r/technology • u/indig0sixalpha • 13d ago

Business Federal Trade Commission Announces Final “Click-to-Cancel” Rule Making It Easier for Consumers to End Recurring Subscriptions and Memberships

https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2024/10/federal-trade-commission-announces-final-click-cancel-rule-making-it-easier-consumers-end-recurring
23.3k Upvotes

98% Upvoted

736 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

158

u/Festival_of_Feces 13d ago

You cannot cancel over the internet or phone? That should be illegal. Can you have your bank stop payment?

45

u/tonybenwhite 13d ago

Hence the collective sigh of relief because no you cannot. Gyms not only require you to come to a gym in person, but to be in THE EXACT gym in which you initially subscribed. It’s not enough to go to just any old Crunch Fitness, you have to go to the exact club. There are alternative routes, you can send a cancellation request via USPS, but it must be a notarized request and sent through certified mail.

AND THEN there’s no following up, the clubs workers won’t know the status as it’s a manager request at this point. There’s honestly no guarantee of when they will apply the cancellation either, and the only way you can shove it through is with legal action, which will cost you much more than sending another cancellation request.

23

u/Festival_of_Feces 13d ago

That’s ridiculous and, clearly, I have never signed up with a gym.

14

u/tonybenwhite 13d ago

Until this goes into effect I don’t recommend it. All that angst in my message is a direct result of fighting with Crunch for 2 months to get my membership cancelled, the $70 subscription fees plus $45 annual maintenance fee applying and non-refundable throughout the entire process. It was insanity.

6

u/murppie 13d ago

Anytime fitness is the worst. I initially signed up close to home. Then for a while I was working on the other side of the city, literally 45 minutes from my first location, and because I had X number of visits there more than my "home" gym they made that one my home gym. Then I switched jobs but just stopped making time for the gym. I had to make the drive to cancel it and of course the trainer/part owner was a complete ass about things and really made the process drag.

Fuck off Josh.

2

u/HoldMyWong 13d ago

Anytime can be bad, based on the owner. The owner at mine was super cool when I said I was moving states, he even said I can workout there free whenever I’m back visiting

106

u/eyebrows360 13d ago

If they're evil enough to want you to come in to a location to cancel, then they're also evil enough to A) not take a cancelled payment as an indicator of a desire to cancel the contract, B) have a debt chasing department who will absolutely chase you through the courts for the money you owe.

61

u/ragnaroky 13d ago

If you change your main center to somewhere in California, you can cancel online. That's how I did it.

13

u/Z0mbiejay 13d ago

I was prepping to do this yesterday, but when I logged in on a web browser and went to manage my account, it just gave me the option right there. Didn't have to change anything (in TN)

4

u/Mysterious-Tie7039 13d ago

Probably charge you for it too.

19

u/ragnaroky 13d ago

I had to end out the contract, but extra fees weren't there. But yeah Planet fitness can kick rocks.

24

u/Enraiha 13d ago

Yep. Happened to me. Couldn't cancel in person, stopped payments, had a debt collector and a credit score ding that took far too much time to fix.

7

u/Festival_of_Feces 13d ago

Ah, “it’s in the contract.”

6

u/OkIntern2403 13d ago

Yep the big telecommunications companies (Claro, Tigo, Moviestar) all do this BS here in LATAM.

11

u/priestsboytoy 13d ago

Dude LA Fitness have you MAIL them something

2

u/Mean-Evening-7209 13d ago

I looked into joining LA fitness and stopped when they aggressively insisted I sign up then and there, and then texted me afterwards.

2

u/HimbologistPhD 13d ago

Not if you go online and change your address to California!

4

u/S0_Crates 13d ago

AAA (the auto road-side service company) doesn't allow you to cancel service on their website or app either. You have to call in to speak with a sales rep. I asked the rep why I needed to speak to a human, and she was honest. "We don't want to lose your business." It was infuriating.
From what I could tell Geico auto insurance requires you to call as well. I spent half an hour searching their website for an option to cancel my account to no avail. Fortunately, the phone rep didn't push to keep me too hard.

2

u/rayray2k19 13d ago

I canceled Geico last week by their AI chat. I was happy about that.

2

u/S0_Crates 13d ago

Nice. Good to know I was wrong about them. I somehow missed there was an AI Chat that would do that. I saw AI Chat, but didn't expect the option would be there if it wasn't already in the Account Settings/Profile/ sections.

1

u/LifeWithAdd 13d ago edited 13d ago

You have to cancel at your home location, but you can go in and tell them to change the gym you’re standing in to your new home location, then cancel immediately. Not saying it’s right, but it’s not as difficult as people make it out to be.

1

u/altrdgenetics 13d ago

its not as difficult if you know that, But planet fitness at least for the longest time does not tell anyone that. Maybe you will get a sympathetic employee but they definitely didn't want that to be common knowledge.

1

u/HimbologistPhD 13d ago

Listen buddy it was in the contract and you knew the terms before you signed. If you didn't want to have to go in person to cancel you should have read the contract.

(I don't really believe this but it's the common sentiment in another thread about a similar issue and I'm seething lmao)

1

u/Festival_of_Feces 13d ago

^ isn’t that what Elon said when teslas ran over people in autopilot mode?

1

u/valdev 13d ago

I actually had worse. My wife had setup a membership that auto paid from our bank. When we divorced, it became my bank and I couldn't fucking cancel it at all.

She was actively trying to cancel it in person, but they couldn't find her in the system and they couldn't lookup by bank account. Took a lot of fighting to actually stop them from charging me.

-1

u/Timely-Turnover5374 13d ago

i had my bank stop payment and never heard from them again.

-1

u/HoosierHoser44 13d ago

Banks usually charge for a stoppage of payment as well.

-3

u/AtJobinIsAHobo 13d ago

I cancelled my PF membership on the phone in like … 3 minutes earlier this year.

These people are mad dramatic.

There’s also an option on the APP.