Fitness 19 — Local services in Orange

1 star based on customer service of alleged [General Manager of Fitness 19 Orange, Leroy Gonzales].

I called on 8/13/25 to ask for an email address to send a cancellation notice and was told by him, "You can't cancel in writing, you need to come in and do it to sign documents." I asked to confirm that there is absolutely no way to cancel without going in because I now live 2 1/2 hours away. He confirms. I question the membership agreement that states I can cancel in writing by postage or email, and why he's telling me I cannot do so if it's in writing. His attitude changed VERY QUICKLY and said, "Well if you already know then just email...it's in your agreement. Look at your agreement and do what it says." I asked to confirm that the email address in my agreement is correct as it's been many years since I signed up. He consistently avoided telling me the email address and kept referring me to "just look at the agreement and it's there..." instead of confirming yes or no that it is still a valid email address for this particular gym. Finally after a couple minutes of back and forth he confirms the email address as fast as he can and hangs up immediately after, not allowing me to say another word or ask any other questions.

I called today 9/17/25 to ask why there are is another charge to my account after receiving the cancellation confirmation email a month prior. Yes it was the same person, General Manager Leroy Gonzales as he stated, "Yes I'm the one who actually processed it" (and the email provides the said name and title). He explains, "Cancellations do not take affect until 30 days after receiving the request, so the charge is valid." I didn't remember this detail (although it may be correct), and said oh okay I'll have to read the agreement again to confirm this as I didn't remember it. He smacks his lips over the phone, condescendingly laughs and hangs up.

-The customer service received from this general manager is absolutely unacceptable. I kept my membership active and gave them free money for years without attending this gym during my 3 years masters program. Yet, he throws a tantrum over a cancellation, and then gets riled up even more after being called out on something he lied about (cannot cancel in writing). In my opinion, the general manager of this Fitness 19 (Orange, CA) facility has very poor emotional control, has poor communications skills as he talks over you to get his point across without listening, cutting me off mid-sentence, and is in no position to lead a team of employees. I hope this email reaches higher ups, and I'll be seeking out contact information to certainly let the higher ups know about the treatment I received by this person. If the person I spoke with over the phone twice (and received an email from) is not Leroy Gonzales, I apologize, but this person is claiming to be Leroy and is sending emails from...

Beware! They make it next to impossible to cancel. They will continue to charge your card long after you cancel and fight you tooth and nail to keep charging your card. They will also manage to somehow get your new card number when you get a new card, even though you didn't give it to them. They will go out of their way to get your new number even though you made it perfectly clear you're not interested in the service anymore and will not use it. We had to get the bank to block Fitness 19 from charging our account after we submitted documentation proving we took all of the correct steps to cancel. They will also throw family members onto your card and will refuse to cancel without the physical presence of said family, even though it's YOUR debit card, not your family member's. We moved out of state and had no way to fix it in person, but they still insisted on it. Their policies are convoluted and just plain stupid to make it impossible to cancel.

Edit: We did cancel in person. A family member was on the account and instead of canceling everything, which is what we wanted, he was kept on the account. We weren't aware of this until after we moved and saw continuing charges months and months after we cancelled. He wasn't paying for the service, we were and we weren't allowed to recancel the service without his presence, which was ridiculous because it wasn't his bank card to begin with. What became frustrating was that when this happened, we went back and forth through multiple phone calls over the course of weeks to fix it. We tried to work it out with the company. Nothing happened and we had to have our bank stop all payments. The bank refunded us our money. Fitness 19 tried to claim we owed them more money after the bank put a stop to their charges. This was even after all of the contact we had with Fitness 19 to cancel, even getting mail notifying us of what we "owed" them to our new out of state address! We were given the run around and it was clear this was a purposeful, forceful business practice to keep members, whether they want to be...

tldr: They're still charging me months after I quit and complained.

When I first started my membership at this Fitness 19 I was happy with everything. Great people working there, great equipment and machines, and the row of TVs that you can plug a headset into your machine and hear the one you want. All great! I also got in early so the my monthly due was low.

Over a year later though, the place gets really busy around the time I'd be able to go after work. Not there fault, all gyms suffer from this when they get popular. What I have an issue with was when I tried to QUIT Fitness 19.

Everyone is nice and smiles to get you in, but they gave me so much crap for trying to quit my membership. I made time to go down there and quit my membership, and the everyone there kept asking me "Why are you ending your membership?" Does it matter? It's my money and I don't need to explain myself to end a membership. So after 10 minutes of literally "So why are you quitting?" "Does it matter? End my membership." "..but why" "End my membership" "I'm only trying to help you" "End my membership" I was nice at first but it was getting so ridiculous I stopped being friendly and just replied to everything with "end my membership"

So I'm not that strong willed, and I hate to admit it, but I gave in when he said I can put a freeze on my membership. Up to 3 months, no payment, gives me times to figure out if I want to come back, etc. So he gets out the paperwork and fills all this stuff out and tells me to sign, good thing I read it before signing though, he only wrote 2 months instead of 3, and that I would still pay half my membership even though I couldn't use the facilities while my membership was frozen. I point this out and he acts like "oops, you're right, I meant three months" "..and no payment" "Right, no payment, not half, let me just change that"

In the end: it's been 2 months and they STILL charged my account for both months.

I'd give them a 1 star, but the facility itself is great. The people though, friendly to your face but snakes when your...