The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) filed a lawsuit against the operators of LA Fitness on Wednesday, alleging the popular gym chain makes the process of canceling memberships too difficult for consumers.
“The FTC’s complaint describes a scenario that too many Americans have experienced – a gym membership that seems impossible to cancel,” Bureau of Consumer Protection Director Christopher Mufarrige said in a statement, noting “tens of thousands of LA Fitness customers reported difficulties.”
“The FTC will not hesitate to act on behalf of consumers when it believes companies are stifling consumers’ ability to choose which recurring charges they want to keep,” he continued.
LA Fitness did not immediately respond to request for comment.
The complaint was filed in federal court in the Central District of California against Fitness International LLC and Fitness & Sports Clubs LLC. The companies operate gyms including LA Fitness, Esporta Fitness, City Sports Club and Club Studio, covering more than 600 locations and more than 3.7 million members.
The gym memberships cost anywhere from $30 to $299 per month and often involve annual fees. To cancel, LA Fitness requires consumers to go to the gym in person or send a cancellation notice by mail.
But the FTC says it’s not that simple. In the complaint, the FTC outlines the “opaque and complicated methods” that LA Fitness allegedly uses to “to make it extremely difficult for consumers to cancel their memberships.”
First, consumers must print out cancellation forms by logging into its website. If consumers forget their log-in credentials, LA Fitness requires them to provide a “key tag” number assigned to them at sign-up and to provide the first five digits of their credit card or bank account number to reset the account.
They do not tell consumers, according to the FTC, that members have the option of submitting a written cancellation notice, nor did they specify what that request should include. The gyms also told consumers that the mail-in cancellations should be sent by certified or registered mail, according to the FTC.
When consumers tried to cancel in person, the FTC said, they similarly faced obstacles.
Members could only cancel with one specific employee — even though several were authorized to oversee cancellations — and only during designated hours when most people were working—even though most locations were open for 19 hours a day, according to the FTC.
The FTC further alleges that LA Fitness has “trained staff to reject escalated requests and to deny cancellations requested by phone or email, reiterating that all cancellations must be done in person with one specific employee or by mail.”
“Consumers who try to cancel their memberships by stopping charges to their bank or credit card find they are rebilled, often under new account numbers,” the FTC said.
The FTC says these practices violate the FTC Act and the Restore Online Shoppers’ Confidence Act and it is seeking money back for consumers allegedly harmed by the practices.
