April 26th

I cancelled my gym membership today.

Back when I was in the UK, there was a weird $30 charge from some company in Utah I'd never heard of, so I queried it.  The bank said "eh?", and upheld it as a fraudulent charge, and cancelled my ATM card.  Doy.  Well, in the week, I got a letter from National Fitness Centers, and it seems they've bought the gym we go to.  The charge was them - when you buy petrol, for example, they'll put in a hold for a large number of dollars, then drop the actual charge in there when they know how much they need to bill you.  This is basically what the gym did, despite the fact that they knew exactly how much my bill was going to be.  I just happened to look at my bank transactions before they'd dropped the actual amount in there.

Anyways, I called them up and said I could see what had happened here, but could they explain the amount?  Oh, because the charge was rejected, they're fining me $15.  Um, no, you're not.  This was caused by your stupid billing practices, and caused me aggravation - for a start I was in a foreign country when this happened, and I had to get a new ATM card.  How about I fine you $15 for being retarded?  No, better yet, how about we just cancel my membership, and I'll pay the amount I owe, but I'm not paying the $15 - you can attach it to my estate when I die.  Danielle at the customer "service" centre said they'd send me the forms to fill in.  Um, no, I'm not filling in forms - I'll go to the gym and cancel it.  They wanted me to fill in forms, too, but I pointed out that my bank was going to continue to reject any future charges, so me coming in was just a courtesy.  I paid the bill, they waived the fee, and told me that a lot of people are getting pissed off with the new management, and they're losing a fair number of members.  Uh huh, really?