Golds Gyms SUCKS!!!! Greedy Bastards!!!(Rant)

[muscle96ss]

To make a long story short my wife and I joined golds gym back in 2001 in Ahwatukee, AZ. When we moved to a different part of the valley in 2007 we kept our golds membership because we were only paying $18 month each(plus $10 a month total for child care) and still used it on occasion and there were rumours of them putting in a new gold's real close to our house. In november of 2012 I finally cancelled our membership because we had only used it like twice in the past 2 years and every time we travel they deny our travel passes. In order to cancel the membership I went online to the gyms home page and clicked on the "cancellation" link and followed their instructions to a tee. Then a few months later I get a call from someone at the gym telling me we owe them a bunch of money. I explained to her that we cancelled our membership. She states she has no record of it and will call corporate and call me back the next day. I never hear back from her. Then a week later I get a call from a collection agency telling me the same thing. I get in a huge argument with the guy because he is a complete prick and just wants money and doesn't care about the facts or doing whats right. So then I call the corporate office and get the runaround. They tell me the gym is independently owned but won't tell me who the owner is or how to contact him. So I call the ahwatukee gym and ask who the owner is and they tell me his name is "Johnny Ray" and that he is there everyday during the day. So I ask to speak to him and of course he is busy, so I leave a message. As expected he doesn't call back so I call again the next day and leave another message as this time he is with a customer. Once again no return phone call so I e-mail him as his e-mail address is on the clubs homepage. As expected again, no response. So then a few days later the collection agency calls back again and explains that they could care less whether I am right or not and that I have until midnight to pay $300 or it will go on both our credit reports. So of course I pay rather than permanently screw up both of our credit historys. The very next day I decide to go pay Mr. Johnny Ray a visit. I meet with the guy and it turns out according to him that he is just the manager and not the owner, and of course he will not give me the owners name or contact info(not sure if he is lying or not). He tells me that although it is an independent franchise that corportate owns the billing and back office and that neither he nor the owner has any power to do anything about this. He states that he feels bad for me but that I need to contact the corporate office. I question him on this because corportate had given me the same excuse stating that the gym is independent and they have no authority. He swore up and down that it was corporate who could deal with this. Well I just got off the phone with the corporate office and was told once again from corportate that they have no authority whatsoever over this. And again they refuse to disclose who the owner is or the contact information.

So basically you have someone who has paid over $6,000 in the past 12 years and used the gym only a handful of times over the past 5 years while continuing to pay faithfully. Then when they finally decide to cancel you shit on them for a measley fucking $300. What a bunch of greedy bastards. What the hell is wrong with people like this, they screw people over just because they can. No wonder people are going out of business left and right; they have no ethics or sense of how to run a business. I will not enter another gold's gym as long as I live; they don't deserve any more of my money.

Thanks for listening to my rant. Good thing I am not on tren or I would probably be paying Mr. Ray another visit.

 

[GymDudeVA]

Wow, just a couple of things:

1. I wonder why your travel passes were not honored? Did they say why?

2. I'm not sure, but I think corporate is right on this: the franchises are completely independent.

Gold's is very confusing with some of them being corporate gyms and some being franchises.

My main Gold's is a franchise is has been great with financial stuff. I was paying a pretty low rate and had to cancel. No hassles with the cancellation. Years later I went to re-join from scratch, expecting to pay a higher rate, but the manager recognized me, jumped in, and told the sales guy to give me my old rate. THAT is the way to run a business.

 

[muscle96ss]

Wow, just a couple of things:

1. I wonder why your travel passes were not honored? Did they say why?

We would use the travel passes on vacations and the most common excuse we got was that they are independently owned and not franchise owned so they don't have to honor them. A couple of places we visited were seasonal places and it was in-season so they basically stated that this is when they make their money so they can't be giving out freebies and lose money.

 

[marssel]

Pity we can't have the 1975 version of Gold's Gym!

If only Gold's Gym started a retro chain...

 

[dont wanna be old]

Shame on that gold's .
Customer service seems to be second to greed .
Story sounds all too familiar .

 

[Wesley Inman]

That's strange..the 2 Gold's in my area are pretty cool..they let me train there for free any time I visit and I'm not even a member...

The downside being at one location, half the people there wear skanktops and applying baby oil before they workout...and no I am not exaggerating.

The New Haven CT Golds changed last year to PowerHouse and that is the home gym of Evan Centopani and some others, so it's a legit place to go.

 

[marssel]

half the people there wear skanktops and applying baby oil before they workout...and no I am not exaggerating.

Surely getting the gym covered in baby oil is a safety concern. Maybe it's OK afterwards when they're posing in the locker room, but before a workout seems highly ridiculous!

 

[Wesley Inman]

Surely getting the gym covered in baby oil is a safety concern. Maybe it's OK afterwards when they're posing in the locker room, but before a workout seems highly ridiculous!

First time I saw it I was like wtf....then it seemed to be more and more common the more I visited the gym..

These guys typically only train arms though, or maybe everytime I visited it just happened to be arm day.

 

[Cito33189]

^ GTL baby


But seriously best gym the exist today.

World's Gym in San Diego is the modern day golds of arnolds era. Don't believe me as JJ.

 

[ironblaster]

To make a long story short my wife and I joined golds gym back in 2001 in Ahwatukee, AZ. When we moved to a different part of the valley in 2007 we kept our golds membership because we were only paying $18 month each(plus $10 a month total for child care) and still used it on occasion and there were rumours of them putting in a new gold's real close to our house. In november of 2012 I finally cancelled our membership because we had only used it like twice in the past 2 years and every time we travel they deny our travel passes. In order to cancel the membership I went online to the gyms home page and clicked on the "cancellation" link and followed their instructions to a tee. Then a few months later I get a call from someone at the gym telling me we owe them a bunch of money. I explained to her that we cancelled our membership. She states she has no record of it and will call corporate and call me back the next day. I never hear back from her. Then a week later I get a call from a collection agency telling me the same thing. I get in a huge argument with the guy because he is a complete prick and just wants money and doesn't care about the facts or doing whats right. So then I call the corporate office and get the runaround. They tell me the gym is independently owned but won't tell me who the owner is or how to contact him. So I call the ahwatukee gym and ask who the owner is and they tell me his name is "Johnny Ray" and that he is there everyday during the day. So I ask to speak to him and of course he is busy, so I leave a message. As expected he doesn't call back so I call again the next day and leave another message as this time he is with a customer. Once again no return phone call so I e-mail him as his e-mail address is on the clubs homepage. As expected again, no response. So then a few days later the collection agency calls back again and explains that they could care less whether I am right or not and that I have until midnight to pay $300 or it will go on both our credit reports. So of course I pay rather than permanently screw up both of our credit historys. The very next day I decide to go pay Mr. Johnny Ray a visit. I meet with the guy and it turns out according to him that he is just the manager and not the owner, and of course he will not give me the owners name or contact info(not sure if he is lying or not). He tells me that although it is an independent franchise that corportate owns the billing and back office and that neither he nor the owner has any power to do anything about this. He states that he feels bad for me but that I need to contact the corporate office. I question him on this because corportate had given me the same excuse stating that the gym is independent and they have no authority. He swore up and down that it was corporate who could deal with this. Well I just got off the phone with the corporate office and was told once again from corportate that they have no authority whatsoever over this. And again they refuse to disclose who the owner is or the contact information.

So basically you have someone who has paid over $6,000 in the past 12 years and used the gym only a handful of times over the past 5 years while continuing to pay faithfully. Then when they finally decide to cancel you shit on them for a measley fucking $300. What a bunch of greedy bastards. What the hell is wrong with people like this, they screw people over just because they can. No wonder people are going out of business left and right; they have no ethics or sense of how to run a business. I will not enter another gold's gym as long as I live; they don't deserve any more of my money.

Thanks for listening to my rant. Good thing I am not on tren or I would probably be paying Mr. Ray another visit.

When you cancelled your membership did you get a cancellation confirmation or some sort of receipt proving you cancelled?

 

[Bb75]

Were have u trained for the past 12yrs..
I am a member at golds in upstate NY and besides the little toads curling in the squat rack or even better deadlifting off the floor in the squat rack it's good. We are in a shortage of PL GYMS in my area. When I have to squat and someones in the rack unjust casually walk over to it pull Up a yoga ball and sit there and stare at them till they get uncOmfortable and leave. Im there to move weight. That's it no socializing


DEATH BEFORE WEAKNESS!!!!

 

[Ulamalop]

Why rant...a quick phone call to your state's AG will clean the mess up. Be prepared, give names, dates, amounts, just like the timeline you've laid out.

 

[Xenorikki]

Thank fuck I work out aat a private gym for free. Iv heard tons of these stories about other gyms too

 

[Kaladryn]

Why rant...a quick phone call to your state's AG will clean the mess up. Be prepared, give names, dates, amounts, just like the timeline you've laid out.

It's not that simple, Gold's Corporate is the WORST! They have become infamous for this kinda crap. Check this out, the Better Business Bureau gives Gold's Corporate an F rating:

Gold's Gym International, Inc Business Review in Irving, TX - Dallas Texas BBB

and this-

430 Complaints and Reviews about Gold's Gym

From the Gold's Gym wiki!

Numerous customers have reported Gold's Gym franchises acting in dishonest and unscrupulous ways. They have reported advertised deals not being honored, billing irregularities, contract terms being fraudulently altered by sales staff after signing and problems canceling accounts or relocating.

They are FAMOUS for making it literally impossible to cancel your ongoing monthly membership, there are literally thousands of people who have had this issue, sometimes after the gym has already sold to another company!

 

[kingpeon]

Yes, they are greedy scumbags

And if you sign up for a one year contract they will continue to bill you after one year even if you have not re-enrolled.

 

[gogotren]

I was going to golds just further north from auwatukee and they had a twice a year "facility charge" of like $35. Just before it was due to go through I had to cancel my debit card because of fraudulent charges, golds charged me a $35 NSF fee, for both me and my wife. I said you can`t charge me a NSF (non-sufficient funds fee), because that`s not what happened, they would just be getting paid a little late because of situation out of my control. They would not reverse charges unless I got letter from the bank. I was not going to waste time going to the bank, asking for a custom letter for me. They never reported to my credit report any way. F` golds!!

 

[Big Barry]

And if you sign up for a one year contract they will continue to bill you after one year even if you have not re-enrolled.

40 years later there's bound to be some poor sod still paying the bill, even though he only went twice and curled in the squat rack.

 

[ExtraSourCream]

Why rant...a quick phone call to your state's AG will clean the mess up. Be prepared, give names, dates, amounts, just like the timeline you've laid out.

Lol this. The collection agency would not be able to fuck up your credit report THAT quick. You should have paid them 1$. Also, you should have filled a report on the Better Business Bureau, they get shit done and do not fuck around..Actually it is still not too late, I would go the BBB website and fill out a report, you are also guaranteed to get that money back.

 

[renewlyf]

To make a long story short my wife and I joined golds gym back in 2001 in Ahwatukee, AZ. When we moved to a different part of the valley in 2007 we kept our golds membership because we were only paying $18 month each(plus $10 a month total for child care) and still used it on occasion and there were rumours of them putting in a new gold's real close to our house. In november of 2012 I finally cancelled our membership because we had only used it like twice in the past 2 years and every time we travel they deny our travel passes. In order to cancel the membership I went online to the gyms home page and clicked on the "cancellation" link and followed their instructions to a tee. Then a few months later I get a call from someone at the gym telling me we owe them a bunch of money. I explained to her that we cancelled our membership. She states she has no record of it and will call corporate and call me back the next day. I never hear back from her. Then a week later I get a call from a collection agency telling me the same thing. I get in a huge argument with the guy because he is a complete prick and just wants money and doesn't care about the facts or doing whats right. So then I call the corporate office and get the runaround. They tell me the gym is independently owned but won't tell me who the owner is or how to contact him. So I call the ahwatukee gym and ask who the owner is and they tell me his name is "Johnny Ray" and that he is there everyday during the day. So I ask to speak to him and of course he is busy, so I leave a message. As expected he doesn't call back so I call again the next day and leave another message as this time he is with a customer. Once again no return phone call so I e-mail him as his e-mail address is on the clubs homepage. As expected again, no response. So then a few days later the collection agency calls back again and explains that they could care less whether I am right or not and that I have until midnight to pay $300 or it will go on both our credit reports. So of course I pay rather than permanently screw up both of our credit historys. The very next day I decide to go pay Mr. Johnny Ray a visit. I meet with the guy and it turns out according to him that he is just the manager and not the owner, and of course he will not give me the owners name or contact info(not sure if he is lying or not). He tells me that although it is an independent franchise that corportate owns the billing and back office and that neither he nor the owner has any power to do anything about this. He states that he feels bad for me but that I need to contact the corporate office. I question him on this because corportate had given me the same excuse stating that the gym is independent and they have no authority. He swore up and down that it was corporate who could deal with this. Well I just got off the phone with the corporate office and was told once again from corportate that they have no authority whatsoever over this. And again they refuse to disclose who the owner is or the contact information.

So basically you have someone who has paid over $6,000 in the past 12 years and used the gym only a handful of times over the past 5 years while continuing to pay faithfully. Then when they finally decide to cancel you shit on them for a measley fucking $300. What a bunch of greedy bastards. What the hell is wrong with people like this, they screw people over just because they can. No wonder people are going out of business left and right; they have no ethics or sense of how to run a business. I will not enter another gold's gym as long as I live; they don't deserve any more of my money.

Thanks for listening to my rant. Good thing I am not on tren or I would probably be paying Mr. Ray another visit.

I had some problems with them but got my bank involved. They actually contacted Gold's corporate and told them that I was disputing the last months charge and that their call would count as cancellation confirmation. I had cancelled it before a couple of times but they kept charging my account.

That Ahwatukee location is a shit hole! Great location they just don't keep it up.
Arnold should buy out Gold's and revamp it back to it's glory days!!!

 

[ALLEX]

Just file a lawsuit.

The judge will barely hear their side before deciding in your favor.