Planet Fitness
reviews and complaints

I have been a loyal customer at the Planet Fitness gym in Bedford Centre for close to three years. I have never lodged a complaint. But, this morning I was turned away from the gym. I left feeling intimidated and dejected.

I had infringed one of the gym’s new rules, which I had only been told about yesterday. I had misplaced my gym tag and was told that since I had misplaced the tag three times, I would not be granted access to the gym. I apologized for the infringement and suggested that since I had only been informed of the new rule yesterday, I should be given a chance to locate my tag. The gym’s computer system had a picture of me and could easily verify my identity.

But Gerhard Marias, the gym’s manager, coldly informed me that no compromise could be reached. I either had to pay for a new tag on the spot or leave the gym. As I had no cash on me this was impossible, and my tag had been misplaced not lost, so the purchase of a new one seemed wasteful. I was told to leave the gym. For the first time in nearly three years, I was told I could not be granted access to a gym I had supported and promoted to my friends and family.

When I asked for understanding. I was coldly told that ‘the line had to be drawn somewhere’. Instead of being treated as a customer, I was treated like a naughty child who had to be taught a lesson. I am a very soft-spoken person and found it difficult to make myself heard and understood by the manager who often spoke over me and used a condescending and curt tone when addressing me.

When I asked for his name he initially refused to give it to me and pointed at the receptionist, dismissively saying ‘she will write it down for you’. It took me three tries for him to actually tell me his name in person. All he did was reassert his new rules and make it clear that I was not welcome at the gym today.

I was confused. I had often compromised and remained loyal to the gym when things went wrong at the gym. Why was I not shown equal understanding? When the gym asked members to pay for parking for a period of about a month this year, I never complained. The days when the pool was not warmed this winter, I never complained. When a proper running machine was not provided for the Feminique section of the gym, I never complained. When the showers did not have warm water, I never complained. I find it disappointing that after accepting the numerous errors committed by the gym, when I infringed a new and unfamiliar rule, I would be rejected as a paying member.

Planet Fitness has created a work out environment which exactly what they claim they're trying to avoid. They claim that they're the no judgement zone and have no critics, but one look around any planet fitness shows this to be a very flase claim. They have lists of things that they don't want you to wear, say, or do. That by it's very defintion is a list of judgements and criticisms. Unless you want to follow a very strict list of behavioral and dress codes you can very easily fall outside of the Planet Fitness policies and face any number of consequences, that is punishments, for not being a Planet Fitness drone. You might get yelled at, you might have the lunk alarm go off (which is the ultimate is being judgemental and criticizing), you might be asked to leave or you might have your membership revoked. Planet Fitness reminds me of the way the Nazi's justified their activities with propaganda and cult like claims of doing good, while in reality they only did bad things. Even the planet fitness commercials have a very heavy and distinct pejudicial judgement and criticism of groups of people who they have improperly stereotyped. It's a reality that you'll find jerks in any group that spoil things for everyone and actually behave like any given stereotype, but the Planet Fitness approach of portraying bodybuilders, powerlifters, and basically anyone into any amount of weight lifting as a bunch of stupid, loud and obnoxious people, is not only false and inaccurate, but is also a very judgemental, critical, rude, prejudicial and nasty approach for Planet Fitness to be doing to people. Even little old ladies with no gym experience at all have commented that the commercials had an offensive slant to them. In short, the Planet Fitness environment is a very intimidating one that makes you wonder which of their numerous policies you'll end up inadvertantly conflicting with next. They produce the feeling of someone staring at your every move looking for something that they have "judged" to be undesireable. What's next for Planet Fitness policies?...racial profiling?

Just like anything, nothing is all bad. Planet fitness does have some good points but they're very few and trivial in the whole scope of things to do with pleasant experiences. By far, the Planet Fitness experience is a very unpleasant one. The two biggest pros are that they are a clean facility and they are typically quite cheap compared to many places. Although it's not hard to for them to be cheap when they hardly let you do much.

The bad aspects of Planet Fitness is best presented as a list.
1) Very Judgemental and critical of many people
2) Restrictions on water bottle sizes, but allowing as many little bottles as you want to equal as much water as you can fit in one large bottle. Who are they to tell me how much water I should drink?
3) Large lists of dress code violations
4) Prejudical commercials
5) Insulting posters to anyone who lifts more than 5LBS. worth of weight.
6) Staff members that don't know what they're doing. Although work out knowledge is most often cited, they are also a number of complaints that the management of the facilities are often done in a very poor manner that plays favorites with people and let's big issues slide while pestering people about trivial things.
7) Limited amount of equipment
8) Restrictions on the amount of weight you can lift
9) Lack of promotion of good gym etiquette.

Planet Fitness lies on their commercial claiming that it is only $10 per month. It works out to $15.86 per month between their "start up" and "annual" fees. Beware, no matter what month you signed up, you will automatically be deducted $31.00 on October 1, then another $10.70 2 weeks later, causing you to pay $41.70 for one month alone. And since they attach themselves to your checking account, it is almost impossible to get them out of your account. And on weekends, they are kicking you out the door at 6:30 pm, even though they are supposed to be open until 7:00 pm.

It may be one of the cheapest gyms out there but there is a reason for this. Only 6 television channels to choose from, of which half are sports. Customer service is not even a word in their vocabulary. None of the employees are friendly or even acknowledge you–in fact they are straight up rude! I was given inconsistent information about the cancellation policy, resulting in getting charged for additional months when I would not even be capable to use the gym. Questioned the manager for help in regard to the information that I was given by his employee and was snubbed. The website doesn't even have a way to contact corporate to deal with complaints. Moral of the tale: if you have a problem or complaint your screwed. The staff doesn't care and there is no way to contact anyone above them‎.

I joined about 2 years ago and am no longer under any contract but they keep billing me monthly. I no longer live in a city with a Planet Fitness and tried to cancel and was told that I needed to send a notarized letter certified mail to the headquarters. When I said that was ridiculous they threatened to put me into collections.

This gym is a total ripoff and sleazy.

I have heard many horror stories about how people are treated at Planet Fitness locations, but I never thought it would happen to me. Well, it did. I became a member of Planet Fitness located at 840 North Apollo Boulevard, Melbourne, FL in May 2009. Since March 2010 I have brought up some maintenance issues to the gym staff. The light bulbs throughout the gym kept going out one by one over the last couple on months, until only about 50% of the lights were still functioning in May 2010. During the same period, the AC was broken and lots of members were unhappy about the situation. The gym felt like a semi dark green house, not an environment conductive to working out. I complained almost weekly to the front desk and the answer I would receive was that there was a maintenance guy who was supposed to take care of the burned out light bulbs and the AC, but nobody knew when he was going to be around. There were some other problems as well, such as the soap in the restrooms running out, and a case of what I believe is false advertising. In the contract and on the website they claim that the black card members can buy drinks from the cooler at half price. However, when I went to the gym the sticker on the cooler said that only a few of those drinks, mainly Gatorade and water were qualifying for the half off discount. Since that was not stated in the contract or on their website I see this as false advertising. After several weeks, the issues were still not corrected so I complained directly on their website, and from what I know copies of the complaints made on their website are sent to the owner and to the Planet Fitness Main Office. Days later, on June 11, 2010 when I went to the gym, the manager Erica Russo rudely informed me that I was no longer welcome in the gym and I had to leave the premises, due to my complaints about the gym. I was beyond shocked to see that instead of apologizing for the inconvenience and fixing the broken lights, AC and so on, they just cancelled my membership. Unbelievable and deeply shocking, I have never been treated like this although I have worked out at many gyms, such as Las Vegas Athletic Club, LA Fitness, World Gym, 24 Hour Fitness, Bally’s, Gold’s Gym and others. I have heard before that Planet Fitness stuff is generally rude and abusive, they don’t try to fix the issues at the gym and they abusively just cancel the memberships of those daring to complain. From my experience, this negative perception of Planet Fitness is real. It is shameful that Planet Fitness is allowed to do this to people. In am still in shock and disbelief that an American business is which is so customer unfriendly is allowed to function. It feels like Twilight Zone.

Planet Fitness(in Connecticut) has a rule that if you are under 16 (I believe it is) that you can not workout alone therefore you have to have a parent or guardian above 16 with you. Now my complaint is that the rule should be lowered to say 14 or 15 or to just high school students. Most people will say well its only a year or two no big deal, but the things is under 16 you can't drive to the gym. So first you need a parent to drive you. So the parents should be able to just drop their young adults off and consent that they are being left alone. But instead they have enforced this rule. Therefore parents who do not have to work out are forced to sit in uncomfortable chairs waiting for 30 minutes, an hour or more for their young adult(s) to be finished working out. It is a simple change and would be easy to make, just lower the age and have parental consent, it would certainly bring more customers(ones who don't have to wait for busy working parents schedules to open up) and therefore Planet Fitness would make more money and they would have happier young adult gym goers and all around gym goers.

two years ago I took out a contract and since then I have had nothing but problems with them. From the very first deduction on my account till now. not once have they deducted the agreed monthly subscription as per the contract. I changed my bank account, gave them my new bank details both personally inbranch and then when i noticed no deductions were made I called the branch to give it again, and my third call was to their head office. after paying for the arears and getting my account with them up to date, I pleaded with them to start deducting the correct amount but instead they would charge me double. I sent the branch manager two emails to complain about he fact that i had to pay extra bank charges and that i was appauled by the poor customer service and todate have had no reply. Instead after a whole year of not receiving any invoices or statements they send me a statement and informs me on the statement that they are handing me over to debt collectors. they did not even have the decency to call me and speak to me personally. I think I have used their service maybe 4 times since joining - I am just too angry to set into the club. A month ago I paid the debt collections agency and they informed Planet Fitness head office to update my account, I personally requested their head office to send me an updated account and once again pleaded for them to debit the exact monthly subscription amount. I just checked my bank account and they charged way more AGAIN! Their were insufficient funds in my account because I only left enough in there for the monthly fee but now i have had to pay bank charges which is half my gym fee. It is Ridiculous!

It appears that Planet Fitness Platinum offers different pricing to different people. I would avoid describing the categories that goes with the pricing.

I started speaking to a sales person Banisile in January about joining and the best deal she told me she could offer was at R760month and for 24 months. Nothing less. I baulked at the offer and a friend offered me a free trial against his account to convince me to join. I accepted this offer and used the gym for a month. After completion of the free trial I have tried to purchase membership at the gym through another sales person Siboniso Ntshangase and been told that the offer stays at R760month and for 12 months.

Meanwhile, I know 3 colleagues who are currently paying different rates- two colleagues are paying less than R600?month for 14 months and the third colleague is paying R760month for 14 months.

I have reason to believe that there's discriminatory pricing going on here.

I initially purchased a membership at “Planet Fitness, ” in Altamonte Springs to allow my son, 14, to work out. The employee who signed me up said that I could do my reading and studying for school while he was doing his work out, as long as I was in the building. I was hit by a car while riding my bike Feb. 18, 2011 and have not been able to take him to the gym. I went in this evening and asked if his brother could take my place working out since I obviously could not. I was told "No." So, then I asked if I could transfer the membership to his dad's name so my son could continue to work out since that was the main reason for the purchase of the membership. I was again told "No." The bottom line is, I was lied to when I signed up, the guy said I did not have to be working out too. Now she tells me that my son cannot work out while I sit and read. She said the best that she can do is to freeze my account for four months. I told her that that is not fair to my son, and not what I was told in the beginning and I wanted my membership terminated without paying the $58.00 fee since it was not my fault that I was hit by a car and she will not allow my husband to take over the membership so our son can work out. I do not feel that this is the appropriate action due to my circumstances. I want my membership canceled and do not feel that I should be charged the cancelation fee.

Thanks for listening,

Tammy Vickers
Member # 33901

I initially purchased the membership to allow my son, 14, to work out. The employee who signed me up said that I could do my reading and studying for school while he was doing his work out, as long as I was in the building. I was hit by a car while riding my bike Feb. 18, 2011 and have not been able to take him to the gym. I went in this evening and asked if his brother could take my place working out since I obviously could not. I was told "No." So, then I asked if I could transfer the membership to his dad's name so he could work out. I was again told "No." The bottom line is, I was lied to when I signed up, the guy said I did not have to be working out too. Now she tells me that my son can not work out while I sit and read. She said the best that she can do is to freeze my account for four months. I told her that that is not fair to my son, and not what I was told in the beginning and I wanted my membership terminated without paying the fee since it was not my fault that I was hit by a car and she will not allow my husband to take over the membership so our son can work out. I do not feel that this is the appropriate action due to my circumstances. I want my membership canceled and do not feel that I should be charged the cancelation fee.

I have been an avid member of this gym for well over 3 years. I always thought the members and almost all of the employees are nice. However 2 days ago I went to tan after working out. After undressing I noticed someone had taken the phone from the room (direct line to front desk to request tanning time) so I called from my cell. The "acting" manager gave me a ton of attitude for calling the main #. I stood there and waited for the timer on the booth and got nothing. When I called again the same girl (Celina) told me if there wasnt a phone in the room THAT I MUST HAVE TAKEN IT. (WOW !) When I left I stopped at the desk and put my gym bag on it so Celina could be assured I didnt have the extension phone. She said something about her not saying that I stole and I cut her off and said "yes you did" and I left. The next day I returned to try to resolve the incident and Celina approached me and handed my a "Cancellation" slip and told me not to return. Former member (not a thief) 62701, Joe Labrecque

Planetfitnee Newark Delaware
The staff is very rude, they do everything little short of beating you up.I had a very bad experience from the staff they were rude abusive and also disrespectful.I am looking into suing them.This is not the place if you want to enjoy your workout.Not sure where they get the staff from they are very unprofessional and also discriminative...