[pugets]

I once moved towns and needed to cancel my LA Fitness gym membership. I found that they wanted me to go to their website, find the Cancellation Form, print it out, fill it out with my account details, and mail or fax it to their corporate office. I don’t believe there is any way of cancelling it online or over the phone.

So instead of doing that all of that, I called my credit card company and asked them to block all future charges from the company. It worked like a charm.

[dghlsakjg]

Just a note:

It is up to the company to not pursue you for the money. Contractually, you probably still owe them the money, unless there is a clause in the contract that says that non-payment is a way to cancel the membership. They could legally pursue that, or sell it to someone else to pursue.

Not paying is not the same thing as not owing. Many companies will just let it drop. Some won't

[Spivak]

Eh it's probably not enforceable so long as you did something reasonable— sent a letter, sent an email and then stopped payment.

Taken to absurdity they can't make you lick your elbow in order to cancel and making you jump through arbitrary hoops when an email to their support is perfectly sufficient probably falls on your side.

[dghlsakjg]

The something reasonable is almost certainly going to be explicitly defined in the contract that you sign (terms and conditions).

If one of the conditions is that you can't cancel without showing up in person or sending a notarized letter and giving 90 days notice, courts would find that enforceable if that's what you agreed to. Many online services will just allow you to cancel by stopping payment, many won't. That's why regulations like this are important, sleazy companies, like gyms and Adobe, are great at burying terms deep in their terms that are just on the right side of legally enforceable, but not reasonable to a normal person. The courts have to go with precedent and the law, even when it isn't 'common sense'.

If there isn't a prior contract or you never signed a terms and conditions, then sure, just stop payment, but almost any business is going to have a contract.