Berkshire Golf Club
"My husband and I been members of Great Life Golf & Fitness for a very long time - over 7 years. We recently contacted the gym to cancel our membership, since we moved to MO and will not have access to their facilities. I have never been more disappointed in a company, than I was in the response we received from Great Life. I want to share their response, because I have recommended Great Life to so many friends and I want anyone who signed up from our referral to have this information. I also want anyone who is considering a Great Life membership to have this information. This is "need to know" information, as the laws in KS do not protect consumers (at all) regarding gym contracts. When you sign a contract with Great Life, the fine print states that you have to cancel by Feb. 28 of each year or your contract renews without any acknowledgment from you. So if you forget to cancel by 2/28 - you are legally obligated to the membership for the next year starting April 1st. It doesn't matter if you are hurt or injured and can't use your membership. It doesn't matter if you move out of state. Also please note: The contract says you have to give written notice which has to be give to the offices in Ozawkie. I would strongly recommend that you send a certified letter, because if they don't acknowledge your request to cancel - it is your word against theirs. We were not aware that we would be moving on 2/28, when the deadline for termination rolled around. In my wildest dreams, I never realized that Great Life would give us any issue with cancelling after we had paid them for 7 years without missing a payment or being a late on a payment. We were valued patrons, so they told us. Apparently they love their membership fees way more than they ever cared about their members. Every other gym we have belonged to has let people out of the contract if they moved to a location where it wouldn't be feasible to access the facilities. It would be completely different if we had the membership for a couple months and just wanted to cancel. We don't live within 100 miles of any Great Life facilities. Another interesting piece of information on Great Life - to raise prices on gym members, Great Life only has to send a postcard via USPS stating the price increase. If you don't receive that postcard and decide to cancel when your rate actually goes up on 4/1 - you are screwed and can't cancel. So if you are signing up for a gym membership, I would strongly encourage you to know that there is literally no laws that look out for gym members and companies like Great Life will absolutely capitalize on this. Great Life will allow us to buy out the remainder of our contract by paying 70% of the remaining payments or we can find someone to take over our membership. Why in the heck would I try to pawn this situation off on my friends? I wouldn't. I would rather pony up and pay the 70% of the contract than screw my friends over. Maybe if Great Life understood that, they would retain more customers the good old fashioned way!"
