Pure Fitness Columbia, MD — Local services in Columbia

So my girlfriend and I went to this gym on a Saturday. I visited previously by myself and had a great experience and had a great staff member give me a tour of the place. He also gave me a guess pass to workout for the day. Based off that experience I returned with my girlfriend with the expectations to join. This gym is 24hr access and requires a app to scan to gain access. So if you're not currently a member you have to ring a buzzer and wait for someone to come to the door. Well the person that came to the door was not interested in anything we had to say until we told him we were interested in joining today. I explained I had been there previously and wanted to speak to the same gentleman I had spoke to before. He told me he no longer worked there. Which turned out to be inaccurate. My girlfriend has never been to this gym before and was not given the opportunity to even look around or given a tour as I had received. He just wanted to get right to it and try to sell me a membership. Some people are just not customer oriented and should not deal with people on a daily basis. I asked to speak with someone else that was more professional. We ended up speaking to someone that was more customer oriented and took the time to explain things. Even though I was already aware of what they offered. Everyone that works there are Personal trainers. Their goal is to sell of course because that what's going to make them income. Which I understand as a business owner myself. But there should be a little more training involved or maybe that particular individual is just not good with people. I canceled my membership the same day. I decided based of that experience I'd rather spend my money elsewhere. The gym however is very nice and has good equipment and many amenities. It's smaller gym and has a good atmosphere. I would say it's a cross between a smaller version of Plant Fitness and Crunch. If I was going to rate this gym off my first visit I woukd have given them 5 stars. But based of my experience at my second visit I'm giving them a 2 stars. Customer service is...

Unfortunately, I have to give this review. I gave two stars mainly due to inconsistencies with the fitness center. I have only been a member for less than 2 weeks now. The gym has enough equipment and is comfortable to workout, depending on the time you go. Of course, peak hours are overcrowded with younger folks, so I avoid those times. I am frustrated with Pure regarding Instructor-led and digital classes. I have signed up for seven classes throughout the week, and only 3 of those seven classes I attended due to instructors not showing up or conducting class. I understand things happen, but there needs to be more communication about canceled classes either due to low participation, no instructor, or whatever. I received no indicator that a class I booked was not being held. I know everyone is unique and can find other things to do instead, but I rely on classes and a sense of community when working out. I have no idea who the staff is, either. I managed to learn the names and faces of the instructors who actually show up and conduct their classes, and I attend those. 3 out of 7 is ridiculous; that's not even half.

I was frustrated with the digital classes because I tried them and found someone who started their digital class 20 minutes before its start time, so I had to wait. The app/website advertises classes at certain times and days. I have yet to be successful with the gym conducting classes as advertised. So, you will be good if you want to do your own workout. If you're looking for a reliable schedule /classes, look elsewhere.

To end on a positive sign up was easy and i have no issues...

I went during the non-peak hours so that time I think the gym was pretty fine. The amount of weights wasn’t really an issue as there weren’t many people in the gym.

There are a lot of high schoolers that come and hog machines and racks for who knows how long.

Staff members are utterly useless and nonexistent most the time.

There’s always something that’s broken, whether it’d be the machines or even their door

Before the no bag rule, some staff member decided to bother me mid set to remove my bag off the floor, I looked around and there were at-least 7 bags around the floor too. None that were told to remove either.

Good luck going the peak hours, last time I saw it was around 190 people going around 5-6pm.

The only thing that infuriates me is Pure’s cancellation process. They advertise that it’s as simple as clicking a button to cancel but that’s not the case. On their website, under their members area, there’s a cancellation section but it directs you to their live chat. Before you even try cancelling, you have to do it before 7 working days the payment process is due. Even when I talked to their live chat agents, they were unable to do cancel anything on their end. (I had a monthly plus membership) They even go as far to ask me to resort to contacting my bank to take care of it to cancel the agreement. I had to specifically tell them that my bank wouldn’t allow that since it was a mutual agreement between the gym and me, and guess what. After 3 days of non-stop messaging, THEY CANCELLED IT? Why didn’t they do that from the start? This company in...