff didn't give me any paperwork saying my cousin's membership was canceled. Surprisingly, my credit card got charged on the 12th. I went in the same day to dispute. A staff in the front desk looked into my account. My cousin's membership was still valid. So the guy I spoke to at the end of the last month didn't cancel my cousin's membership. Either he did it on purpose or he didn't care about it. What an unprofessional staff! The front desk staff told me that I needed to talk to the manager, a lady supposed to come in around 9AM on certain days. Fine, I went in around 9AM last Tuesday. She was busy, she didn't even bother to talk to me, only had a staff from the office talk to me. That staff told me he would request a refund of $34.99 for me. It would take 3 to 4 days to show on my credit card. I waited and waited, that never happened. So I went in to talk to the manager again today. She told me that there was not proof that I came in last month to cancel my cousin's membership. I told her that your staff didn't do his job. She told me that those were the salesmen. She was not in charge of the salesmen. Sounded very complicated here. Basically, she couldn't do anything for my $34.99 refund. So who was in charge of the salesmen? I told her that I would yelp this place one star and google this place one star, too. She didn't care. I asked her name. She told me her name. Unfortunately, I didn't know how to spell it either she was speaking too fast or I wasn't too familiar with American names. So I asked her to spell her name for me. She refused. I will call my credit card company to dispute this $34.99. It gave me the kind of impression that bunch of careless and incompetent staff working there. Maybe because of the location, this place can still survive. Hope someone has the choice to go to another LA fitness location won't bother to come to this one. The experience of this one sucks! Hope the owner of this location cares about his or her business, improves this business with...

I am writing to file a complaint regarding the handling of my membership freeze and cancellation process, which has caused me significant inconvenience, financial loss, and emotional distress.

In April, I submitted a membership freeze request for June and July, paying the $30 fee ($15/month) as instructed, due to travel plans to Korea. After that, I realized I would not be able to return until after August 15 and requested an additional freeze extension for August.

However, multiple staff members at the Irvine,CA location informed me that they could not process the change and directed me to the main email. After sending several emails, I finally received a response, only to be redirected again to the Irvine manager — who also claimed they couldn’t help.

Subsequently, I received an email from a staff member named Natali asking me to call her. I paid for international calling and called at 3 PM PST, only to be told she was unavailable. Additionally, during this call, I was treated in a racially insensitive manner by the receptionists, which I found deeply upsetting.

I followed up via email again and was told to call back during working hours. When I tried again the following week, I was once again told she was unavailable — only to later discover that Natali works in a different state. I was never informed of her exact location or time zone, which caused confusion and loss of both time and money.

Out of frustration, I requested cancellation of my membership and a refund for the last month, which I have not used due to being abroad. However, I was told that I now “owe” $15 for the August freeze — even though I had already requested it during my frozen period in July — and that no refund will be issued since the cancellation has been processed.

This situation makes no sense:

If my membership is now canceled and cannot be used, why am I being charged for August freeze? If you charge the freeze fee for August, then I should be able to activate and use the last paid month in Aug I requested cancellation during my freeze period — I did not have a chance to use the final month I paid for. I believe I am entitled to a refund for the final month or at least a fair resolution. I would like to escalate this issue to higher management or a corporate-level representative. I am deeply dissatisfied with the lack of clear communication, the unprofessional handling, and especially the discriminatory treatment I experienced.

Please advise me of the correct department or contact to formally escalate...