The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has thrown down the gauntlet against LA Fitness, accusing the gym giant of trapping millions of members in a web of red tape and roadblocks when they try to cancel their memberships. The lawsuit marks the latest salvo in the FTC’s crackdown on companies that bury consumers in unwanted recurring charges.
Who’s Suing Who?
The Federal Trade Commission Act empowers the FTC to police unfair or deceptive acts in commerce. The law gives the FTC broad authority to investigate, bring civil actions, and seek remedies against businesses that violate the law.
The two defendants here — Fitness International, LLC and Fitness & Sports Clubs, LLC — are not small players in the fitness industry. Both operate under various brands, including the smaller gym chains of Esporta Fitness, City Sports Club, and Club Studio. It also operates the gym giant LA Fitness. With more than 600 gym locations and over 3.7 million members across the United States (and some in Canada), their reach is national. But for ease of reading, we’ll pretend that there’s one collective defendant and refer to it as “LA Fitness.”
Joining Is Easy…
LA Fitness offers health and fitness services through base memberships, which have monthly dues ranging from about $30 to $299, depending on the brand. Annual fees are also tacked on top — usually between $40 and $60.
The way people enroll for memberships is streamlined, at least when it comes to signing up. If you don’t want to interact with a human, online enrollment is available through each brand’s website via a big “Join Now” button. You pick your plan, enter payment details, and confirm your membership. There’s an option to preview your membership agreement before you commit, but it’s easy to miss since it’s tucked behind a gray button that doesn’t stand out. New members are then encouraged to download the company’s mobile app, which lets you book classes or training sessions and check in at the gym. Notably, the app does not allow cancellations.
Beyond basic access to gym facilities, the company pushes a range of add-on services: personal training memberships (with monthly charges from $180 up to $660), towel service for a few bucks a month, childcare options, cryotherapy subscriptions costing hundreds per month — the list goes on. Most of these extras are sold as negative option programs: unless you actively opt out or cancel, you keep getting charged.
Once you’re signed up, these add-ons are often pitched immediately or during your first fitness assessment appointment. The Pro Results personal training program is a prime example, sold as an upgrade with recurring fees and strict cancellation terms. If you try to cancel before your contract ends (usually six to twelve months), you’ll owe half of what remains on your agreement.
…But Cancelling Isn’t
These add-ons might be annoying, depending on what you’re looking for, but they might not be so bad if it weren’t so hard to cancel. For as easy as LA Fitness makes it to join, they make you jump through a lot of hoops to get out. If you thought it was convenient that they let you sign up online, well, there’s no parallel process when you decide you want to leave. There are only two main ways to cancel, in person at a gym or by mail, and both involve complicated steps that seem designed to frustrate customers into giving up.
If you choose the in-person route, first you have to log into their website (not the app) and print out a cancellation form. If this sounds simple, keep in mind that many members don’t know their login credentials because they use the app for everything else and were never shown how to access the website during signup. Resetting credentials requires your original email address, your “key tag number,” and part of your bank account or card number—a process that can be confusing or impossible if you’ve lost track of those details.
Once you have your printed form (assuming you even own a printer), you must bring it to your local gym during very limited hours, typically 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, even though most gyms are open much longer each day and on weekends too. But there’s another catch: only one specific employee (the Operations Manager) can process cancellations. If that person isn’t available when you arrive (which happens often), no other staff member can help you; you’ll have to come back another day.
Mail cancellation isn’t much better. You still need to log into the website and print out the form, but then you’re instructed to send it by certified or registered mail at your own expense (meaning an extra trip to the post office). Even after jumping through all these hoops, many consumers report that their mailed forms were ignored or “not received.” Some sent multiple certified letters only to keep getting billed month after month.
More Traps Ahead
On top of all this, there’s confusion about cancelling add-on services like towel service or childcare. These extras are actually separate negative option programs with their own cancellation rules, but that fact isn’t really made clear during signup or in membership agreements. Sometimes these add-ons can be cancelled easily at the front desk by speaking with any employee, but other times, they require separate forms just like base memberships.
For those who try escalating their complaints, the frustration continues. According to the FTC, when consumers call or email corporate headquarters to escalate cancellation requests, those communications are assigned to management staff at individual club locations. The FTC claims that these managers use prepared scripts to direct consumers back into the prescribed cancellation process, even though they have the technical ability to cancel memberships directly.
Some desperate consumers claim they’ve tried blocking payments through their banks or credit card companies once all else fails. But they say that LA Fitness responds by aggressively rebilling (sometimes charging new account numbers they shouldn’t have access to) and continuing automatic withdrawals even after cards are replaced.
Interestingly enough, when complaints come from agencies like the Better Business Bureau or state attorneys general rather than individual customers, LA Fitness allegedly turns over a new leaf. The FTC claims that when approached by the government, defendants suddenly become much more flexible, quickly cancelling memberships and offering refunds without requiring all those steps.
FTC Brings the Hammer
After finding all of these allegations through its investigation and consumer reports, the FTC decided it was high time to act. The agency recently filed a complaint against LA Fitness in federal court, asking for an injunction to stop the gym from continuing these practices.
Legally speaking, the complaint lays out three major violations. First is unfair cancellation practices under Section 5(a) of the FTC Act, a classic case where consumers face harm they cannot reasonably avoid themselves and where there’s no benefit offsetting that harm.
Second, the FTC also invokes ROSCA, the Restore Online Shoppers’ Confidence Act. That statute is designed to protect consumers from hidden traps in online transactions, especially those involving recurring charges and negative option features. Under ROSCA, companies must disclose all material terms up front and provide a simple way to cancel. If they don’t, the FTC can sue and ask for injunctions, monetary relief, or whatever else the court thinks is appropriate. The FTC claims that LA Fitness violated ROSCA for failing to disclose material terms about how cancellations work and how add-ons differ from base memberships. Third is another ROSCA violation for not offering simple mechanisms for stopping recurring charges.
It’s important to remember that the FTC has only made allegations, which have not yet been proven in court. Until a judge rules on the merits or the companies admit to these practices, we can’t say for sure if it’s as bad as the government claims.
But if even some of them are true, they’ve caused a lot of real harm: potentially hundreds of millions of dollars in unwanted charges for gym-goers.
