FTC Takes LA Fitness to Court Over Allegedly Onerous Membership Cancellations

Key Takeaways

• FTC Lawsuit: The Federal Trade Commission has sued the operators of LA Fitness and affiliated gym brands, alleging unlawful obstacles in the membership cancellation process.
• Consumer Barriers: Members faced log-in hurdles, restrictive in-person rules, mail-only requirements, and confusion around cancelling add-on services.
• Aggressive Rebilling: Consumers who tried to stop payments through their banks or credit card companies reported being rebilled under new account numbers.
• Legal Grounds: The FTC alleges violations of the FTC Act and the Restore Online Shoppers’ Confidence Act (ROSCA).

Deep Dive

The Federal Trade Commission has filed suit against the operators of LA Fitness, accusing the company of making it unnecessarily difficult for consumers to cancel gym memberships and related services that continued indefinitely unless cancelled.

Filed on August 20 in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, the complaint targets California-based Fitness International, LLC and Fitness & Sports Clubs, LLC, which operate LA Fitness and affiliated brands including Esporta Fitness, City Sports Club, and Club Studio. Together, the companies run more than 600 locations nationwide and serve an estimated 3.7 million members.

According to the FTC, LA Fitness relied on opaque and complicated methods that prevented members from easily ending their contracts. The agency alleges that tens of thousands of customers reported problems, ranging from website log-in challenges to restrictive in-person cancellation requirements.

“The FTC’s complaint describes a scenario that too many Americans have experienced – a gym membership that seems impossible to cancel,” said Christopher Mufarrige, Director of the Bureau of Consumer Protection. “The FTC will not hesitate to act on behalf of consumers when it believes companies are stifling consumers’ ability to choose which recurring charges they want to keep.”

The complaint outlines several practices that allegedly violated consumer protection laws:

• Cumbersome digital process: Members were told to log into LA Fitness’s website to print a cancellation form, but password resets required multiple identifiers, including a “key tag” number and the first five digits of a payment card, creating barriers to access.
• Restrictive in-person cancellations: Consumers could cancel only through one designated employee, limiting availability to narrow windows even though gyms often operated nearly 19 hours a day.
• Complicated mail requirements: While consumers were directed to mail cancellation forms, LA Fitness did not clearly inform them they could send a simple written request. Instead, the company instructed that cancellations be sent via certified or registered mail, adding unnecessary cost and effort.
• Confusion around add-on services: The company failed to clarify that amenities such as towel service or personal training memberships could be cancelled separately and more easily, with any gym employee authorized to process such requests.
• Aggressive rebilling tactics: Consumers who tried to stop payments directly with their banks or credit card companies reported being rebilled under new account numbers.

The FTC contends these practices violate the FTC Act as well as the Restore Online Shoppers’ Confidence Act (ROSCA), which requires companies to provide simple cancellation mechanisms for recurring charges. Rather than fixing its cancellation processes in response to widespread complaints, the agency alleges, LA Fitness trained staff to reject requests made by phone or email, reinforcing the burdensome in-person or mail-only options.

The Commission voted 3-0 to authorize the complaint, which seeks to bar the company from continuing the contested practices and to secure financial relief for affected consumers. As with all FTC complaints, the allegations have yet to be proven in court, and a judge will determine whether the company violated the law.

The case underscores the FTC’s increasing scrutiny of subscription services, particularly where recurring billing practices are coupled with opaque or burdensome cancellation policies. Regulators have made clear that businesses offering subscription or membership models must ensure consumers can end recurring charges easily and without facing unreasonable obstacles.

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