LA Fitness — Attraction in Kearny

I walked into LA Fitness at 1:20 PM with one goal: cancel my $50/month membership that I’ve been consistently paying. I was told the manager would arrive at 2:00 PM, so I returned at that time. Upon coming back, I was then told she’d be another 10–15 minutes. Already off to a rocky start, but I waited.

When the manager (Amy) finally arrived, I was never greeted. She never introduced herself, acknowledged my presence, or gave any update about the cancellation process. I was left to sit there, completely in the dark, while she casually walked around the gym floor, chatting, scrolling on her phone, and doing everything but her job. I asked the front desk twice when I would be helped, and both times they didn’t have a direct answer.

One of the front desk staff, Angel, eventually told me that the manager "is just like that" and tends to not acknowledge clients. Excuse me? That’s unacceptable. I am a paying customer. And to be told her complete lack of professionalism is “just how she is” was infuriating.

Things only got worse when Amy proceeded to assist a man who had just walked in — someone whose membership had been canceled for nonpayment. I had been waiting over 20 minutes, yet she prioritized someone who hadn’t paid in months. That was the final straw.

I approached her directly and asked if she was the manager. She said yes, but still gave no explanation, no timeline, no assurance, no apology — nothing. I had to be the one to ask why I hadn’t been spoken to, why I wasn’t informed, why no one seemed to care that I was there. Her response? A shrug of responsibility and a weak deflection: “I’m not the one who’s attending you.” Excuse me — you’re the manager, that is your job; to attend and give answers where your employees can’t .

When I calmly pressed her again, she told Angel that she had already informed the staff in the back that I was “yelling.” I was stunned. I was not yelling — not even close. When I called her out on that lie, she laughed it off and said, “Yeah, yeah, I know you weren’t — I just said that so he’d come faster.”

Let’s be clear: lying about a client’s behavior — especially to escalate or manipulate a response — is unprofessional, inappropriate, and absolutely disrespectful. That moment cemented the fact that they don’t care about people, just money.

Eventually, someone from the back came to actually cancel my membership. In the privacy of that cubicle, I explained how completely uncomfortable and disrespected I felt by Amy’s conduct. He agreed it was unacceptable and told me he’d escalate it to her superior and correct her behavior.

When I returned to the front, I informed her superior that she had lied to her staff about me yelling. Amy then snickered — yes, snickered — at me in front of her staff Angel, and her superior. After all the waiting, dismissiveness, and blatant disrespect, that mocking laugh was the final slap in the face.

To sum it up:

I was never greeted or acknowledged by the manager. I was lied about and dismissed. I was left waiting while others were prioritized. I had to chase updates and advocate for myself. And worst of all, I was treated like a nuisance — not a paying client. This experience showed me exactly what LA Fitness cares about: not its people, not its service, but your money. The moment you're not profitable, you're ignored. Amy, as a manager, failed on every level — and if LA Fitness doesn't hold its leadership to a higher standard, it reflects poorly on the entire brand.

I will never recommend this location to anyone. And if you're reading this, know that there are countless other gyms out there that will treat you with the basic dignity and professionalism that every paying client deserves. I’d give zero stars if I could.

Learn how to conduct yourself with people Amy especially...

I have been a member of LA Fitness for over 6 years and I must say that my experience with your service has been completely disappointing from the very beginning. I started my membership at LA Fitness Kearny before they even opened. My family and I signed up when the gym was still under construction and they were signing up people in front of the building in a tent outside. When I subscribed to your gym I was promised a Sauna - something that, to this day, has not come to fruition. When the Kearny gym finally opened up they were allowing Kearny members to visit nearby gyms for free because of the missing Sauna. After a few months of that, the benefit randomly got revoked. When I tried to visit other gyms they soon ask me to pay a small fee to get in. At first, that wasn't an issue but I soon saw that the sales employees advertise false promises to sign up customers.

The false promises became relevant to me when my girlfriend who decided to subscribe to the sister gym (LA Fitness Secaucus) was guaranteed that if she signed up she would be able to bring a guest to her gym. This was not an “official guest pass” but it was just a promise made by the manager who claimed he would “let it slide if she brought someone else”. The first week that worked but soon after it was flagged and she could no longer bring a guest.

Now the problems do not stop there. The gym’s water fountains are constantly poorly maintained and the red light is always flashing - indicating that the filter must be changed out. But they never do. The gym often gets excruciating hot to the point where the floor becomes slippery from the condensation. I don't see why they refuse to turn on the AC once the temperature gets above room temperature.

All of these problems I have turned a blind eye to, avoiding them for years. However, for the last 3 weeks, we have had a problem that I just can not let slide. The gym has had NO PINS on their machines making them completely inoperable. When I asked an employee about the pins, he turned around stomped his feet, screamed “this is why I'm going to quit” and walked away. Furthermore; the gym has NO BARS on the bench machines. How are we supposed to work out? At this point, it feels like we only have dumbbells - but even those are in shortage. Even before all the pins went missing and we could use the cable machines there were no attachments. How can you do flys when there is only one useable handle attachment?

All in all my experience has been very frustrating, especially the last couple of days. I am wondering if we can please have LA Fitness Kearny under advance supervision from corporate because its staff and management have been doing a horrible job. I tried canceling my membership once and they said it was only possible during the weekdays from 10-4, making it impossible for customers, who work a regular 9 to 5, to cancel.

I have attached photos to this email to serve...

I have been coming here for 2 and a half years and it just seems that this specific LA Fitness finds ways to get worse. The staff has always been friendly since I started coming here, but the turnover rate here seems astonishingly high, possibly worse than your typical Auto Zone. I know many people couldn’t care less, but if you think about it, having long-term employees is what often brings new customers in and keeps them long-term. Those are the same people that make ones visit to the gym a bit more pleasant and in this case it feels like every six months, this gym has an entirely new staff. Only a few employees are still here from when I started here. Well it makes you wonder why, maybe the employees just aren’t happy, maybe upper management isn’t so good, or they’re treat the employees like they’re a dime a dozen. In some cases, I have seen how hard employees push customers to sign up for personal training, and it also gives you the idea maybe they’re letting people based on their personal training sales numbers, again all speculation, but possible. I have also noticed that it seems that they can’t even keep a big enough maintenance staff to keep only men in the men’s locker room, and only women in the women’s locker room, I mean at least they always put up the sign in front of the locker room, but still. Next issue, there always seems to be machines, bathroom stalls, or water fountains down, often all three at one time. Seems they should get a repairman that works specifically here. This one might be simply user error, as most people here seem to treat equipment like it hasn’t no value. I often have to go and find dumbbells as I like every other gym I’ve ever been to, the dumbbells are scattered all through the gym and when placed on racks, they’re not where they’re numerically designated. Employees have to start monitoring members, if they can’t learn how to treat gym equipment they should lose their membership, simple. Customers first, but if it gets to a point where other customers are getting sick of it, those customers have to go, because they might just lose the good customers and for good reason. Normal gyms, kick people out on the first strike, this place has no strikes, they seem to think they can make everyone happy and in this case, I, just like many other members aren’t happy. If management doesn’t want to take care of the problems here, hire new...