The Zoo Health Club Manchester — Local services in Manchester

Where to start. I tried cancelling in Oct. of 2019 Didnt hear from Scott until Feb. of 2020 and that was me making several request to have him contact me. I dropped off two doctors notes. One stated I was to be excused from my gym membership due to my illness and one stated my illness was chronic and prevented me from working out for periods of times and no recovery was expected. Mind you the contract only states DEATH or DISABILITY. The very definition of Disability is, a physical or mental condition that limits a persons movements, senses, or activities. LIMITS being the key word. My condition did this. Scott started using terms that was not in the contract like, "permanently disabled", "to perform daily activities without help." Also anyone going through this with them, the contract also goes against HIPAA. You do not have per law give a detailed description of your health condition. I was asked for this and I refused. And when he told me I was confused on how a medical cancelation worked and he didnt have to get back to me in a timely fashion because there were others ahead of me, ok? Almost 5months later? Lets discuss how when I went in to try to talk to him face to face because emailing was not working. He gave me days he might be at the gym, I went in, he was not there, I got Nicole instead even though I still thought Scott was driving in. I asked Nicole two or three questions before she threatened to call the cops on me, a paying member. Here are the questions.... what is your policy in getting back to members who are trying to cancel? And why has Scott not answered this question? I cant remember the other one. She basically said i would have to ask him, and I have to leave. I hugged my friend I was already talking to at the desk as I left. I told Scott about this exchange and I was met with an all caps email, at times, telling me my vulgar behavior would not be tolerated, yelling at members of the gym and or staff I think. What? I knew this member, we used to work together. Thats why we were talking, we were catching up. Ok, so no support there. I digress. There were times he told me to just pay the 149.95 to cancel. This was in both Feb and March. Thats more than what I owed minus the 25% cancellation fee. Isnt that against the contract? Mind you I signed up in May of 2019. Finally I signed a freeze form. Lets put a pause on the drama. The picture is the email exchange of me just trying to get a signed copy from him in a timely matter. I dont understand the difficulty of wanting a signed copy for my records. One reviewer stated she was told twice her account was frozen but money was still being taken out. Yah, I want that signed copy for my records. The rudeness from him in those email exchanges. I moved out of state in March of 2020. and again tried to cancel my membership with the contract guidelines. I emailed Scott again and said I moved out of state but because of the pandemic the DMV will not let me change my drivers license until its expires which is Aug. my membership expires in May. Im in a roommates situation so I cannot get bills in my name, and since im looking for apts. Im not getting put on the lease. He would not except my work ID and letter of acceptance, even though we were in the middle of a pandemic. I told him to stop emailing me. The kicker is when they sent my bill to collections it was for 465. 65$. Thats more than what I owed for my yearly membership, which I obviously paid on. But you can fight them. I called corporate three times, talked to legal. I emailed the owner Julian, he obviously didnt respond to me. I called corporate again and said look even though its a franchise your still responsible for them to a degree otherwise there wouldnt be a corporate office or a legal department, told them about my doctors notes. She told me to email her a copy of them and my experience plus what the fake lawyer/debt collectors office said. The next thing I know Julian emailed me and said my account has been cancelled and taken out of collections. FIGHT...

warning: they will do their best to prevent you from leaving. I've had a membership here since 2014. I signed a 12-month contract that expired summer 2015, and was told I can cancel "whenever I want" after it expired. I'm now in the final stages of closing on a house that's out of reasonable driving range for a gym visit (and has room to set up my own little workout space), so I called to cancel my membership. I was told by the gentleman who answered the phone that "you can only cancel in person or via a certified letter". Now this is just absurd, and the only logical reason is to make it difficult to leave. It's an intentionally anti-consumer practice to try and build revenue from subscribers who do not actually use their facilities. I'd like to note here that I have no contract at this point, and am paying the normal rate. Any argument that this is "for consumer benefit" to prevent someone other than the member from cancelling without permission is an outright lie. All I would have to do would be sign back up and I'd be right back where I was.

The facilities were nice. They were always clean, and had options for free weights and machines. I just think that their cancellation policy gives some insight into what they actually think of their members... profit will always come first.

edit: I got in contact with Julian at the Concord location (see reply) and was able to work this out. He was very helpful and explained that the in-person or certified mail cancellation requirement is a franchise (Zoo Health Club) not franchisee (Zoo Health Club: Manchester) policy. As a result of his assistance I have added a few stars onto the original review. I am still not giving it a full 5 stars because the original point that this is an anti-consumer policy still stands, and perhaps this will spread the word a bit better than nestling it somewhere in the initial agreement. I absolutely appreciate Julian reaching out and allowing me to cancel via phone, but it should not require public shaming and a very helpful local franchisee to make this happen.

I also fixed some dates/contract details in the original review for accuracy.

P.S. I would also like to call out the flaw in the "it's an industry standard" argument that was provided. This is just an example of an argumentum ad populum logical fallacy. "everyone does it so it must be right". Another classic example would the the cable industry's tendency to add unannounced fees to your cable bill... a practice so widely acknowledged to be predatory that it was just banned by the federal government in a bipartisan bill. Instead of following the pack, be the company to stand out with consumer-friendly account management. Allow cancellation by phone, or dare I say... the internet? Perhaps in 2020 accepting a mode of communication that was invented sometime in the last century would be smart. I just managed to get a mortgage entirely online, yet I'm expected to send a letter via snail mail to cancel my gym...

I used to go to this location when it was fit lab, I was excited to see that it was the zoo who took it over because I had heard a bunch of good things from friends who Had been going to zoo since it opened in Derry. Everything was great, and then the pandemic hit, at which time I made the decision to stop going. I obviously had a year contract so continued to get charged the remainder of the year. Towards the end of the year I knew my contract was about to be up and I wanted to cancel it so I started emailing and trying to get in touch with someone at the Goffstown location, I didn’t hear back from anyone until about a month later when I finally got someone on the phone who told me that I needed to come in to cancel. I ended up having family members with Covid and one of them passing away during this time and myself was exposed and had to quarantine so I did not have the option to get to the location to cancel or to the post office to send the certified letter. Once my quarantine was over I went into the location (during the time I was told a person would be there) and I waited for 45 minutes for the front desk girl to show up. When she showed up finally I told her I would like to cancel and she had difficulty pulling up my account at which time she told me that the original fit lab accounts were all messed up and then she assured me that she found my account and told me that my account was already canceled and my contract was over so I wouldn’t be charged again but we can fill out the cancellation form just to make sure. So I filled out the cancellation form and I asked if I was going to be charged again at least three different times and I was reassured that I would not be charged again because my account was canceled and my contract was done and that was it. So I left there thinking it was all taken care of only to be charged again for February. I spoke with Scott who explained to me that he has no idea why I was told any of that and that she must’ve been looking at someone else’s account, because my account was not closed and my contract was not over. I explained to him what happened and also that I had not been able to get there any sooner because of being exposed to Covid and quarantining etc. I would’ve at least appreciated an an apology for having to wait for 45 minutes until one of their employees actually showed up, or some type of explanation as to why I was told completely wrong information especially considering the amount of money that I have spent on the membership without even going there during the pandemic. Maybe update the hours that are posted for the business if you’re not going to have someone there. Or give the option to cancel electronically especially considering the fact that people have to quarantine during the coronavirus pandemic and are unable to get there out of...