Gold's Gym Sucks

Gold’s Gym has frustrated me so many times that I actually vowed to them that I would do what is in my power to bring the truth out. Then I didn’t do much (even blog) about it ’cause “Maybe I was just upset, and am being dramatic.” But… today, my friend who works there called me and spilled the beans.  I was definitely not being overdramatic! The General Manager comes to work on all sorts of pills (recreationally), and … oh wait.. I’m getting ahead of myself.

Gold’s Gym is a franchise… not a chain. That’s the 1st thing you should know. How does this affect you?  When you sign up, and voice your concern that you travel, and may need to work out in other locations,  they tell you that it’s no problem. “We’ll just give you a travel pass.”  What they leave off (and I’ve been a member of numerous Gold’s Gyms- no one’s actually given me all the details, except when I arrive at my travel destination) is that you only get 14 uses of each facility per year.  I don’t know about you, but I visit many places over and over, and for lengthy periods of time, so 14 times is often 2 weeks, and then they want you to pay a monthly membership fee to them… despite that you already paid for your own Gold’s membership.  If you travel, do NOT get a Gold’s membership!

Speaking of travel.  I went to South Florida for a month.  I had paid for 2 months of training in Atlanta, and had used up one.  When I came back, I had been billed for an additional 2 months.  I spoke to the general manager, and his only response ever is “I’ll talk to corporate”. If you hire a trainer at Gold’s, make sure that when you’re done, you’re not getting billed for any more (especially if you leave town).  They didn’t even tell me about this, I had to find it on my statement.

Here’s the part that really angered me.  I was about to leave on this year’s adventures in January. Since November I had been telling the General Manager that I’d be gone, and needed to cancel my membership. He kept saying it’s impossible (for the record folks, it’s not legal for a company to charge you for something they have not yet delivered… especially if they can’t deliver)… then he changed his tune to “well, we’re not supposed to, and you don’t have a change of address form that shows that you’ll be at a location that doesn’t have a Gold’s.” If you’re on a permanent road-trip, Gold’s doesn’t care.  So he finally says (after 3 months) that he’ll end my contract (I did have to remind him daily for a few months), and when I took off, I kept calling and verifying…. and he said it’s been taken care of.  I actually believed him… until the collections calls started coming!

What am I getting billed for?  I cancelled my membership!  The company that does Gold’s Billing is called ABC Financial.  They’re a bunch of morons too.  They refuse to do anything but take your money, and that’s not a figure of speech!  “Just call Gold’s Gym in Marietta, speak to Brian, the GM, and he’ll tell you he cancelled this back in January!”  “We can not call a location.”  This was the broken record over and over.  This was NOT what I wanted to be thinking about, or dealing with when hanging out at Tony Hsieh’s house (the CEO of Zappos.com).

I called Brian, fuming…. he said that he did get the forms to corporate. So I had him scan it and send me a copy by e-mail.  Next time they called, I got their e-mail address.  I forwarded them Brian’s e-mail.  Wouldn’t you know it? They don’t know how to open a forwarded e-mail with attachment.  I had already wasted enough time talking to these losers. I told them to call the General Manager, and leave me alone, and that I have no intention to spend any more time trying to do their job for them.

Fast forward. I’m no longer in Las Vegas, I’m now in Austin, Texas.  I was attending Perry Belcher & Ryan Deiss’s Traffic and Conversion Summit.  It was truly the best information I had gotten in a long time.  Unlike many seminars, this was not a pitch-fest, but rather 3 days of solid information that is so useful! I can get your business way more results now, based on some of those secrets they were teaching (I literally take my notes from that event where ever I go).  I get a voicemail “This is Tony, call me back today, it’s urgent!”  Who the hell is Tony?

On a break, I call back, and it’s a colelction agency.  Grrrrrr.  I leave a voicemail for Tony.

Tony calls me back, and it turns out that this whole thing is over $30. Gold’s kept billing me past when they were supposed to, didn’t want to deal with it, didn’t even tell me the amount they wanted, and sent me to a collection agency over $30?  This is the part where I made my vow!

“Are you shitting me?  All this over $30?  I wasted more than $150 of my time just dealing with you idiots!  I’ll give you your $30, but I’m a marketer and a PR guy, and you just bought yourself some bad PR.”

I’m sure that Tony didn’t care.  I’m sure if you work at a collection agency, you get every threat in the book, and must have some thick skin.  I suppose I’ve had time to forget about it over the last 3 months…. but today I got a call from my friend (and one of my couches) Robert.  Robert is the assistant manager, and is probably the only good thing that I got from Gold’s.  We’ve gone on some adventures before (climbing power-lines at the ledge of a 1,400 foot ledge in TN, amongst other things).  He’s a young guy (21), and recently he and Megan had their first baby.

I thought that things were going well for him with Gold’s. Over the last year, I’ve been training him in marketing and sales, and he recently single handedly brought this Gold’s from last spot to #1 in sales (out of the 7  that that particular franchise-owner owns)… and this gym is hard to find, so you know he’s doing something right!  He asked if I knew any lawyers. “Ummm.. I know many of them. What kind of lawyer do you need?”

It turns out that Gold’s gave him a check for less than $40 for his commissions this month.  That didn’t sound right to me, as he had just been informed that his sales trumped all the other gyms’ sales… I guess it didn’t sound right to him either, as he called asking about a lawyer.  They shorted him about $800.  He’s mentioned this stuff to me before, but I never paid too much attention, ’cause he wasn’t so  angry.  My response was usually “pffft… well.. that place is a f@#king joke anyways!” He’d tell me about how Kenny the trainer got screwed on his check, or Brian, or … it kind of rotates, but everyone gets screwed… often.

He’s been told before by many that Gold’s knows about this… that they do it intentionally. Kind of makes sense, with everything I’ve experienced with them.  He says they’ve done it to people, but “corrected things” right before “getting caught”. I just rolled my eyes, and shook my head, “as I said… that place is a f@#king joke!”

We’ve been in discussions before about whether he should stay there, or go elsewhere. I said that this place is a good place to sharpen his skills, and have more control over marketing, etc… where a normal gym may not give him that kind of control.  This time I said to go get his money from them (Monday morning he’s showing up at corporate)… he can’t be getting screwed now that he’s got a baby (not that it’s appropriate to screw-over people who don’t have babies).  I told him to get the money, then go interview at that other gym that’s been trying to steal him away.  When he gets the job (which unlike Gold’s, has benefits), give his 2 week notice. The great thing about Gold’s is that it’s 2 blocks from his house- this other place is 8 miles away.

Ok… now for the dirt. I hung out with the general manager because he drunk dialed me one time while hanging out with Robert. I think it was his first time drinking or something.  When I got there, he was wasted, and acting all sorts of inapropriate.  I remember one time when we drove to Tennessee to do that scary climb (only Robert and I climbed… everyone else just watched), he called up one of the employees to ask if her boobs are real.  I suppose it’s the best way to find out, but as a general manager, that seemed kind of inappropriate.  I’ve been informed that he holds on to things that he says he’ll do, for an extra 2-3 weeks (or months)… I had a sneaking suspicion of that already.  I’ve heard numerous stories about him coming in stoned, and popping all sorts of pain killers, and working while out of his mind…. but not doing a good job of it (I know some people that can smoke a bong all day long, snort coke, pop pills, and still perform with the best of ‘em).

This may be typical for all Gold’s Gyms… or this may be a stand-alone case.  I know that I’ve seen many close down.  Arnold Schwarzenegger had made the gym popular with Pumping Iron.  It’s a decent gym if you don’t travel, and if management isn’t a joke… but in this day and age of consumer power, you should have a gym you’re happy with.  LA Fitness for example is a chain… and they repair their equipment (I forgot to mention that the Sauna at Gold’s has been broken for over 4 months, with numerous client complaints, and corporate has been notified many times), keep the place uber-clean, provide good service, and are easy enough to deal with when there’s issues.

Another chain that I dig is 24-hour fitness.  I’ve never been a member, but have been people’s guest. What can I say? I like a place that’s open 24 hours!  I’m generally a night-owl.  Bally’s Fitness probably spends the most on advertising, and is generally decent. They have good “lifetime” deals…. I have friends that are paying $5 per month for a Bally’s membership they bought years ago!

I suppoe the bottom line is to find a gym that’s good for you. If all that’s within an hour drive is Gold’s (Then maybe you should order a home gym) , then maybe Gold’s is the one to go to. Just keep an eye on your credit card statements, and don’t expect great service.