Gold's Gym — Attraction in Rock Hill

AVOID THIS GYM. My review is going to be long, but read this before you consider a membership here!

My experience at this gym has been bad from the start.

First of all, upkeep of the gym. I signed up for Golds Gym in Rock Hill back in July of 2020 when I moved here from Arizona. I noticed on our tour, one of the fluorescent lights by the treadmills was flickering, but I didn't think much of it. 4 months later, that light is still buzzing and flickering. I come work out every morning at 5am and get ready in the locker room for work. Two of the four fluorescent lights by the sinks in the locker room have been out for at least a month and the soap dispensers are always out and rarely changed. On weekends I come in during staffed hours, and I have never seen any of the staff doing any cleaning, and they don't enforce the mask rule. They only sit at the desk on their phones and barely notice when someone walks up to them for help.

Most recently, there have been two incidents that have completely turned me off. There is one female trainer who I see every morning when I'm in the locker room, we usually share a polite hello and that's it. On election day, she came in and went on a religious tirade about how if one of he candidates wins, the world is going to end (according to her pastor). She went on for about 5 minutes and I felt absolutely backed into a corner and was astonished by the lack of professionalism.

All of that aside, what happened to me this weekend was the absolute last straw. Saturday morning, my boyfriend, best friend (who is not a member), and myself walked into Golds Gym just as their staffed hours were starting at 8AM. Their doors were still locked, so we buzzed in with my boyfriends key fab. When my boyfriend and I signed up for the gym, we were told that with our family plan, we had guest privilege's. So he buzzed in, and we walked into the gym. We were stopped by desk staff who explained that I had to register my guest and pay a $15 fee. I apologized for the misunderstanding and got my guest registered and charged the fee to my account. She also had to check me in which was no big deal. When we signed up, it was my understanding we had a family plan and only needed the one fab, but again that was a misunderstanding, so I was happy to sign in. All of that aside, we worked out, and about an hour later I got an email from the General Manager, Quaden Lee stating that I broke the rules and my account will be SUSPENDED until I pay a $100 fee. I spoke to Quaden and explained it was all a misunderstanding, a desk attendant explained everything to me, I got signed in, and paid for my guest, so no rules were broken and there must have just been a hiccup in communication. Quaden proceeds to tell me "you didn't know you had to check in a guest, what do you think this is, planet fitness?". I've simply never brought a guest to the gym before and thought I had guest privilege's. He proceeds to tell me "you never had guest privilege's so don't try to lie. you broke the rules and stole money from the company by not checking in when you come in". Not only was Quaden hostile over the phone, but he accused me of stealing when I pay my dues on time every month. So I'm being charged $100 for ACCIDENTALLY breaking a rule.

Quaden's story changed from "you almost didn't sign in and tried to bring in a guest so because of that you are being charged" to "you paid for your guest so that's irrelevant, you're being charged because you come in every morning and don't sign in at the front desk, you just key in with your boyfriends key fab". So not only can Quaden not keep his story straight, it is my impression he just wants money.

On top of that, over the phone he told me if I wasn't happy with this policy, I could cancel my membership for $500+. He is all but pushing me out the door of this gym. He then proceeds to tell me he "doesn't care if he loses two members and a potential member (my friend who joined us) because that's what it takes to enforce policy".

This gym and their staff DO NOT...

I signed up for a membership with Gold's Gym over the holidays, postponing its start date to April 1, because their new gym was to be open in late January, early February, and I wanted to wait until the "dust settled," so to speak. In early April, I expressed my dismay to the management and was told that the new place would be open in late April. Well, it's May, and the place is still not open. At the time I was sold this membership, one of the big things that interested me was the travel arrangements. I travel a lot, and I was encouraged that my Gold's Gym membership would provide me access to clubs in a lot of the cities I travel to. In fact, the closest club they have to me in the Orlando area is in Altamonte and is about an hour away; the only club near Denver is in Aurora, way out east on 225, and in Atlanta there's not a single gym anywhere within the beltway... the closest one to me (near the airport) is in Stockbridge. So, the local gym not opening is a lie. That I can conveniently use other Gold's locations is a lie. I worked out there for the first time today, and I can honestly say that I have NEVER tried to work out somewhere so ill-equipped and full of rude people. And apparently, NOBODY works the floor there. I was there in the early evening (prime workout time-- the place was fairly busy) and there was NOBODY but a couple people at the front desk. There was only one station in the whole place to do seated cable rows, and someone was using it and another person was waiting. There is no power rack, and I couldn't find any safe place for me to do bent-over rows, so I opted to at least do dumbbell rows, and two guys were basically hogging the only 3 benches in the free weight area. I didn't see anyone taking any care to keep things clean. The locker room had benches way out in the middle of the floor, not within reach of the lockers, ... I am apparently stuck paying $40 a month for this crap for a year now. I can't seem to get any consideration from the management. And now there's an LA Fitness under construction in Rock Hill-- from personal experience, I will quickly say that it's a MUCH better gym-- and I am stuck in an unhappy situation instead. Why am I paying for a state-of-the-art health club when what's being delivered (apparently indefinitely) is a "preview center" that is not even close to comparable to a Planet Fitness a mile away that is only $10 a month with no joining fee and...

My family was scammed by this gym. My mother has a long-term membership at this gym. For my birthday, my mother paid for a membership for me that was 3 months, then a month that we were on vacation (meaning that we are not going to pay for this month, that was the contract), and then another 3 months(with each month costing $30). My first 3 months have already expired, and we are back from vacation, so today I was supposed to start the rest of the membership. When I walked in with my mom, she had asked the workers at the front desk to reactivate the membership. They told us that we had never even paid for the other three months that we had paid for. And news to us, they had charged us $60 a month, which was not what we had agreed on. So to summarize, they scammed us entirely. And to add on to that, a manager from this gym called to try to sort things out. The manager was so rude and condescending and completely full of nonsense. And to add on even more, the manager had said that they can just charge people who are paying for a membership more than other people for no reason. For example, my mom's membership is $29 a month (the reason that is not $30 is because she has a long term membership) and for my membership I was being charged $60 a month. Seems unfair, right? And to add on EVEN MORE, the first day that I had used my gym membership, my mother and I talked to the workers at the front desk and confirmed that the deal of three months, a break, and then three more months was absolutely clear, even though we had already checked several times before that. And the lady who we had checked with on that day, didn't seem to remember that we had made the deal when we spoke to her today.According to them, it wasn't in the system. Everyone who had "tried to help us", were either lying or the system is horrible, but one thing is for sure, they were all not helpful, and scamming us of our money. If you want to use this gym, just be mindful that there is a big possibility that you might be scammed. And just so you know, the gym is REFUSING to give us a refund, when we were wrongfully charged. And another fact that is important, they had fired the man who signed me up in the first place, and claimed that they had deleted his number. This is a warning to people who are looking to sign up for this gym and a way to hopefully find someone at the gym to be reasonable and help us. If I could, I would rate this 0 stars, but too bad...