Do Gyms have a Monopoly on Fitness?

This isn’t what I call, “fitness on my terms.”  Several months ago I signed up for 24 Hour Fitness. I wanted to work on my posture and realized that yoga classes were out of my budget. After looking at gym after gym, I came across a deal at Costco for a two year membership to 24 Hour Fitness. This was a pay upfront deal but when I calculated the monthly payments they only came out to be a little over $12/month. Faced with the option of $10 per yoga class or $12 per month I chose the Costco deal at 24 Hour Fitness.

For a few weeks things worked out great and I went all the time but then I misplaced my temporary membership card. Now, you may be thinking, “Hey, that’s not a problem because they send you a real membership card.” I say this because that is what I thought. So, I waited and waited and nothing happened. I received junk mail from 24 Hour Fitness but no membership card. I visited the club and each time it took about 25 minutes for them to admit me (meaning every time I missed the class I wanted to take). All the while I was still receiving junk mail. I kept meaning to call but 24 Hour Fitness’ customer service is not 24 hours.

Finally today, after an early release day at work, I buckled myself down faced the customer service people.The person on the other end of the phone read off of a script and failed to answer a single one of my questions. After continuing to question them about why I had not received my card, the man on the line told me, “I’ll tell you what, this time we won’t charge you the $10 fee for losing your card.” Was he not listening? They NEVER sent it. But he thought that he was doing me a huge favor. It was horrible. Their customer service is so bad that it rivals T-Mobile.

What really irks me about this situation (besides the fact that I’m paying for a service that is a huge pain for me to use) is that this weekend I was telling a friend of mine about this and she said, “Oh that happens to everyone!” So, I want to know, if this happens to a lot of people then why do we keep giving them business? Plus, the same friend had her car broken into while she was working out this weekend. Apparently, just this year they’ve had close to 600 break ins. Don’t you think they’d add some security? I’m sorry about this rant but, really!? I mean really 24 Hour Fitness? I can’t believe that in a time so tight that you can devalue your customers in such an extreme way.

Tell me about where you go to the gym, be it in Austin or elsewhere. Do they value your business or had fitness become so monopolized that all gyms take customers for granted?