Bally Total Fitness
Reviews and Complaints

In december was notified that credit card was expiring and to contact with card or new expiration date. I called to cancel pay as you go membership and was told by rep that the only way to cancel ws ny written letter. I was told no fax or email. On Dec 21st I mailed a letter canceling. In Jan my card was charged. I called and talked to rep who advised that ther must be some mistake and in Feb the Jan charge was refunded and a new charge was applied. I called again and rep advised no record of 2 previous calls or letter received. Said letter must have gotten lost send again to a DC address attn cancelation dept which I did. My march statement has a charge again. This time I wrote a 2nd lengthy letter to Citi Card which is investigating this scam. In addittion I emailed to Ballys and they now replied that my account is closed and no refund is due. This by email which I was told in December cannot be done. Going to the state consumer complint dept for resolution. This outlaw company needs to be shut down

To Whom It Main Concern:

I have also mailed in a letter of cancellation and the $50 fee to wave off the contract. However, this last month, they charged $12 on my father's credit card. I went to the Huntington Beach, CA to get it straightened out and the desk lady tried to call the Norwalk place for me. However, later she told me to try calling again later and told me the business times to call was 6am to 11am and 5pm to 9pm. When I called at 5pm, I found out they had hours that closed to 5pm. I am disgusted by the complete lie she told me.

I want to make it clear that I want my membership permanently terminated within the next month without any further charges with a $12 refund. I am a reasonable person, but if this problem continues I will seek legal action.

Disgusted Bally Fitness Member,

Frank Ho

Hello viewers. Glad to know that I've sparked your curiosity once more. Please understand the purpose of this message is to inform any potential members or future employees of Bally Total Fitness Houston the dangers that I experienced first hand.

My previous posting explained how bad management in general caused the decline of this company but upon closer review, I came to realize that only a few corrupted officials are responsible. If I don't point them out by listing names, I'll be jeopardizing the image and reputation of the good ones.

Hard to believe, isn't it? But there are good management that exist within this company. I'll cover the good ones later but first you consumers need to realize the evil that also lies within. As a friendly reminder, please feel free to discontinue reading because you WILL get pissed.

There's basically two officials that comes to mind. I'll start with the male by the name of RYAN COLIN. Imagine a shady manager at Blockbuster Videos that conducts his employees by saying something like, "Every customer who walks in here better leave with at least 5 dvds. I don't care how you do it and I don't want to hear any excuses. We have thousands of selections among numerous categories so if anyone leaves without renting a damn thing, that tells me you're not doing your job by hustling the aisles. Go out there to each customer and personally recommend your favorites titles if you have to! Tell them what's good about these movies and build value into each film. If you do your job properly, there's no reason why they would ever turn you down! They'll be picking up titles left and right if you know how to sell. Besides movies, we also offer a variety of drinks, popcorn, posters and even memorabilia. So I don't want to hear any more whining about "they were just dropping off returns" routine. If I start to see people leaving empty handed because you can't close a deal by making a sale, that tells me you're in the wrong business and you're gonna get fired. We don't tolerate any excuses and when anyone leaves without renting or making some kind of purchase under your shift is totally unacceptable. I'm going to let you off easy this time so I better see you hustling even harder next time!"

Unbelievable, right? This shady manager doesn't exist at Blockbuster Videos because he's actually positioned very comfortably as a manager at Bally Total Fitness in Houston Texas. Instead of hustling dvds, he wants us hustling gym memberships to anyone walking in. He'll begin expressing to us by saying, "Everyone comes in here looking to buy a membership. Why else would they even walk in? Your job is to sell them a 3 year contract no matter what. It's your job to close these deals and sell memberships. If you're not closing these deals, that tells me you either screwed up on the tour by not building up enough value into the gym or you failed to convince them that our prices are affordable. If they walk out of here without a membership for whatever reason, you failed. It's your fault. You somehow dropped the ball one way or the other."

Here's the tricky thing. Not everyone comes in looking to buy a membership because there's free trial guest passes for 2 weeks available on line. People who download these passes are either from out of town visiting, trying the gym out because they already belong to another gym, repeat visitors trying to abuse the system or teenagers who are tagging along because their friends and families are members here at Bally's.

So here's where things get complicated. Our job as sales counselors is to close every single one of these visitors with free trial memberships that comes through the door. We're supposed to "flip" those passes into memberships by convincing them to sign early for a cheaper discounted price. Obviously we get rejected 99% of the time because people want to use what's free. Duh.

Another form of guest and perhaps the most annoying is the tag along guest of member. They're only here for a single visit because of their friend and hates to be bothered or hassled about getting a membership. Once again, you guessed it. Our job is to convince to them to buy a contract before they work out. Needless to mention at this point, you can easily conclude that these visitors are the most difficult ones to sell anything to because they're NOT HERE TO BUY!

Please keep in mind that Ryan Colin doesn't wastes his time on these dead ends and always tosses them over to me like left over scraps. He never takes 2 weeks passes or guest of members and continuously abuses me as his guest pass ###. And each time we get rejected for obvious reasons, we have to report immediately to Ryan Colin why there was no sale and keep in mind he doesn't tolerate excuses.

So basically, I'm the garbage bin he tosses all the unwanted visitors to. Every single free pass, guest of member, people just price shopping or anyone he knows isn't going to buy, he calls me out from my office like some pet dog and expects me to deliver him a membership.

Based on commission like the rest of us, Ryan will remain all day at the front desk determining which visitor to take and which to discard in my direction. Naturally, he hogs all the easy walk ins who approach to sign up automatically because they don't require much effort. He'll shop the guest the instant they walk in verifying whether they're here to sign up or not.

Ryan will simply ask upfront, "Are you here to buy?" Suppose a yes is delivered. He'll respond by saying, "Hi. My name's Ryan."

Suppose a "no" is issued instead. Now he'll say, "Let me page someone to help you." Want to take a wild guess who always gets paged?

Basically, he gets fat on his commission check while I'm starving from receiving all his unwanted scraps. Ryan continuously takes all the walk ins who arrives to sign up and tosses me the remaining garbage while expecting me to close these deals that he wouldn't waste his time on because we all know how impossible they are to close!

HE takes the ones willing to buy on a tour and closes it easily because they were here to buy anyway then immediately comes back around to us and say, "You see how easy that was? I told you. Hard work and dedication. It never fails. If I can close my deals, you should be able to close yours! No excuses!" A magnificent creature, don't you think?

Unfortunately, I always get the ones not interested to buy because they're either price shopping or they simply belong to another gym already while freeloading us on a guest pass!

Believe it or not, what he's doing so far is only the tip of the iceberg. It gets much worse. How? Ryan Colin is a notorious con and a thief. He's infamously known for stealing deals from other employees. Here's a perfect example. I sold a done deal one evening prior to going on my paid vacation. Only thing was the lady did not currently have her credit card present at the time and asked if she could come back days later to complete the process. I naturally replied of course and even Ryan offered to help me finish the paperwork in my absence because he knew I was going on vacation. Upon returning from vacation, guess who stole that deal away by putting it under his commission check instead of mine?

When confronting him, he wouldn't look me in the eye and simply said, "Hey, she came back much later than we had anticipated so therefore the deal is up for grabs. She never came back days after like we discussed but rather a week after. So if she arrives late with her credit card, the deal is mine. The initial agreement was that she was to come back within 3 days. Since she exceeded the 3 day mark, THAT agreement is no longer valid and therefore this new deal becomes mine."
I suppose all his evil is not too difficult to grasp considering he has a tattoo of the CONFEDERATE FLAG on his upper arm.

Besides stealing deals, he would often create or write fake deals on days when there isn't a single sale. He does this so he won't get yelled at by another ### called Devin Verdon. One fake deal Ryan did in particular was put in my name on a Saturday which was my day off. After I threatened to report him, he later changed it. He put that in my name because he just did a fake deal on Thursday of January 08. So for any manager or employee curious enough to see what a fake deal looks like, go to your contact management page and pull up a Thursday where only 1 single deal was up Jan of 08. Check that Saturday deal within the same week as well.

Anyone not aware that forging signatures is against the law? Well, apparently that doesn't bother Ryan a single bit considering he was caught more than twice by corporate and STILL has a job.

Here's one of my personal favorites when he lied to the Houston Police Department back in November of 07 when trying to become an HPD officer. What did he lie about on the application? Ooh, nothing that big. Ryan told the cops he was never arrested. Oops. Eh Einstein, you didn't think they would check?

Naturally, he was immediately kicked out of training. Ryan explained that he simply forgot he was arrested because it was around 10 years ago. Gee, that's a good one. You remembered the incident occurred around 10 years ago but not the actual incident? OKAAAY.

I could go on and on but you get the idea. If you thought this was interesting, stay tuned for the other person that is just as diabolical.

Where the hell should I begin? Considering my name is completely irrelevant to half the co-workers and officials of Bally Houston Texas, I suppose it's best to leave that out.

If you still experiencing difficulty lowering one of your eyebrows, allow me to provide some assistance. I'm a ex employee of this questionable company. Whoever you are, I deeply applaud your patience to read this entirely but please be careful. If you are sensitive to corruption and easily angered by unethical/illegal sales practices, cease reading immediately because I'm about to spill all the lurid details that's infesting this business.

For first time visitors, grant me the privilege to explain why this company is very financially unstable at the moment. One key word can pretty much sum this up entirely. Contradiction.

Pretend that you're an employee working at the front desk and some fat member of the club suffering from a new aggressive mutated form of the swine flu goes absolutely berserk by creating a scene and refuses to leave because the swimming pool is under repairs. What should you do? Do you call the police or don't call the police?

Let's go with the first option where you contact the proper authorities to plan the immediate removal of hostile guests or members by calling the cops. By calling the police for this matter, here is what management will specifically say to you. Ready?

They'll simply say, "Look. Calling the cops for something like this was completely unnecessary. Had you possessed the proper skills you needed to utilize in this situation, you could have very easily prevented this incident from occurring in the first place. Because you lack discipline and training, you blew this whole thing way out of proportion and escalating the problem even further by calling the cops."

So you respond by asking, "But Sir, how did I made things worse by calling the police?"

They'll say, "Well, think about it! What happens if a new guest arrives at the gym looking to sign up for a membership but instead she's greeted by police sirens wailing and numerous officers wrestling some crazy lady to the ground? How do you think this new customer is going to react? Of course she's going to flip out and assume we're operating in a war zone. Do you think she's going to sign for a membership now? Not only will this potential member run away but she'll tell all her friends not to join Bally's as well. So by calling the police, you could actually make us lose business today!"

Classic, right?

Let's try the other option where we don't call the police and try our best to resolve this issue personally without the proper authorities.
By not calling the police, you'll now be confronted by the same superiors asking, "What are you waiting for!? That's why they make the numbers so easy to remember. NINE... ONE... ONE! And the fact that the phone is so conveniently right in front of you is no coincidence either! Call the COPS! If this crazy member can be reasoned with, don't you think WE would've tried that already?
By not calling the police, you're blowing this way out of proportion.
Think about it. What happens if a new guest arrives looking for a gym membership? They're going to freak out and wonder who's in charge here and why isn't anyone calling the police. These potential clients will not only walk out as quickly as they came but they'll also spread the word that Bally's is incompetent when dealing with intolerable members. So by not calling the police, you actually made us lose business today."

Get the picture yet?

It doesn't really matter which option you decide to take. They'll say one thing or the other. It makes no utter difference whether the cops are called or not. Based on the management I had, you're screwed regardless.

Let's try a more interesting example. For instance, a member requests to change the house music from country to rap or vice versa. What will you do? Change the music or not change the music? Ready?

Suppose you change the music to satisfy member requests. Management will confront you and say, "What happens if the instant you change the music station, five bodybuilders the size of king kong hops off their equipment and tells you to change it back? You gonna run back there and mess with it again? How many times? Look, not everyone here likes the same type of music. That's why our sensible members have the common decency to bring their i-pods. You change one station to please someone but there's a hefty price to that equation which is you'll easily anger the ones who's already listening to the station you just switched out. You gonna run back and forth all day changing tunes for every member we have? Is that what we pay you for? Leave the station as it is! Tell anyone who requests changes that our stations are done by satellite and we CAN'T change it.

Point taken.

Here's what happens if you DON'T change the music and members report your poor customer service skills to corporate. Now management will say,"Look, you can't lie to members and say we can't change the station when we clearly done it before. If they want to watch a different program or listen to another tune, it's your job to make certain that these requests are fulfilled in a timely manner. We don't want to hear any complaints from members because if we do, it's telling us you're not conducting your job properly. If we hear complaints, you'll gonna hear from us."Point taken once again but wait a second. Each point enforced by management naturally contradicts the very other. Interesting.
Picking up so far?

Here's my favorite example of all time. Pretend that you're a sales counselor and a new client has extreme difficulty with the price of the membership you just presented. You have two options at this point. Do you drop the membership to a lower price package or stand your ground firmly and convince that this is easily affordable. Do you drop the price or not? Ready?

Suppose you drop the price to finally make the sale. Here's how I got confronted by management. They'll say,"So you just dropped the price? Really? Eh, let me ask you something. Who's selling who here? Are you selling the clients or are they selling you? When you drop the price, you're not only hurting your own commission check but you're also hurting the club's membership value. If they can't afford a particular plan, it's your job to convince them how it's easily affordable. Sure, 40 bucks a month seems a lot but divide that among 30 days and you get $1.33. per day. Are you seriously trying to convince me that they can't pay $1.33 when they spend 10 times that amount on Starbucks and cigarettes in a single morning? You have to continuously break these prices down and support your arguments with common sense. Of course they want a cheaper price. Hey Einstein, who wouldn't? You can't just give in to customers like that because they are not in charge here. You are! Understand!?"Er.. Uhh... Yeah.

Let's explore what would unravel if we decide not to drop the price. By not dropping the price, management will now say,"You know something, I would actually prefer you sell a small membership than having no memberships at all. Basically, any sale no matter how low is always better than zero value. Wouldn't you agree? Why are you stubbornly not dropping the price when clearly there are many cheaper membership options available to choose from? Suppose you continue giving this guest a hard time and they leave? Is that what you want? Let say you win. What happens if she somehow does sign up at this expensive package and later finds out her neighbor bought something similar from us days earlier at a cheaper price? She'll storm right back to us with a complaint and cancel her membership thinking we lied to her! Right? Give her the price she's asking for and move on with the next client! You're complicating things and wasting time."Get the whole picture now? For every possible incident regardless of its nature at Bally Total Fitness in Houston Texas, there are two different ways of obtaining a solution and each method is directly inverse to one another. Basically, everything they do or say is just a huge contradiction one after the other.

My management contradict themselves because they can't make up their minds and they can't make up their minds because they honestly don't know what they're doing. Everything they suggest or strictly enforce us to follow has a direct polar opposite lurking somewhere not too far behind completely canceling out what was"set in stone" earlier.

This is exactly why this company has faced bankruptcy on several occasions. They simply cannot make up their minds when it comes to policies. Let's do a quick recap. Call the police and don't call the police. Change the music and don't change the music. Drop the price and don't drop the price. CHRIST. WHICH IS IT!?

Why don't we finalize this in the form of simple mathematics. What is the direct inverse of a positive 2? I believe that would be a negative 2.
So what is 2-2? Zero. Zero income. Zero dollars. Zero profit. That's your bankruptcy.

You know what the sad thing is? All that I've mentioned here so far is only the tip of the iceberg. Stay tuned if you dare.

Dec2009 I bought a 6 month membership a free 6 month membership. I bought the package on Dec 8. We walked up to the desk to redeem our new memberships and were quickly introduced to how things operate at Bally. The front desk girl was sitting on the desk with her feet up texting. She did not look up to acknowledge us but merely made a gesture for us to scan our membership cards ourselves. I then said we are new members and need cards. This is when I meet Scott. I began by explain my wallet was stolen and that I did not have the card I used originally to purchase the membership but it was already paid for. When I presented Scott with my new card he immediately said he could not accept it. The card was a temporary card until my new one arrived. I explained that the number, expiration date, security code and everything else are the same that will be printed on my official card. My concern here was that he told me that if I did not put a card on file at that location by Jan 3rd I would not be able to redeem my free guest membership. He completely refused to try to rug that card because he said, It doesnt always work. This led me to believe that it works sometimes and is worth a shot, he just utterly refused to even attempt. What he did do was write us a guest pass. I finally got my official card on Jan 1st. I would have worked out that day but I had to leave for Detroit by 2pm. I quickly ran out to Bally around noon and was met at the front desk by Joe. Joe ran my card said everything was good I just needed to sign something and everything would be all set I just had to sign a paper. I could not sign the paper because Scott was printing out something at that time. Joe went to talk to Scott and asked if he could do an interrupt function on the print job so I could sign my contract. Scott advised Joe to tell me to wait a moment. I happily waited but began to grow impatient as the minutes passed by. I had walked in at Noon and the time was now 12:30. I had been waiting a long time for a print job. I asked Joe if there was anything he could do. Joe sincerely apologized and went back to the office to ask Scott if I could get my contract printed out. Joe came back and told me Scott had advised me to wait. I had been waiting for 45 minutes at that point. I told Joe that I had a guest membership that had to be redeemed by the 3rd. I told Joe that I was heading out of town and did not want to lose a chance at that guest membership. I also explained that I was beginning to run late as the time was 1pm and I had to at 2pm. and I asked him, since I was here and had on two other occasions prior attempted to redeem my 6 month membership but was refused, if it was acceptable for me to come back on the day I returned and sign the contract that was scheduled to print sometime that day. I was told that would be fine. I returned on December 10th. I walked in and Joe was there and I asked if I could redeem my membership and get my card. Joe explained he would have to get a manager to do my free guest membership because it was above his rank level to authorize it. Joe went and got Scott. Scott came over, dismissed Joe when he attempted to explain the situation, and immediately said, This is expired, I cannot honor it. I explained that I knew it was expired but that I had made several attempts to redeem it but was never able to due to the fact that some condition was not able to be met up to Scotts satisfaction so I was unable to redeem it. Scott began to argue with me when I tried to tell him about the four times I had been in in December and how each time I tried to redeem my card. I then told Scott about the conversation Joe and I had and how that day I was in a hurry and was trying to meet and important deadline. This is when Scott uttered the words that changed to whole course of conversation. I am a busy man and I have a lot of things to do. I cant control your schedule. If you couldnt make it in to redeem that thing (guest membership) that has nothing to do with me. This is when I saw red. I had been in several times. I had attempted to redeem several times. I had been rejected several times. I had never caused a problem. I had paid for my membership. So the question is, why I was being treated like a man who walked in a disrespected his club? Scott showed me no respect from the very beginning. After this experience I came home and called and spoke to a customer service representative. I said that I would like to speak with a supervisor and was told by the agent he could most likely help me. I spoke with him and explained I wanted to file a complaint against Scott, file a testimonial for Joe and get my 6 month guest membership I was supposed to receive with my purchase. I spent over an hour on the phone explaining everything to the agent. The agent said a complaint will be filed, I would be sent a pass for me (Justin Beerup) to work out at the Mt Prospect, IL. I tried to call several days last week but was always told there were no available spots in the call queue and to try back later and was hung up on. January 27th, I was able to reach a supervisor, Angel ID# 1625, and explained my situation. He stated there were no records of a call and no record of a request for a 6 month guest membership. I then asked how I could get one and he explained the offer has expired and I could not redeem it. I am looking for a simple resolution. I want my money back and I think I am initialed to it.

there has been no hot water in the gym for approxmently three weeks, pool is like ice cubes
and sence there is no cleaning crew on site the palace a disaster need to call health services
with h1n1 flu going around its" dangerous, and i belive the co. has a oplation to reinbus
the pepoles dews for that time period, or start a law suit for negligence. i will take pictures.
as a business man that is wrong if your losing it close it.

membership no. [protected]

charles miller

I had the same problem. I canceled my membership and they say they never received my cancellation.

I called Bally’s on 1/8/10 to request my account be cancelled as I am not happy with the services or environment at the club.

I asked for a fax or e-mail to send my cancellation so that I can send it electronically and I would have a record of reciept. They said they couldn't give me one.

I was told that I need to request cancellation prior to January 9th in order to avoid being charged for January with a termination on February 9th. I was also told that I could submit this request online by simply filling out a contact request form which contains my member number and request for termination. I did this twice and received confirmation both times that the request was received on the 8th. Their phone system says that calls are recorded; however, somehow this call mysteriously disappeared from their records.

Then, of course, I was charged for January dues on the 11th extending my membership through March.

I am sure that I will never use their services again and I will make sure to let every person that I know now and meet in the future about their unethical business practices.

It continues to stagger me at the lengths a company will go to try and suck and extra $30 from a customer. Even if it costs them future business and any business from friends or family.

Let me begin...
1st. Customer service is a joke. There were times I was patiently standing at the protien bar, only 1 there,
and completely ignored! or until the lazy @$$ got tired of sitting there and figured out the only way to get rid of me was to serve me.
2nd. Unprofessional. I missed a payment 1 time. I remember going home and listening to a voicemail from the old lady at the front desk. "this is ballys, if you dont make your payment, you cant come back"...lol
I was laughing histericly.
3rd. my buddy and I started working out and hitting the gym hard. He was a member longer than me.
So, in the past he hardly ever went. His yearly membership fee was $100. Then we started going more, his fee was raised to $134. Now we are still going 4x's a week. His membership fee is now $202...lol
He confronted the GM and he stated, Balleys was bought out by a new company. The new pricing system capitolizes on people who frequently go, not the new comer. So new customer get the better deals, rather than loyal members.
4. Lazy trainers... I never needed a trainer, but when I see those so called trainers, train people its a joke.
The trainers put those poor people on a treadmill and say, "be back in 20 mins"...lol
5. this one is specificly for Springfield, NJ (RT22 east).
Horrible...horrible...horrible... rest rooms.
On the gym floor, there are never any paper towels.

Once my contract is up... I am canceling my CC# and will ask them to remove me from their database.

Stay away from bally total fitness. They are a bunch of scam artists. Some of the employees dont use their real name so they dont get in trouble. They are in it for the money only. Ballys dont care about their members. All the clubs machines are old and dirty. Most of them dont work. Some of the pools have fungus at the bottom. A lot of the clubs are closing down. Ballys will soon be going out of business. Stay away. Dont sign anything. Go somewhere else even if that means paying a little more. Beleive me... I was a former employee.

In January 2009 I signed an eight month agreement with Bally Total Fitness. I chose to cancel my membership when the location closest to me closed. Unfortunately I misplaced my copy of the agreement so I went to the website looking for information on how to cancel. I did not find the website helpful so I called the customer service line. The day I called I held for 32 minutes. I personally feel this hold time is unacceptable. I have worked in customer service, sales and retention for about 10 years and this hold time only made me want to cancel more.

After holding I reached Carlos Moreno (Employee ID#6456) on 7-29-09 and I explained to him I wished to cancel my account as well as my friend Alissa’s account. Alissa was added to my account in January for an additional $20 charge. Carlos informed me that the both of us still had 2 months on our contracts and asked if I would like to make the final payment over the phone. I asked Carlos if I would be charged a $10 fee for making the payment over the phone (I heard about this fee as I was holding). Carlos said he would waive the fee for my convenience so I made the final two payments on both Alissa’s and my accounts. My final payment was for $65.36 and my confirmation number was 042518. Alissa’s final payment was for $41.42 and her confirmation number was 092818. At the end of my conversation with Carlos I requested a confirmation of cancelation and final payments on the two accounts be emailed to me. Carlos said I would get that within 72 hours.

The following day on 7-30-09 I checked my bank account and noticed that I was charged $51.42, not $41.42. I was charged the $10 that I was told would be waived. I had to call in again that day to request a credit for the $10 fee. I held for another 30 minutes that day.

I spoke to Edward (employee ID# 6459) when I called in the 2nd time. Edward said he credited me for the $10 fee but it never appeared on my bank statement. Edward informed me that Alissa’s account wasn’t canceled the day before but that he would cancel it that day. I again requested a cancelation confirmation be sent to me via email.

I requested this cancelation at the end of July. I have yet to receive any confirmation via email that either of my accounts has been canceled. On September 28th I was charged $20.71. I have been told on 2 occasions that my accounts have been canceled so why should I continue to be charged? I looked into my banking history and I was never credited the $10 Edward had told me I would receive.

On October 5, 2009 I contact customer service and spoke to Joe (ID #1673) who informed me that in order to receive these two credits I would need to wait up to an additional 10 business days to discuss the possibility of a credit with the accounting department. This is ridiculous! Joe also informed me that the reason I haven’t received confirmation on cancelation is because I never mailed in a letter requesting to cancel. I was never told that it was a requirement to send in a letter. I work in client satisfaction, specifically with cancelations; I would have sent the letter if I was told that it was required.

On October 5th I also emailed Bally’s Member services department requesting a call back. I did not receive a call back, instead an email saying to call manager Jose Cervantes at [protected]. I called Jose on Monday October 12th and still had not heard back from him when I called a second time on the evening of Wednesday October 14, 2009.

In closing this has been a truly horrible experience and I have intentions on filing a complaint with the BBB. I also will be sharing this experience with friends, co-workers and family.

I joined a Bally's Fitness franchise; the membership that I held allowed me to use one club only, a club near my home. That club closed this year. They do not have a club that is near my home to replace the club that I joined. Despite the fact that my contract limited me to one club, which is now closed, Bally's continues to charge me their monthly fee. I have appealed to Bally's to end my membership; to date, they have declined to do so. I hope that you can assist me in ending this contract and in obtaining refunds for the fees collected since the club closed.

I was member of ballys for almost a year and I had myself and a friend in the same account because he didnt have a credit card, I had a month to month agreement with them, so I decided to go ahead an cancel the account I called and got charge for that last month and an extra 25$ to cancel. Next month I checked my bank account and they had charge me for my friend that was in the account, I called and they told me that when I called to cancel I didnt mention my friend in the account so now im suppost to wait for ballys to listen to recorded conversation I had with the agent that I spoke to to cancel the account. Just calling ballys is nearly impossible, the had me waiting for over 30 minutes. Horrible service.

I join the gym in May and signed up for until July with a friend at Ballys Total fitness. Because we were only going to be in that area for about 12 weeks we decided to look for a gym that would suit or needs. We met with a sales associate and general manager at the time to see if that gym was compatible with us and will suit our needs.
I decided along with my friend to pay up front for the three months since we knew our time there was short and general manager convinced us that Bally's had a plan that would suit our needs and that our contract was only good for the three month. He also convinced me that the only reason why he needed my credit card info was to allow the corporate office to process our gym memberships for the time we were going to be there.

Four months later, I checked my credit card to pay a bill and I saw that Bally's Total fitness had been charging me from August to November for using the gym. I called the office right away to let them know of their mistake. They gave me a run around for a month until finally someone told me that the about 87dollars/month they were taking from my credit card account without my permission for the past four months will not be refunded.

All I want is for them to refund me the money that they have been charging me. I will never join that gym again and I will never recommend anyone to use that gym because they are dishonest people working with the company and they also train them in a way that they can cheat people out of their money.

On several occasions I have witness the North Hollywood Bally’s employees pilfering the free samples that were intended for distribution to members. Today at about 6:30 pm, upon exiting the North Hollywood Bally’s, there was a table set up at the front exit with the following items for sale (cash only).

Schick Xtreme3 Comfort Plus which was clearly marked “Free Razor! Not For Resale”, Atkins Advantage Chocolate Granola Bar Clearly marked “Not For Sale”, Bally Total Fitness Yogurt Covered Berry Snack Right Bar, Nabisco 100 Calorie Packs Chips Ahoy Candy Bites, Nabisco 100 Calorie Packs Oreo Candy Bites, Nabisco Ritz Toasted Chips Sour Cream & Onion.

It seemed like a Street Corner Vendor type setup as the sales were not being rung up on a cash register. I just thought Bally corporate office should know how audacious these racketeering employees have become. I don’t have any names, but the young lady working the Juice Bar/Concession Stand was supplying the goods to the male Bally employee that was conducting the sales.

I just signed a Bally's contract at 11:52am PT on 3/24/2009. What I thought I was signing was a waiver for possible injury in the club. The club manager, D.L. employee #*84 was the agent I signed with. I need to cancel this contract but I see now that Bally's has a reputation for unethical dealings. I would like to have some weight with me when I try to get my money back. Maybe if they know they are under investigation they will deal fairly with me. I have been unemployed since October 2008. I was depressed because I had not received any responses to my employment applications. So finally I received a call about an application I submitted. However I had to pass a physical ability test before being considered. I thought using gym equipment to condition my body would improve my ability on the test. I needed two things from a facility; it had to be close to home, and no contractual obligation.

I told Doug that I was unemployed and that I could not sign a contract at this time. I asked if I could just pay cash ahead of time every month. He told me that was ok. The club is close to my home. So I went in and was told I just needed to sign a waiver to protect Bally's from unnecessary law suits. What I read and signed was in fact a waiver affirming I would not hold Bally's and its agents at fault if I were injured in the club. I was then lead out of Doug's office to the lobby and he gave me an ID for the club and as I waited for Doug to give me my copy of the waiver it became apparent to me that he had forgot to give me my copy of the waiver. So I asked for it, he laughed and said oh yeah and came back with the contract that I now have. I did not think anything about the added pages because he was explaining to me while he gave me the papers that he was giving me the schedules of the club's itinerary.

I picked up the papers to start scheduling my workouts and noticed that I had been given what looks like a three year contract. Though my signature is not on the contract it had other information pertaining to me.

I am a regular member of Bally's Total Fitness Club facilities regularly for morning workout. Almost every morning, I find this facility unsatisfactory. Men's shower room area is always dirty and full of odor. Swimming pool water is murky and dirty. Water temperature in Jacuzzi sometimes run over 110 degree. Swimming pool area is not well lit. The guard at swimming pool, if there is, always sleeps in his chair. In spite of this entire problem I am still regularly going just because my money is stuck in and they are not ready to refund back, if they say that they would refund, they are charging for exorbitant cancellation fees. I have tried hard to solve this dissatisfaction but these people are least bothered about they customers and don't want to try improving the standard of their club. If any one is planning to join them, I have a humble request to make. Please avoid them and look out for some which is satisfactory.