Trying to cancel your gym membership can be more tiring than actually attending that kickboxing class you keep skipping. Getting out of your gym contract can be so tough that people are going to great lengths to avoid paying any penalties. After going into debt living a lifestyle she couldn’t afford, this woman forged fake documents to convince Equinox she had moved out of state. She photoshopped her name onto bills sent to her parents’ home in Virginia. She hadn’t truly moved, but it worked and she saved herself over $1,000 in penalties.

But before resorting to forgery, there are a few legal and effective ways to cancel your membership without paying. Most gyms let you cancel free of charge under certain conditions like illness, relocation, disability, and sudden unemployment. Even if your reasons for canceling fall under those accepted circumstances, it’s still not as simple as it might sound. You have to submit “official” proof from your doctor, employer, or submit proof of your new address by showing a lease or bill in your name.

Most people don’t take the gym contract they sign as seriously as they should. It’s just a gym membership, right? How serious could it be? But it’s important to read the fine print before signing ANY contracts.

A contract for a gym membership is legally binding, so it’s important to read ALL of the fine print. Understand what you’re getting yourself into, and make sure you know what the conditions are to cancel and how much you’ll be charged. And get every interaction you have with gym staff regarding your membership in writing. Some employees might promise more lenient policies than are written in the contract.

Not moving, sick, or unemployed? It’s likely you can cancel without paying.

Most gyms include a clause that allows you to cancel if they stop offering all the services listed in the contract. Did your favorite hatha yoga class get cut from the only time slot you could make? That might just be grounds for legal termination, without paying any fees.

If you’re trying to ditch your gym membership because you’ll be traveling for a few months, tending to an illness or family emergency, or even just in between freelance gigs, you can also opt to freeze your account instead of canceling it entirely. Most gyms let you stop paying your monthly membership for a certain amount of time, so long as you give them a heads up and plan to renew once the freezing period ends.

How to cancel your gym membershipUs News

How to get out of your membership if all else fails?

If the cancelation conditions don’t apply to you, you’re not interested in freezing your account, and you aren’t willing to commit forgery, there is another option. If the terms of the contract you signed weren’t explained to you before you signed, you can likely get out of it. Legally, cancellation policies have to be explained beforehand.

You can also threaten to take your complaints about your unexplained membership contract and outrageous cancellation fees to social media. Businesses will try to avoid bad online reviews at all costs and will most likely just let you cut ties for free. Again, get every interaction in writing. If they agree to let you out of your membership without paying a penalty, ask for a written letter of acknowledgment.

If this all sounds like too much effort and you think you can just remove your payment method from your account is a better solution. Think again. Unpaid fees will get transferred to a collection agency. Even if the amount you owe is small, the impact on your credit could be big. It isn’t worth it.

Photo by Scott Webb Unsplash

Instead, consider hiring a cancelation service like Trim. This free and convenient service cancels your subscriptions for you, negotiates on your behalf, and gets you better deals on subscriptions you want to keep. Trim will even send your gym a letter requesting to cancel on your behalf. Let them do the haggling for you.

string(5097) "Trying to cancel your gym membership can be more tiring than actually attending that kickboxing class you keep skipping. Getting out of your gym contract can be so tough that people are going to great lengths to avoid paying any penalties. After going into debt living a lifestyle she couldn't afford, this woman forged fake documents to convince Equinox she had moved out of state. She photoshopped her name onto bills sent to her parents' home in Virginia. She hadn't truly moved, but it worked and she saved herself over $1,000 in penalties.



But before resorting to forgery, there are a few legal and effective ways to cancel your membership without paying. Most gyms let you cancel free of charge under certain conditions like illness, relocation, disability, and sudden unemployment. Even if your reasons for canceling fall under those accepted circumstances, it's still not as simple as it might sound. You have to submit "official" proof from your doctor, employer, or submit proof of your new address by showing a lease or bill in your name.

Most people don't take the gym contract they sign as seriously as they should. It's just a gym membership, right? How serious could it be? But it's important to read the fine print before signing ANY contracts.

A contract for a gym membership is legally binding, so it's important to read ALL of the fine print. Understand what you're getting yourself into, and make sure you know what the conditions are to cancel and how much you'll be charged. And get every interaction you have with gym staff regarding your membership in writing. Some employees might promise more lenient policies than are written in the contract.

Not moving, sick, or unemployed? It's likely you can cancel without paying. 

Most gyms include a clause that allows you to cancel if they stop offering all the services listed in the contract. Did your favorite hatha yoga class get cut from the only time slot you could make? That might just be grounds for legal termination, without paying any fees.

If you're trying to ditch your gym membership because you'll be traveling for a few months, tending to an illness or family emergency, or even just in between freelance gigs, you can also opt to freeze your account instead of canceling it entirely. Most gyms let you stop paying your monthly membership for a certain amount of time, so long as you give them a heads up and plan to renew once the freezing period ends.
How to cancel your gym membershipUs News
How to get out of your membership if all else fails?

If the cancelation conditions don't apply to you, you're not interested in freezing your account, and you aren't willing to commit forgery, there is another option. If the terms of the contract you signed weren't explained to you before you signed, you can likely get out of it. Legally, cancellation policies have to be explained beforehand.

You can also threaten to take your complaints about your unexplained membership contract and outrageous cancellation fees to social media. Businesses will try to avoid bad online reviews at all costs and will most likely just let you cut ties for free. Again, get every interaction in writing. If they agree to let you out of your membership without paying a penalty, ask for a written letter of acknowledgment.

If this all sounds like too much effort and you think you can just remove your payment method from your account is a better solution. Think again. Unpaid fees will get transferred to a collection agency. Even if the amount you owe is small, the impact on your credit could be big. It isn't worth it.
Photo by Scott Webb Unsplash
Instead, consider hiring a cancelation service like Trim. This free and convenient service cancels your subscriptions for you, negotiates on your behalf, and gets you better deals on subscriptions you want to keep. Trim will even send your gym a letter requesting to cancel on your behalf. Let them do the haggling for you."

Everyone says the economy’s healthier than ever, but some of us still find it necessary to make that paycheck stretch…and stretch…and stretch. The better we understand our spending habits, the better we can manage them. Living frugally can benefit you in many ways. You’ll grow more self-reliant, creative, and resourceful as you learn to make

If your business offers corporate credit cards or expense accounts to employees, there’s a good chance there is unethical spending going on. 33% of corporate credit card holders admit to blatantly defrauding the companies they work for, and twice that amount confess to making “risky purchases.” But a thread on AskReddit reveals some of the

You Lose $20K Each Year Just For Being a Mom You may not know this, but there was a time when smoking was considered “liberated” behavior for women. There was a cigarette company Virginia Slims that was created specifically to attract female smokers during the bad old 1970s. The slogan was “You’ve come a long

We’ve all heard it before. Takeaway is way more tempting than cooking at home night after night after night. But although ordering-in might save you precious time, at the end of the day I’ll bet your wallet takes the hit. Everyone on the planet resorts to takeout after a long day’s work — and I’m

Experts agree: it’s time to clean your workspace for your most creative era yet Spring cleaning is overrated. In the Spring, I want to go-go-go! Not get bogged down in the minutiae of tidying. But once I get started, I’m one of those people who can’t stop decluttering. So I carve out designated days for

Despite the fact that late-stage capitalism is an amoral hellhole driven by a borderline religious belief in the sanctity of brands, we would never, ever suggest that anyone should shoplift from big-box stores, or even imply that doing so is morally okay or a victimless crime. But hypothetically, if we were to give any tidbit

Oh, how far we’ve come! Recently, it was revealed that — finally! — women CEOs at Fortune 500 companies outnumber male CEOs named John. A dubious milestone, but it’s something to celebrate. Though women have come pretty far in society, the progress we’ve made is far from enough. From the pay gap to daily microaggressions,

The Momager May Be Worth More Than You Think… Kris Jenner is a pop culture icon for many reasons. While you may have watched her meteoric rise to fame on Keeping Up with the Kardashians — which originally debuted on E! — she’s actually been a fascinating figure in the public eye for ages.  As

In the 1980s movie Little Shop of Horrors, the protagonist Audrey fantasizes about owning a house of her very own. She doesn’t ask for much: just a simple one-storey place with a washer, dryer, and bedding will do.  And while this moment in the film is intended to satirize the American Dream by underlining how

The Kar-Jenner family is loaded thanks to their business prowess (and fierce momager, Kris Jenner.) Kim Kardashian said it best when she lamented that it “seems like nobody wants to work these days,” but these sisters never have a day off. And that’s why the topic of Kylie Jenner’s net worth is so intriguing.  But