Can I just stop paying membership fees?
Certified mail, according to the USPS website, is $2.40. Registered mail (which does seem complete overkill) is $7.90. This is still much less expensive than an extra month’s charge for your gym membership. Obviously the whole rigamarole is a pain in the ass, but I don’t understand why you’d cost yourself months and months and months of fees, plus potential damage to your credit report, over less than $10. It doesn’t sound like anyone’s forcing you to pay the remainder of a contract after moving hundreds of miles away, or to do anything you didn’t agree to when you signed the contract. You agreed to this cancellation policy. So, if you want to cancel, follow the policy you agreed to.
In my case, the gym where I had the membership closed, and transfered my membership to another branch of their chain (the “next closest”) which is some 78 miles from my home. Read your contract. Most gyms will let you out of your contract if you move 50+ miles away. Perhaps the same is true if they close up shop and you’re expected to travel 50+ miles to get there. Absurd is putting it mildly. Do they really expect you to travel that far to work out? If the location where you signed up to work out closed, I’d think they’d gladly offer the members of that location an easy out… but that’s the optomist in me speaking.
As many others have said, if your contract says you have to do it, you have to do it. As a practical matter, yeah, you can refuse payment and your CC company may or may not back you up. If they do, the gym will still rack up charges for you and still try to get you to pay. Eventually they’ll send it to a debt collector (and trust me, they have one on speed dial) and you could then get into a big pissing match with them using the Art of Credit website instructions and you might or might not eventually prevail. Or you can go pick up the form and mail it. Look at your contract, it might simply require written notification. No doubt they would prefer a form (well, what they’d really prefer is you think it’s too big a bother and just keep paying them) but you might not be obligated to use it.
I suggested she just tell the gym she’s quitting and then tell her credit card company to not pay them any more. (You can do that, right?) Speaking from personal experince, I tried this. I even went to the extent of canceling the card. I now get monthly bills from them for my ever-increasing “debt” to them (for a service I don’t use) along with a “declined credit card service fee” (I think the total due is something like $200 at this point on a $10/month gym membership) and they’re threating to send me to collection at the end of February. It boggles my mind that its easier to have my electricty or phone shut off than it is to end this bloody gym membership.
I suggested she just tell the gym she’s quitting and then tell her credit card company to not pay them any more. (You can do that, right?) My experience (in the UK) is that you can’t. A valid credit card agreement apparently guarantees that the credit card company will pay out, and then stick it on your bill of course. I found this out when the online DVD rental service I signed up with sold out to another company and then both decided to bill me for the next 6 months despite repeated letters and requests for refunds. The CC company had to investigate and satisfy itself that the claims weren’t legit before a refund. Given that the claims by the gym are legit you may be on dodgy ground if the situation is the same where you are. The CC company will just keep paying until advised by the gym or you can prove the payments should have stopped.
