I remember getting the day I got swindled and harassed into my membership like it was yesterday. I was walking in the mall to pass time between class and a late night soccer game when a guy in front of the gym approached me. Normally I would just nod and keep walking but I felt BAD for them, because NOBODY ever say "Yeah Ill come hear what you have to say," and like I said, I had some time to kill so I figured I would hear what they had to say to humor them and then just leave. Well the guy was very nice, gave me a free 2-week pass, and he showed me around the gym. I was not at all impressed at what I saw and was anxious to leave. So at the last leg of the tour he sat me a table and tried to get me to sign up for a membership. I vehemently said No for the first 20 minutes, I even tried to get up to leave and he blocked my exit. So I sat back down after half an hour of not being allowed to leave and was brought a membership packet to read which promised meal planning, personal training assessment every 3 months, and a personalized fitness plan. All of those were something I was interested in so I finally gave in. So the nice tour guide left and in came this DISGUSTING excuse of a man. He had a thick Boston accent, he was eating a sandwich and had mayo on his mustache, and he was fat. Like a gross fat.--side note: turns out he was the manager, yikes-- He was loud and scary and I was trying to negotiate memberships to get a cheap one and he was so creepy I just started nodding so I could leave ASAP. SO I ended up signing up for a year membership. Left and played my soccer game went to bed.
And immediately the next day I had buyers remorse. I was a first semester grad student with a below-minimum wage job, a gym membership was the last thing I needed. SO there was a clause in the contract and you can cancel within 3 day of signing, IF you do everything the contract says which is:
Send a certified cancellation letter, containing your contract, and your key card to a P.O. Box in Washington DC. Needless to say I didnt expect it to work. Especially after I had googled Ballys and saw some scary things about their business practices. So for about a month I didnt go to the gym at all, but one day I was at the mall with my friend and I stopped by at the desk just to see if I was indeed still a member. I told a white lie and said I lost my key card, not that I sent it in when I tried to cancel my membership. They started to look me up and were giving me a hard time already and my friend was giving it back to them, thank god she was there or I probably would have done something else stupid. So after some lip they gave me a new key card (which I found out 7 months later wasn't even registered to my account, I was literally punching in to nothing. great) and then I had to make an appointment with the personal trainer to be "evaluated" which, was part of the initial agreement I signed so I did, happily, because I wanted someone to motivate me to workout.
The year with my personal trainer came and went and I learned some good new workout ideas such as how to do deadlifts (which I have to admit are my favorite exercise now). My contract was winding down and I brought it up to my trainer that my membership would end before my contract with him would end and his solution was "just let it end and you can pay month to month until ours is up." Um, ok. Our contract was up only a month after my membership was so I started sending off my certified letters (again) that stated "my year-long gym membership is up and I do not wish to renew it. as well as the contract with my trainer." The instructions in my contract and online said to send it to some random PO box in DC and that I would be notified when my membership was canceled....guess what didn't happen? From reading comments on message boards and yelp about the way this company runs I put together that this was going to be harder than sending off two letters, this company wants to leak every penny out of you as possible.
The month that my contract with my trainer was over came and I was getting very anxious because I hadn't heard back from corporate. Then the month ended and I got charged again for a monthly fee and the training fees so this time I called 1-866-402-2559 (member support) and emailed the support team and got this answer "your Ballys is a franchised gym, contact them to cancel your account" aka some local idiot is running this joint and DC can't do anything for me until the idiot gives them the go ahead. Now I had to track down the idiot in charge of upstate NY gyms, it ended up being Syracuse. I called the Syracuse gym and when I told the boy, yes he sounded like he was 12, on the phone what was going on he told me that he would put me on the list for Bob the Accountant to call me back writhing 3 days. 3 days came and Bob never called me back, so I called them and found out Bob only works after 7pm and I'm on the top of his list still. Aka never happening.
Upset and with nowhere else to go I called my trainer and he told me HE NO LONGER WORKED AT MY GYM!!!! I burst into tears and he finally told me to call my gym and talk to "Justin" and he will handle it. It was 3 months after my gym membership was up and 2 after my training one. I called up "Justin" and I told him that my contract I was over, I did what it said: I sent my certified letters to DC, gave a copy to my trainer, even addressed one to my trainer about the training and that I've been trying to get this thing cancelled for 2 months with no luck. (I also stopped going to that gym when my contract was up to prove my point). Justin was the first helpful person in this whole mess. He looked up my account and said "oh yeah you're not active anymore", he removed me from the system and promised
I would be reimbursed for the $$$. I practically could've kissed him through the phone I was so happy! Then he said he would call me back in 2 days and check if I got my money back. Cool, sounds good. Then the next best thing happened: I got a cancellation confirmation email from headquarters the next day and I was on cloud 9. I thought my Ballys nightmare was finally over and I would be one who actually got out...
Justin didn't call me back,
which was ok at the time because it was all worth it just to be done with that mess. I also was never reimbursed. Maybe that should've been my red flag? Well it is now May, this all happened in Dec-Feb. Last night before I went to bed I checked my bank account to see if my paychecks went through and I saw 3 pending payments to Ballys for amounts that I have never paid them before. I was so sick I couldn't fall asleep and I woke up way too early for a Saturday because I'm stressed out about it. I'm calling my bank this morning when they open and going to the gym this afternoon looking for an explanation.
I feel helpless and taken advantage of, I was basically bullied into a membership and I don't even go there anymore and I'm still paying for it. Moral of the story: DONT GO TO BALLYS
