[52358]

I still have a membership to Planet Fitness from 5 years ago that charges to my account every month

while I had no problem signing up online, you can only cancel your membership in person at your "home" location, or by sending them a certified mail letter formally request cancellation (which I have tried and failed apparently because I never heard back)

I now live on the other side of the country, so it feels ridiculous to spend money on a flight ticket just to cancel a gym membership

worse, Planet Fitness requires you provide bank account/routing number for payment, so there is no way to cancel payment unless I switch bank accounts

[SkipperCat]

Contact your bank and explain what's going on. They may have a way to block Planet Fitness' auto charge. Your bank should be sympathetic and they control outflows.

After a while, PF will drop their auto-charge because they won't want to deal with the rejected payment requests.

I hope I'm correct about this and I hope it helps!

[booi]

They absolutely have a way to block auto-charges.

[pjc50]

> certified mail letter formally request cancellation (which I have tried and failed apparently because I never heard back)

Try small claims court in _your_ jurisdiction. You can then present this in evidence.

[teeray]

It won’t look good either if they charge you after they’ve been served about that legal action. That’s probably the most formal written notification!

[shanebellone]

"unless I switch bank accounts"

And if you do, they will keep your membership active (for years) before reporting debt to the credit agencies.

[dangwhy]

no because they don't require ssn to signup.

[kjs3]

They don't need your SSN to hit your credit report. Happens all the time.

[dangwhy]

you are totally right!

[shanebellone]

I've had it happen.

[astura]

It's a common misconception.

I don't know why people think that something magically can't effect your credit report without knowledge of your SSN. Name+address+DOB is enough to identify you.

Chase does not require a Social Security number when you add an authorized user so people are always absolutely shocked their "authorized user account" appears on their credit report.

[somehnguy]

Yup, I had a ton of delinquent accounts on my credit reports that were a similar (but not exact) name and similar (but not exact) SSN and similar (but not exact) birthdate as mine. Seems they’ll just find the closest match and slap it on.

I learned this as I was applying for student loans at the end of highschool and kept getting denied. It’s the reason I ended up having to take a bunch of crazy high interest rates from Sallie Mae/now Navient to go to college as planned.

Of course the credit agencies reporting all these false debts suffer 0 consequences for it, only the consumer does. I’m still pretty mad about it 15 years later, got slightly off topic :)

[noelsusman]

https://www.consumerfinance.gov/ask-cfpb/how-do-i-stop-autom...

[jrnichols]

I wonder if this is a franchise thing. I've moved states more than once and Planet Fitness has been one of the easier things to deal with cancelling. Done this a few times in different states. You should be able to go into any location and make that your new home location, and then cancel there.

They also let me use a credit card for payments too.

[kube-system]

The contract requires you to send the letter to cancel, but it doesn't prohibit you from calling to discuss the matter. You have already cancelled in compliance with the terms of the contract, you don't have to hop on a flight to do anything.

[ChickenNugger]

I forget which gym but I sent them an email cancellation ("in writing") and they told me I had to come in. So I cancelled the card. They had some bullshit agreement with my bank where the subscription followed to my new card. So I cancelled the bank account.

Bank accounts don't need to be some terminal relationship. If they don't treat you right, leave.

edit: It was Workout Anytime

[dangwhy]

Ballys? whatever happened to that shithole.

[ChickenNugger]

Workout Anytime