New York State Makes It Easier for Gym Members to Quit, Requiring Gyms to Allow Members to Cancel Without Coming In
After 1,800 complaints gyms doing business in the state now have to provide an online, phone and mail method of terminating memberships.
The COVID-19 pandemic has pushed New York State to pass a long-discussed consumer protection law that will make it easier to cancel gym memberships and cease their monthly automated payment.
The law, signed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo last week, forces services with automatically renewing fees to provide an online method, phone number or mail address that a customer can utilize to cancel the service. It also includes and outlines ways in which a business must make explicit its automatic renewal policy when a consumer signs up.
“One of the all-time frustrating experiences in New York is signing up for a gym membership, needing to cancel it, and then being told to come in person on a Wednesday at 3pm to speak to a manager whose shift ends 3:30pm,” the bill’s sponsor, state Sen. Brad Hoylman, from Manhattan, wrote in a tweet.
“Too many gyms, subscription boxes and other companies use misleading offers and promotions to lock unwitting customers into long-term contracts that are ridiculously difficult to get out of,” Hoylman said in a statement.
Hoylman and Assembly member Jeffrey Dinowitz sponsored such a law in 2013. The issue gained traction as gym members reconsider their fitness habits and patronage of public places amid the worsening pandemic.
A sizable number of gym members ceased showing up for their regular workouts due to the pandemic, even after gyms were allowed to reopen in most states. (New York State gyms got the go-ahead to resume operations in late August.) A global survey of fitness facilities found that 21 percent of one-time members canceled their membership due to COVID-19 but the numbers may be higher in areas with more severe COVID-19 infection rates like the U.S. Planet Fitness lost 1.5 million of the 15.5 million members it had amassed by the start of 2020 and gym usage rates are about two-thirds of what they once were.
Gyms have taken various approaches to freezing or terminating memberships. Some have allowed members to easily pause their subscription, with all monthly payments suspended, for as long as they feel uncomfortable returning. Others have charged a nominal “freeze fee” or insisted on the full monthly amount. The steps to full termination also vary, with some requiring the member to come to the facility.
Some consumers have alleged their gyms have been purposefully cagey about allowing them to quit. New York Attorney General Letitia James said 1,800 complaints have come into her office about undue difficulty canceling or suspending gym memberships, leading her to file lawsuits against two of them, New York Sports Clubs and Lucille Roberts.
