I remember during the covid shutdown my gym was closed (NYSC) . I called their main support line or whatever and was like “I need to cancel my membership” and they told me that I needed to go into the gym to cancel. I told them that the gym was closed and I can’t go in. They then told me I needed to get in touch with the manager of that gym somehow.
Called my credit card company. Disputed the charges, and told them to block any further charges from NYSC. That gym shut down before the lock down even ended.
Bought some weights and bands for my apartment. Downloaded a free app for calisthenics routines. Haven’t been to a gym since.
It’s not quite the same as having all of the machines and weights, but it sure as hell is more convinient. If I ever get the pleasure of owning a home, building out a more complete gym in the basement/garage is a goal.
To get out of GoodLife, it cost me $50, and they dared remind me that exercise was healthy as if I was an idiot. To cancel an AMEX card, they had to ask me why. Imagine leaving the grocery store and the cashier asked: “Why didn’t you buy more?” and reminded you that eating was healthy.
Only had to be an open scam for decades before they decided to do anything about it.
Do nothing about it and nothing gets done about it.
24 Hour fitness just needs to deliver Trump a golden dumbell and this would magically go away.
That was my first thought when I saw this headline.
Trump is the golden dumbbell.
That’s an insult to good dumbells everywhere.
Yeah at least they’re generally the weight they say they are
They could just point the orange torpaedo of rape at a mirror then say, “Look, here’s histories biggest, hugest, most tremendous golden dumbbell” and that may be enough to convince the obese imbecile.
THIS FTC? Under THIS Administration??? Fucking broken clock I guess
Did they not JUST repeal click to cancel laws, like a month ago? Am I making this up?
An appeals court blocked the rule, and Trump’s FTC had argued in support of it. They haven’t appealed the ruling, though. https://www.businessinsider.com/ftc-blocks-subscription-trap-click-to-cancel-ftc-rule-2025-7
Trump’s FTC filed a brief in March supporting the negative option and click-to-cancel rule, writing that consumers “face unnecessary obstacles from sellers who force them to endure multiple phone calls, long hold times, and countless automated menus. Studies show that most Americans pay hundreds annually for unwanted subscriptions.”
FTC’s commissioner Mark Meador took a different tone last week when he wrote in a post on X following the 8th Circuit’s ruling: “The FTC’s click-to-cancel rule, which would have made it much easier for consumers to get rid of unwanted online subscriptions, isn’t going into effect for one reason: the Biden FTC cut corners and didn’t follow the law. Process matters.”
This suggests that the FTC likely won’t appeal the ruling…
A judge did, not the FTC.
No you aren’t making it up they did stop that from going into effect.
I’m sure this is an attempt to appear like they’re being helpful while actually ingraining the problem further.
Several other good things started under Biden have continued under Trump’s FTC and FCC as well. Trump supporters think Trump is responsible for it though.
Some of ‘Bidens’ decisions were started under the previous Trump administration as well, and Biden supporters all said Trump would never had done that.
policittn is always like that.
Do you happen to have any examples off the top of your head? Most of my news is fairly left-wing bubble so I’m unlikely to ever hear about that kinda stuff
Back in 2020 his DoJ filed the antitrust lawsuit against Google that concluded successfully a year ago.
Thank you! :)
🫡 I too am prone to being bubbled so I collect anti-talking-points like these in a dedicated note. A sort of grounding technique I guess.
To be clear, this is not only the best example I had off the top of my head, it appears to also be the best relevant answer from my note, and while Trump took credit for it after the fact, I am certain he would have accepted bribes to make the case “go away.”
Maybe someday it’d help for me to implement something similar. For today I kinda just have to focus on feeding myself and figuring out how to be a person, but appreciate you sharing that approach, I’ll keep that in the back of my mind
I greatly appreciate your being able to remind me of what happens outside my bubble, at least in a small way. I’m less good at remembering details and keeping up with it all, but I try really hard never to forget there’s stuff I won’t see, or won’t hear about because of where I engage with people.
I agree, I have no doubt he would have gladly dropped it in favor of some personal gain. And he had been angry at Google for what he perceived as left wing bias, which I believe was a lot of the motive.
Anyway, thank you, and I hope you have a lovely day 😊
Trump has a spreadsheet of companies loyalty to him. It’s possible the gym cartels didn’t give him enough bribes.
In THIS part of the country
The Trump admin is more about comically open corruption than traditional conservative non-interference in the market. Trump is trying to get Intel to hand over 10% of the company’s ownership. Traditional conservatives are not running the Trump administration.
Instead, their motives are a lot more corrupt. They don’t support corporations in general. Instead, they support corporations that bribe them and oppose corporations that don’t. The gym industry evidently hasn’t placated themselves sufficiently to the Trump regime, so Biden’s lawsuit is allowed to continue. It will be withdrawn the moment they bend the knee and pay up.
Set a VPN to California and you should be able to one-click ubsubscribe anyway. Worked for me canceling Planet Fitness at least
Haha
Get it
Uplifting news
you know what?
you’ve just darn saved this post from removal, my friend.
I don’t understand why it is hard to cancel. I would just want to get in shape not be subbed forever.
Because Gyms make money on having many, many, people owning a gym membership and never using them.
They don’t make money on people getting jacked.
In fact, most, if not all, gyms would be incapable of handling all of their members regularly attending.
They were the original subscription model that every single capitalist in America is targeting right now.
Sort of like the gift card. The shops already spent the money and gets all shitty if anyone tries to use the gift card.
Yup. I had one of the ballys memberships that locked in a cheap rate for life and was one of the dread customers actually showing up regular. What they did was make locations that where not called ballys total fitness but instead bally xyz. At least two other versions. Then they said the membership was not valid there. Of course that will only limit it a bit so they also started having premium group fitness classes and then canceling regular fitness classes so the premium was the only option. So like they stopped having the standard cardio kickboxing and the only option was the premium kwando. They pretty much got rid of all the standard one except for a bog standard aerobics like from the 80’s. I canceled before they put coin machines on the weight systems. It was easy to cancel but they wanted those memberships zeroed out so its not like they wanted me to keep it.
before they put coin machines on the weight systems.
WAT. I’ve never heard of this. Is that like a deposit akin to an Aldi shopping-cart, or like an arcade machine?
Sorry. That was meant to be wry. It was more where I was like. Whats next coin operated weight machines.
There’s an episode of Leverage where they’re able to “sell” an empty gym to a bad guy as a money laundering operation - since its total lack of visible attendees isn’t suspicious for its revenue.
You mean domed*?
That’s one thing I love about my YMCA.
I decided to cancel my gym membership because I was doing too much work to go to the gym and I didn’t want to waste the money.
Walked in and said “Hey, I’d like to cancel my membership” and they said “No problem. Your membership ends at the end of the month. Please come back when you’ve got your shit together and want to rejoin.”
I probably could have done it over the phone.
“No problem. Your membership ends at the end of the month. Please come back when you’ve got your shit together and want to rejoin.”
This makes me want to join your gym. Direct to the point, no bullshit, and a bit of sass. I like it.
You’re full of shit. We tried to cancel our YMCA membership because it got to expensive and they put us through hell to cancel.
Why are all gyms this way?
There are many different ymca’s some are better than others.
Could you describe the process? What, exactly, made it “hell”?
Well they didn’t allow us to cancel. Said we had to give a 30 day written notice. So had to cancel the account it was tied to, and then they still try to send us to collection. Never again.
That’s fucked up, what a stupid amount of hoops to jump through from something so small.
This is what they do while they insider trade while working a regulatory position
Or ignoring the conflict of interest that goes along with companies hiring the people who were regulating them.
I remember canceling my Crunch membership in NYC by telling them I was going to Ecuador for a year. They asked if I spoke Spanish. I said no not a word just to fuck with them, even though I do speak survivable Spanish.
Why would they ask that
Basic polite conversation. Weirdos.
Probably some minimum wage slave making small talk
That’s interesting - I wonder which of Trump’s animals had a gym membership they couldn’t get out of.
This is why.
How do gym memberships work in america? You have to subscribe with a credit card? because everywhere else you pay for a month/year upfront and if you stop going that’s on you.
Depends on the gym. Planet Fitness (a huge chain with gyms literally fucking everywhere) requires checking account info (account number and bank routing number) and they automatically deduct the monthly amount and the annual fee. The advantage of this (compared to credit card info) is that a customer can’t do a chargeback through the credit card company and the checking account info never expires. PF’s basic business model is getting people to sign up for a small monthly fee (either $15 or $25) and then either forget about it or not care enough to bother canceling. They certainly don’t want people showing up every day - apparently the average PF franchise has about 6000 members, which would be utterly unworkable if they all actually used the gym. I’ve been going to PF for more than 15 years on a daily basis and sometimes I lose my mind and start thinking I’m actually a valued customer, when in reality I’m surprised I haven’t been banned.
You see, here in Europe(at least in my country) we have a system where you can allow certain companies e.g. your mobile provider to just take the monthly amount from your account, without you having to bother with setting up recurring payments or worse, paying it manually, but it’s fully under your control, you set the upper limit and you can cancel it from your side anytime.
Your cheese is better than ours, too.
Yeah and in my country quark is widespread, but still because of online influence local content creators keep pushing cottage cheese into desserts (because that’s what you guys do in the US), and I am like fuck off, we have quark here, just make sweet recipes with quark, it’s what it is for.
because that’s what you guys do in the US
Huh? Nobody below the age of 80 likes cottage cheese here. That shit is for people born before WWII to put on their canned peaches.
You probably don’t follow the fitness recipes space online, it’s a cottage cheese epidemic
Ah yes, the secret to dieting: eat food that tastes like shit.
Lol. Wait till you learn that SEPA is pull-based
You do not have control. But you do have laws that allow you to challenge the pull, if you notice it within the window
In what world is SEPA pull based, they can’t just remove money from your account.
Yes, they can.
The UI makes it seem push-based, but it’s actually pull based. There is no technical barrier from pulling from someone’s account. Any malicious entity can do this if they present the bank with a forged hand signature. Or, of course, a malicious bank. Or, of course, a malicious employee at a bank.
Worse, banks won’t let you create a whitelist of accounts that are explicitly permitted pull from your account (called “positive pay” for ACH)
Yet they got rid of pretty much all the cases against subscriptions and not having “one click cancellation” that the precious FTC was going after. I’ll believe it when I see it.
I want to quit the gym!
