Kayla Young
Let’s face it, you’ll see the worst aspects of your gym when you try to cancel. Just take a glance at Reddit or Twitter about attempting to cancel gym membership and you’ll find many horror stories about multiple unauthorized charges and threatening letters from collection agencies.
So if you’re a member of Gold’s Gym and are thinking about stopping your membership, then you may be avoiding the confrontation you expect because you just don’t have the bandwidth for the extra hassle in your life.
Read on to find out how to cancel Gold’s Gym membership.
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How to Cancel Gold’s Gym Membership
Over the past few decades, Gold’s Gym has become one of the largest and most popular fitness chains in the United States and beyond. Its corporate headquarters is based in Dallas, Texas, but most of its locations are independently owned. It’s a high quality, family friendly gym focused on traditional exercise and health.
So, even though the terms and conditions are applicable to all Gold’s Gym locations, each franchise has its own rules. This setup can cause some confusion to its members.
There are many reasons why you may need to cancel your Gold’s Gym membership.
On the Move
Perhaps, for example, you are moving away from the area where you hit your local Gold’s Gym. If this is the case, depending on the gym, you will usually have to be moving at least 35 miles away in order to cancel.
And you will need to provide documentation of the move to prove so.
Each location asks for different types of documentation, which confuses the issue even further.
On Leave
What if you need to cancel because of a medical condition or because you’re expecting a baby?
Again, Gold’s Gym will need to see proof of your condition via documentation from your medical physician. You will need to send in your documentation by certified mail to the membership department of Gold’s Gym.
There is no cancellation policy for members of Gold’s Gym as stated on its official website, although the terms of cancellation are written in the fine print on your original membership agreement.
Unless there are extenuating circumstances, most of the time you will need to pay a cancellation fee.
Unless there are extenuating circumstances, most of the time you will need to pay a cancellation fee.
How Binding is My Contract?
When you became a member of Gold’s Gym, the document you signed will most likely have contracted you into a one or two-year membership upon joining.
If you have passed this time allocation, then your membership has probably changed to a month-to-month contract. With luck, you will be able to cancel whenever you wish to.
Sweet!
If your original Gold’s Gym contract period is yet to end, then you will definitely have to pay a cancellation fee to get out of it.
And in general, the only reasons that you will be allowed to do so is because you are moving far away from your branch and are not near another location, or you now have a medical condition that will prevent you from doing physical activity.
If you find your situation lies outside of these two options, then you will most likely be required to continue paying off the remainder of your contract, even if you cancel your contract within the first 30 days of signing your membership agreement.
Gold’s Gym also requires at least a 30-day notice if you want to cancel your membership. And you’ll have to pay until the end of the current billing cycle, which runs between the 12th and the 15th of each month.
So, for example, if you cancel your contract on the last day of the month, you’re going to be liable to pay for the next 45 days, even if you don’t use the facilities.
You will only be able to cancel your Gold’s Gym membership either in person at your local gym or by certified mail.
They don’t want to let you go!
You’ll need to fill out a cancellation form, which you can request in person. Besides the cancellation form, you will also need to supply a statement of intent as to why you want to cancel your membership and outline all the reasons you’re canceling, clearly and concisely.
Make sure that you also follow up with a member of staff to make sure everything is progressing as it should.
You should do this after about two weeks.
If you’ve had problems getting your Gold’s Gym membership canceled, then it’s worth thinking about filing a complaint with the Better Business Bureau, or BBB. The BBB keeps businesses accountable by helping customers with reporting disputes, complaints, frauds, scams, and sub-standard behavior.
It also acts as a middleman to help with the resolution of any problems between the customer and business. On the BBB website, Gold’s Gym scores anywhere from an A- to F for its practices, depending on the franchise location. The BBB promotes best practices, educating and engaging both consumers and companies.
As mentioned above, Gold’s Gyms are franchises, and different owners have different levels of responsibility and quality.
Another tactic you can use is Twitter or TikTok, especially if you’ve been having trouble getting a response.
In general, companies do not like it when they are called out for unscrupulous business practices, especially when they have the potential for going viral and it can damage their reputation further.
So if you have to, you can take your story to social media.
What If That Doesn’t Work?
If you feel that you may have already been scammed out of payments that you haven’t authorized, then you can get help from a company like DoNotPay. DoNotPay has helped many former Gold’s Gym members sue in small claims court to get a resolution to their problem.
DoNotPay can support any consumer from getting taken advantage of and will even help you cancel any other subscriptions or services. Get all the legal access you need in less than two minutes.
So now you know how to cancel your Gold’s Gym membership with the minimum amount of hassle. You don’t need to be taken for a ride if your reasons are valid and true.
