Anyone got LA Fitness membership A Warning

[Biker Biggles]

Mrs B has been a member of an LA Fitness gym for a few years but stopped going a while back.We decided a couple of months ago to cancel the membership as it wasnt being used,so Mrs B wrote to her bank to cancel the DD and to LA Fitness to cancel membership.The bank duly did their job but a month later we get a sh1tty letter from LA Fitness saying we owe them money for not telling them about the cancellation.Phone calls are made,but they say they didnt get any letter even though the bank got theirs without issue.
We refuse to pay LA Fitness their "payment in lieu of notice" so they get a debt collector to write demanding money plus their fees threatening even higher fees if they take her to court.
Now she will probably pay this to get rid of the hassle,but I just thought Id warn others about this practice of denying reciept of a cancellation.We cant prove we sent it (not recorded delivery)so beware of sharp practice by apparently reputable high street names.

[yorkie_chris]

Is this actually legal?

[Biker Biggles]

You are meant to give a months notice of cancellation of membership,and they are saying we didnt.We cant prove otherwise.Mrs B certainly hasnt used their services for a lot longer than that,so there is no issue about going to the gym during this time and then not wanting to pay,but we really dont need the hassle of debt agencies and county court summonses.I guess they know that,and most people just pay up.
Well worth telling everyone to be on their guard though.

Count yourself lucky, Bannatynes is 3 months. I spent most of last year in hospital then the rest in bad at home and the other half spent all her time visiting or looking after me so neither of us made it or were going to make it to the gym for a long time. Even with letters from the doc to confirm the story do you think they budged one iota on their policy and we'd both been members for a lot of years. Never again will we darken their doors.

[Biker Biggles]

So its a common sharp practice then?What annoys me is that we did cancel properly,but cant prove it so they deny it and seem to win.
We may yet have the last laugh though,as these sort of businesses will be quick to feel the icy chill of the faltering economy.

It's how the gyms make money, if everybody that had a membership turned up on the same day they wouldn't get them all inside the tiny, sweaty, germ infested places. Only a small percentage of the membership actually use the gym regularly, the long cancellation process is designed to be difficult so that people don't cancel due to the hassle.