Tony Hicks is the Training General Manager at the LA Fitness in Everett, Washington. He was a nice guy until I made the decision to cancel my personal training deal the very next day.

Don't be knocked by this guy's smooth talking. First of all, when I asked for a couple days to think about the offer, he started pressuring me. The good thing is that even though I signed the contract, I had three days to cancel the contract without charge. After some thinking, I personally went in the fitness center to cancel. He tried to talk me out of it, saying the rates would go up next month and that he could freeze my account at any time, but when I still told him no, he went on to insult me. He made false accusations saying that my friends led me up to cancelling and what's worse is that he said three months from now I'm going to wish I didn't cancel because I'm going to weigh the same. I mean, this guy thinks he is God, he thinks people really need him like that.

Every other employee I've ran into has been nice, this guy is, too, but reject him and his offers and be ready to be insulted and talked down to.

My advice is that if somebody comes to you offering a deal and they keep telling you the offer is only for that particular day, it's a scam. This guy is a scammer.

I have a personal training membership... yes, I know now. The first six months on the one year contract went well. As I watched management and personal trainers come and go. Within the first six months I had (5) five different trainers because LA Fitness has a high turnover rate. Lack of management and customer service in trying to keep the customer happy and give you what you paid for. The last three months I have been charged for personal training but have been unable to get anyone to book time with. After three months of calling and coming into the gym weekly hunting for the trainer I was working with... whom "was just here" or "he went to get dinner and will be back in a minute" I chose to cancel my (1) one year personal training contract. Mind you that I had already used 6 months and paid for 3 which I had not been trained for. The manager tried to get me too just train with someone else. I explained that after three months and getting my chain jerked around I had a bad taste in my mouth and just wanted out of the contract. He then started in with the insults, "You do not care enough about my body to want to improve it" and "if you get out of the contract you owe 50% of what is left of the contract do you have that kind of money to throw away?"...

I am not the brightest color in the box (but with a grin I do my homework well). I figure with (3) months left on my contract at (3) times per month that would be (9) times $25.00 per each session or $225.00 /2 = $112.50. I owe LA Fitness $112.50.
Cool, mister manager (Mat Miles), now I would like you to remeburse me for the past (3) months that you took money from me and did not provide me with a service... That would be $225.00 dollars. Funny how now me throwing away money does not seem to ring true cause now your paying me.
He jumped up from behind his desk walked away and called his boss to try to figure out what to do. He came back and told me I would have to return (when another guy was there) for them to do a buy out of my contract.
The gym is nice, most of the customers there are nice, a few of the trainers are great... the management and the rest of them need to get back in touch with a little customer service because with the times the way they are... they will be lucky to get new people to train. I will never use personal trainers again from this place and might even wear a t-shirt to work out in explaining why I feel this way.
Wake up and work on your CUSTOMER SERVICE SKILLS... we are the ones paying your bills. Once you have scammed the community all you can do is shut down and move on... so get right and stay or get ready to move.

I am writing to register a formal complaint against several LA Fitness business practices encountered during my membership period. These include misleading terms, out-right lies, harassment, and inappropriate uses of personal data.

1. Free Trial Pass: When I arrived at a Tucson LA Fitness gym to use the free pass I’d printed from the website, I was required to sit with a sales representative for an “orientation” first. Before the representative would tell me anything about the gym, he tried to collect considerable personal information about me: name, date of birth, address, weight, age, health information. He also insisted that I sign a “release of liability” before he would give me a tour of the gym.

I refused to give the personal information, explaining that I knew nothing about the gym and was uncomfortable sharing this data until I knew more. I protested about the “release of liability” but was eventually coerced into signing it in order to find out any information about the gym.

The “Free Trial Pass” proved to be nothing more than an opportunity for the gym to give a lengthy sales pitch and collect personal data about me.

2. Membership Initiation: When I signed up for the membership, I was promised two “perks” that proved to be deceptive.

a. Free 2-week Pass for my son: On the first day that I arrived with my son to use this pass, I was told, “Actually, passes aren’t issued to children under the age of 18.” I responded that it was a condition of my membership initiation. I was told, “It is not possible.” My son was allowed to use the gym that day only.

b. Two free 60 minute sessions with a Trainer: These turned out to be sales pitches rather than training sessions. The person giving the “training” again tried to collect personal data, requiring me to stand on a scale. If this information were useful for training, I would have been more comfortable. I was uncomfortable because the information was only used to tailor the sales pitch. The actual training consisted of lifting a couple of free weights for about 10 minutes, with no commentary about proper form or purpose of the particular exercise.

3. Billing: Two family members and two friends joined the gym within a month of my initiation. For some reason, our records were linked in a way that could never be untangled. Under my account were listed my husband and one of my friends. My friends husband was listed separately on his own account. My son was listed under a third person. This meant that our credit card and payment information was scattered across all these accounts in the same way. So, I was billed for the friend listed on my account. And my son’s bill was sent to the third person. After several attempts to remedy this, the bills were eventually charged to the correct credit cards, but the record structure could not be altered.

4. Change of Payment: For about two weeks, I received calls from all over the country by people claiming to work for LA Fitness and asking me for new credit card information. Several times I told the callers, I will address this situation with my local gym because I am not willing to give credit card information over the phone. I asked them to please not call again.

The last person to call me identified herself as “from LA Fitness.” She said she had my account information in front of her. She asked if I’d recently had my credit card lost or stolen. I indicated that I would not reveal personal financial information over the phone and that I would sort out the issue with my local gym. I indicated that I’d been called several times about this and it was starting to feel like harassment. I asked her to please stop calling. She became belligerent and threatening. She said the calls would continue until the issue was resolved. After explaining repeating that I would not give her any credit card information over the phone, I eventually became exasperated and said, “Aright, I will resolve this issue right now. Please cancel my membership.” She refused. I repeated, “Please stop calling me, please cancel my membership.” And she continued threatening, “ The calls will not stop and you cannot cancel your membership over the phone.” Finally, I said, “I would like to file a formal complaint about this phone call, please tell me your name.” She immediately hung up on me.

Because this seemed so much like fraud or attempted identity theft, I sifted through my caller ID, found the phone number from which I’d been called: 661-294-0985. Calling it, I repeated my request to know her name. She identified herself as “Keri” at a gym in California, but refused to give a last name. I asked to speak to her manager. She replied that she was the manager. I asked for the name of a supervisor, and she gave me the name of “Scott Legg.”

I went to my local gym to ask about all this. I sorted out the confusion about my credit card. The woman at my local gym explained that the LA Fitness computer system presents employees with the same call list and account information. Since they make calls from the same list, they cannot tell if a particular customer is receiving numerous calls at the same time.

5. Membership cancellation: The only way to cancel a membership, according to several employees and managers, is to go in person to a local gym, request a printed form, and mail it to a corporate office elsewhere. If the form is post-marked less than 20 days before the next billing cycle, the customer will be charged for another full month.

I was advised to send it registered mail. Apparently, it is common for LA Fitness to dispute the receipt of cancellation requests. By using registered mail, I would have proof that I’d sent it in.

In my opinion, going to the local gym and asking to cancel should be sufficient.


After all these difficulties, we decided to cancel our memberships with LA Fitness. The manner in which LA Fitness conducts business includes several practices which are deceptive, coercive, harassing, hassling, and uncomfortable, and in some cases cannot be distinguished from potential fraud. I felt that the company was primarily interested in extracting every possible dollar from me, and not very interested in providing me with a positive service. We would prefer to work with a company that conducts itself with integrity and that offers services that can be identified with accurate names.

I have never met a ruder bunch of people in my entire life at a health club. The snotty girl at the front desk gave me a face when I presented her with a free pass and barked at me "I need a license". I was standing there with my 3 year old and it was a very cold day out, but I went back to my car to get my license. When I came back she smirked at me again and said "if you want to use the kids club it's $3.00" (that information would have been helpful when I went out to the car earlier). The girls watching the children seemed inattentive. One of which was very unfriendly to both myself and my child. I mentioned to the manager that the front desk girl was very unfriendly. As I walked out she approached me as if she was ready to fight me and said in a very, almost angry voice "I'm sorry if you thought I was rude@!" I would not join that club if someone put a gun to my head! There are a lot better options in that neighborhood...and for what they're asking for a membership they need to work on people skills.

I was a member of LA Fitness, North Brunswick, NJ. After joining my college I requested that my membership be canceled, I was told that I have to send a letter to the corporate office for cancellation and this facility cannot cancel it.

I send a letter for cancellation of my membership on 08/08/08 and till today (10/19/08) my membership has not been canceled and I have been charged though I have not used the club since September.

On follow up the corporate office I was told in September that I will not be charged but again I have been billed in October.