LA Fitness — Attraction in Royal Oak

So this club charges you an additional fee for being a "signature club" as a signature Club it provided you with the following:

Towels (nasty because everyone is using them and they are being constantly laundered...one hopes)

Shower and soap in the showers... That's it!

Essentially it's a money grab for locations they think are most convenient and they want to charge extra for with same or fewer services they offer at other locations.

If you ever get tired of a membership and want to cancel these are your options:

Mail a cancellation form that you print from their website. (They suggest it be certified. Which means that not only will have to do that you will also need to go to the post office). The mere fact that they are saying they suggest certified mail makes me think they will overlook regular mail.

Go into the gym and speak to a manager who will try to high pressure you into staying in the club. You cannot cancel over the phone or online, of course that would mean people would cancel their membership easily and when they would like. Unfortunately though, they like to suck as much money out of you as they can. Did I mention that the manager you can cancel with is available 9-5pm? That’s right so if you work a 9-5 job and want to cancel, you will mostly likely have to take time off work.

The problem is when one is signing up for a gym membership; one never considers that they will quit that membership. However, one should think about possibly moving or finding a better and cheaper gym.

The signature club that I am currently a member is the gym in Royal Oak, MI. Notice that I said that I am currently a member of this gym, which is because I have been unsuccessful in cancelling so far!

Furthermore, I called in my gym to ask them if I can come in and cancel at the location and before I even got a word out of my month, the manager I was speaking with me got rude and starting telling me that she will hang up on me, unless I have another question to ask. To which I retorted “I have some feedback I would like for you to pass on to your managers,” very calmly. She then YELLED back and cut me off and told me “she will hang up on me, if I did not have other questions.” In between yelling at me and threatening to hang up she also told me that, I actually cannot even come into that particular location (the Royal Oak, MI gym that I signed up for membership) to cancel the membership! Her explanation was that they currently do not have a manager so no one can cancel their membership at this club because she did not have a cancellation code! She said that I can either send in the certified mail or go to another location.

So this is where I am at, still paying the 35.95 a month after paying a hundreds of dollars in the initiation fee, and no real way to cancel instead of dedicating some time off to do it to either go to a post office or a LA Fitness during business hours! Here is my advice save your money there are plenty of other gyms that will charge you less and let you cancel a lot easier than this gym will. There is a reason why this gym has so many reviews and a 2 star rating! Save yourself the time money and energy. Find a better place to...

HIGH PRESSURE, INSENSITIVE SALES MANAGER: I took a tour today of the facility and was very impressed with the equipment and list of classes that it boasted. Max was the person who did my tour. He was very friendly, warm and patient. However, my experience fell apart in the sales portion. Anthony, the sales manager, went through the prices with me. First, during initial chat he asked me about fitness goals. I told him that I wanted to strengthen my back as I am getting physical therapy for it. He asked how I injured it. I told him that I think it was work related as I sit for long periods of time as a child trauma therapist. He said, "You know that you never should lift kids with your back, you have to use your legs. " I could tell that he was not listening to me or did not know what a trauma therapist did.

Second, I got price shock. The membership was more than the $30 a month that I expected and heard advertised. He explained that it was actually $299 down and $30/month thereafter. There were other plans. The least expensive 1 year, monthly plan required $99 down, $44 first and last month up front, and then $44 per month. You also had the option to pay up front for the year. More than what I expected, but not horrible. The bottom line: $188 to enroll today.

I told him that I could not pay the $188 today as I only had my debit card and not my credit card. He said, "How could you come into the gym and not bring anything with you." I replied that this was not the pricing that I expected and would have had enough cash to cover the advertised amount. It told him that I did not feel comfortable doing that today and prefered to wait until later that week. I told him that I could not. I also wanted to read through the contract as I had bad experiences before with gym memberships. He was trying to speed me through it and I told him that he was going too fast. He then broke down the different price structures. However, the more he talked, the more uncomfortable I felt. He was speedy to print out contracts before I had a clear idea of what I wanted. He said, can you put 25% down today. I told him no and that I did not feel comfortable with him. He tore up the contract and I left.

This was a very unpleasant experience. Anthony's manner of dealing with customers is offensive and insensitive. I went online to find the club's contact information to make the report to the manager. I called and the service rep said that she was not there. I asked if there is another manager on duty, and she said, "The weekend manager, Anthony." I declined.

While online I read the reviews. THANK YOU FOR POSTING THEM. The sales manager actually did me a favor by turning me off from the gym. It sounds as if insensitivity and promising more that what it can deliver is a standard practice. Well, I will just stick with my Planet Fitness Membership for the time being. At least no one there has ever made a rude comment to me because they could not get...

This is the most horrible gym I have ever been to. Not only were the sales/customer service employees rude and disrespectful, but so was management.

The gym is out of date. One or more machines were broken. The locker room was disgusting, especially the showering area.

I highly recommend that you go to a different gym. Seriously, I could list a lot of things they did that were horrible to me. But honestly everyone else's reviews on here explain the atmosphere and conditions at this location.

I ignored the reviews because this location was on my way to work each morning and I thought it would be a perfect fit for me. I was WRONG and this is not worth it!

Only some of the issues:

1. sales person I worked with was on his cell phone the entire time, did not offer to show me around the gym, when I asked to look around, he nodded at the machines and said "yeah go ahead" so I walked around by myself.

2. when I signed up I was told I would get 1 free training session. I used it and said I was not ready to make a commitment because I did not think I could afford it. The trainer told me he would sign me up to see how I felt about it for one month, no commitment. I tried it out for 3 days and had to call and let him know that although it was nice- I could not afford it because I needed a new car for work.

Not only did he never return my calls, no one from the sales team did. I finally had to call (repeatedly Because I was getting hung up once was I was transferred to the sales team) the reason I had to repeatedly call was because when the front desk person transferred my call, the sales person would pick up and hang up on me. The front desk person would apologize and finally said after multiple times " he will not talk to you" . I had told the front desk person why I was calling each time I called. I was calling to make sure they knew I wasn't signed up for personal training because no one had gotten back to me and my card was charged for it already.

She said I was signed up and that if I wanted to cancel there would be a buyout!!!! I did not sign anything! So I started going in repeatedly to try to cancel. They kept telling me that I couldn't cancel with out paying the buyout. And that no one was available that did cancellations. DO NOT GO here!!! Do not even use your free session! Somehow that equals consent to personal training!

3. by the way I am still trying to cancel my personal training! Today 10-29-16 just called again to set up a meeting to cancel and was rudely hung up on 3 times in a row. Finally the front desk girl told me that I had to come in Monday through Friday 9-5. I asked why the sales person would not talk to me and she said I don't know but I'm sorry (while giggling). Apparently I can't even make an appointment to eventually see someone to cancel it. I work during the week so I needed an appt.

Seriously save your wallet, save your sanity and go to a...