Complaint Review: Crunch Fitness: Parkway Point Location Georgia - Atlanta Georgia

BUT, the corporate office surely had been planning this for months. It didn't JUST happen over a couple of days. While the local franchise may not have known I believe the corporate headquarters had an ethical and moral duty to suspend taking new memberships when they knew they were closing the location. After all it takes at least a month to negotiate for another club to take the existing members. Was it really worth the few extra bucks of the ones that signed up to be dishonest? Thankfully I had not signed a contract. As to the distance, for anyone who isn't familiar with Atlanta 8 miles can seem like 30 in our traffic and to work out before or after work can add 2+ hours to your day if you had to go in to the city to do it.

I had been going to the Parkway Pointe location for years and I'm friendly with some of the staff, so maybe I can shed some light here. Some of your accusations are misplaced. The staff had 48 hours notice of the closure. Saying that they acted disingenuously in selling you a membership a month ago is false. The closure came as a complete surprise to everyone on the local level. Those people, by the way, are now all without jobs. They were not transfered to to Buckhead location. There was a clause in most of Crunch's more recent contracts that stipulated if a location was to shut down, an alternate location with similar features within a five mile radius had to be provided or piles of refunds for everyone. Since the Buckhead location was 8 miles away (and not all the way in Downtown Atlanta, as you suggest), they couldn't be corralled over there. LA Fitness was the only real option they could pursue without losing piles of cash. Understandable, sure, but pretty rotten, too. The way Crunch's head office handled the closure was absolutely disgraceful, I don't disagree with that. Just place your blame accurately.

We were told we could NOT transfer our membership to the Crunch location in Buckhead unless we already had a multi-location membership. The LA Fitness guys were quite clear on that. So was the Buckhead location when I called them, memberships could not be transferred unless you already had a multi-club membership. Besides, who wants to or has the time to drive 15-20 miles one way into downtown Atlanta to try and go to the gym? The BBB didn't think it was reasonable either. The Cobb Parkway location of LA Fitness is gross. It smells awful and is way overcrowded to the point they limit your workouts to 20 minutes. The staff is rude and completely unhelpful. But how would you know that all the way in NY? Thankfully I bank with an institution that has already blocked Crunch and LA Fitness from debiting my account AND refunded the money for the unusable month. So unless you were standing there (which you weren't since you are in NY) when I actually had the conversation you aren't in a position to know what was actually said. FYI I wasn't looking to get out of the membership since I had just started it a month earlier. They continued to sign up members KNOWING they were closing. If I had known they were about to shut down I would have never signed up in the first place. Also, if you read what I wrote I had a month to month membership: no contract so I could cancel anytime I wanted. That is what is keeping LA Fitness from profiting off of me at least.

First of all, there is more than one Crunch gym in Atlanta. Just because your preferred location is closed does not mean that you cannot go to any of the other locations available in your area. So, as you can see, you are not being ripped off. Secondly, LA Fitness is hardly a "sleazy" gym, nor do they have "long term contracts." In fact, they are one of the few gyms that do not have contracts at all ... they operate on a strictly month-to-month basis. It sounds like you have been looking for a loophole to get out of your gym membership for some time, and are trying to use this minor event as a way out. Unfortunately that will not work. Better luck next time. PS - You cannot simply block Crunch from debiting your bank account. Eventually all those blocked payments will come back to you, along with late payment fees, and you will be forced to pay (hence the terms and conditions of the contract YOU signed.).