Complaint Review: Bally Total Fitness - Norwalk California

I had joined Bally's on April 30th along with a friend of mine. They had an offer going on at that time where there was no long term contract involved and so you could cancel your membership at any time. Now when we spoke to the sales guy, he told us that one of us had to buy the membership and that we could use only one credit card to pay and could not use our individual credit card to pay our individual amount, inorder to avail the offer. My friend was the buyer and so it was his credit card that would be charged and I was the primary member on the contract. When I joined I specifically told the sales guy that I needed the membership for 2 months only that is for the months of May and June. He said that wasn't a problem and I just had to tell them a month before I had to leave inorder to cancel. He made it sound that simple. So they charged me 24.00 for the first and last month (total of $ 48.00+$ 10 for the card+ taxes which came up to 62.06) I assumed that was all I had to pay. On May 21st I went to my local bally's where I had enrolled and I told them that I wanted to cancel my membership from June 25th. They tell me that it cannot be done by them and that I had to call the customer services. This is something the sales guy conveniently did not mention. So I then call the customer services on, May 21st and it is a torture to get through to their agent as they just put you on hold for a good 25 minutes to half an hour. Anyways I had no other choice but to wait and had to spend my cell phone minutes as they are open only from 6am to 5pm(PST) Monday to Friday. I finally got to speak to the customer care agent and told him that I had to cancel my membership and he told me that I was all set and my membership was cancelled. But on May 28th my friend calls me up telling me that his credit card has been charged for $25.68 in spite of my cancellation. We ended up paying the amount of $ 25.68, but had the charge been on my credit card I would have definitely disputed the charge. Since it was my friend's credit card I was helpless. I believe that this is another wrong selling practice. Why should someone else pay for you? Anyhow, I called customer services again and had to wait for half an hour to finally get to an agent. I told her that I had cancelled my membership and still was charged and she started saying that the $62.06 I paid was down payment and this was the monthly payment charged. I told her that this was not what was told to me and nothing of that sort was mentioned on the contract. She bluntly told me that I just could not get a refund. The customer services is so pathetic that they will come up with some new excuse every time you call them. I then decide to go to my local bally's to see if they would help and they were as bad as the customer service. I spoke to Brian there who was a real butt head, arrogant and rude. All the sweet talk with which they woo you into signing the contract was gone and they told me that I had to deal with customer services myself. So I get on the phone again and this time they tell me that I had to call them 10 days before the monthly payment due date (my payment due date was 05/28/2009) something again which was not informed to us by the sales guy. Had the sales guy given us the right information we would not have to go through all this. Who would read a 3 page contract when you have asked all your questions and have got the answers from the sales guy assuming every word he says is the truth. We were mislead about the cancellation policy and had to come out of this bitter experience losing the money. So beware all you future customers as these people will just rip you off. Their selling practices are pathetic and all their employees are thugs. BEWARE!!!

I got an idea that can work and cause some pain for Bally's total fitness. Bally's advertises at restaurants where you can win a membership. I say take all the forms and fill them out with names and numbers out of your local phone book. After you take them and fill them out, drop them off in the drop box. This will cause Bally's to have some false leads for their salespeople. I am so determined to get back at this ripoff company that I have started to doing this and setting up appointments online. I schedule appointments by creating email addresses and than scheduling appointments. I am also going into bally's and now have a free week 2 week membership. I am taking a tape recorder and looking for anything wrong these scums will do. I am sure this cause some pain for Bally Total fintess.

I got an idea that can work and cause some pain for Bally's total fitness. Bally's advertises at restaurants where you can win a membership. I say take all the forms and fill them out with names and numbers out of your local phone book. After you take them and fill them out, drop them off in the drop box. This will cause Bally's to have some false leads for their salespeople. I am so determined to get back at this ripoff company that I have started to doing this and setting up appointments online. I schedule appointments by creating email addresses and than scheduling appointments. I am also going into bally's and now have a free week 2 week membership. I am taking a tape recorder and looking for anything wrong these scums will do. I am sure this cause some pain for Bally Total fintess.

I got an idea that can work and cause some pain for Bally's total fitness. Bally's advertises at restaurants where you can win a membership. I say take all the forms and fill them out with names and numbers out of your local phone book. After you take them and fill them out, drop them off in the drop box. This will cause Bally's to have some false leads for their salespeople. I am so determined to get back at this ripoff company that I have started to doing this and setting up appointments online. I schedule appointments by creating email addresses and than scheduling appointments. I am also going into bally's and now have a free week 2 week membership. I am taking a tape recorder and looking for anything wrong these scums will do. I am sure this cause some pain for Bally Total fintess.