Gold's Gym is shady

Jenny and I recently signed up for 24-Hour Fitness, so I had to cancel my membership with Gold's. I went to the gym and told them I wanted to cancel, only to find that in order to do so, I needed to place a call to a descriptively-named company, ABC Financial.

I figured this was a bit of a hassle, but not a big deal. However when I called ABC Financial they wanted me to send a cancellation notice via certified mail. I talked to the supervisor long enough to figure out that she couldn't or wouldn't help me, so I guess there's going to be some certified mail in my future. My only hope is that my membership actually gets canceled when I do this. Others in my situation have not been so lucky.

The reasons for ABC Financial's shady practices are fairly obvious, but if you are naive, stupid, or your name is Sheila and you just spoke to me on the phone for 10 minutes, you can see ABC's mission statement on their website:

"Our company mission is two-fold: to be the resource for cutting edge technology in the health and fitness industry, and to collect the most money from the most members, every day."

Frankly, Sheila, I am shocked. You said this was for my protection! You said that only by raising the specter of Federal mail fraud charges could we deter the evildoers from surreptitiously canceling my Gold's Gym membership and depriving me of my God-given Freedom to bounce on the elliptical machine! But it was always about the money, wasn't it, Sheila? You never really cared about Freedom. (She really did say it was for my protection.)

Anyway, besides the fact that ABC Financial/Gold's Gym hate Freedom, and would probably give terrorists a nuclear weapon as long as they signed a two-year contract, it's not a great gym.

Specifically, the Seattle Gold's Gym in Capitol Hill is a mediocre little gym. There is no free parking. There are only a few treadmills and ellipticals. Most of them are in less than stellar shape, and a lot of them are broken outright. Some of the weight machines are broken. A new membership there is more expensive than 24-Hour Fitness which has none of these problems. (24-Hour Fitness is a bit crowded, but otherwise a superior gym.)

So yeah, if you're thinking of signing a contract at a Gold's Gym anywhere, be very careful, and if you're thinking about the Seattle Gold's Gym in Capitol Hill, that's my two cents.