[beAbU]

Isn't there usually some cooldown period for contracts like these? Or is that not a US thing? Any sales contract that I have signed in the past came with a 15-30 day cooldown period, where if I change my mind I can cancel no matter what.

I had to do it once where I caved under the pressure of a particularly aggressive "life insurance" salesperson, only realized my mistake a day after signing, so I called them up and exercised my right to "cool down".

[ceejayoz]

Yes, but it's short (three days in some states), and they'll do everything in their power to dodge your attempts to use it.

[teeray]

> and they'll do everything in their power to dodge your attempts to use it.

A gym I was interested in joining had a pay-for-one-month deal, so I said, “sure, why not?” Their system took my e-signature for authorizing the one-time credit card transaction and copied (forged) it onto a shitty gym contract with auto-renewal and a bunch of other terms I didn’t agree to.

Fortunately, my state had a 3-day right of recision, so I followed the requirements in the law to the letter. It only required written notification that I’m exercising my right, so I printed a letter as such, brought a notary friend and another friend as witness, and hand-delivered it to the manager on duty and asked them to sign a receipt for it (which was witnessed and notarized). They tried to give me all kinds of crap about “the company cancellation process,” which I said is great and all, but not applicable because state law trumps company policy and state law says that as of 30 seconds ago our contract never existed. They ultimately relented, especially since they were nervous about the forgery aspect too.