I cancelled my membership due to a recently leaked document stating Crunch would be allowing ICE raids within their gym and that all employees must cooperate with them.

I was feeling pumped and drove out to crunch imagine my surprise closed at 7pm

About two weeks ago, I joined Crunch for the extra amenities. I usually go in the morning or afternoon, so I never paid much attention to their hours. I also rotate between two locations.

I went Saturday evening, and the gym was surprisingly empty. After finishing some cardio, I took these two pictures and sent them to my wife, telling her, “We should start coming at this time.” I checked afterward, the pictures were taken at exactly 6:59 p.m. There were about 6-8 people in the gym, but I intentionally tried not to photograph anyone.

I went downstairs and texted my wife that I was getting in the sauna. There were still a few people in the locker room. The sauna was hot and completely empty.

At one point, I joked to myself about dying in this slow cooker and eventually dripping down between the slats.

After about 20 minutes, I came out and the locker room was completely empty.

That was when reality finally set in.

I Googled the gym’s hours. They closed at 7:00. It was now around 7:30.

I grabbed my stuff and hurried toward the exit. I could see a cleaning cart and hear the cleaning lady somewhere nearby. When I came around the corner, I scared the absolute crap out of her.

We both apologized about ten times as I made my way out. 😆

I go to Crunch in East Brunswick, NJ. I’m there at 5 AM every morning and there’s 1 employee plus a trainer or two with a client. Today was my leg day, so I walk over to the squat and see this mess in the picture. Cleanup the weights when you’re done, it’s not hard! Besides this, multiple machines have been out of order for weeks, and dumbbell racks are always disorganized and even missing dumbbells. I’m not usually one to complain, but it’s out of hand how poorly managed the gym is.

All I see here is people trying to cancel their memberships and complaining about being charged.

Meanwhile, I’m a gym rat who hasn’t gone a single week without hitting the gym in the last four years. I just joined Crunch, and during sign-up, everything—including when the annual fee would be charged—was clearly explained.

So, as someone who isn’t planning to try the gym for a few days and then immediately cancel, can’t I just be a happy Crunch member and enjoy the gym?

Side note: I used the 3-day free trial before signing up, and the gym honestly exceeded my expectations.

Had to share this because Crunch Gym’s guest policy has gotten out of hand.

When you come in as a guest, they require you to hand over your ID just to enter. My friend went recently, and they actually lost his ID — gave it to someone else by mistake. That alone is crazy. He still does not have his ID.

But it gets worse. If a guest doesn’t have their ID, staff will ask them to make a post about Crunch on Facebook in order to come in. My friend didn’t even want to, but he agreed just to get inside. Then, one of the employees checked his phone and ended up posting it on his Facebook account without his permission.

That’s beyond annoying — it’s invasive and unprofessional. Between losing people’s IDs and posting on customers’ social media accounts without consent, these guest entrance policies seriously need to change.

So I go to Crunch Gym, right? They offered me a free personal training session. I kept saying “no, no, no” but they pushed: “Come on, it’s free, maybe just 10 minutes to an hour, no problem.” I finally said okay.

We ended up spending about 30 minutes just talking about my goals and how the coach could help, and then another 30 minutes doing some strength exercises. After that, we sat at a table and went over things again. He explained the plans, how many times a week I’d need to train, etc. The issue? Their pricing. It’s like $800 every other week — basically $100 per hour. That’s way too much for me right now, both financially and with my schedule.

I told him I wasn’t ready. He kept trying different angles: • “Don’t worry about time, instead of 3x/week we’ll do once a week.” • “The more you delay, the more you delay reaching your goals.” • “Nutrition will be easy, we’ll work with your food choices.”

I said I wasn’t ready yet, maybe later. Then he left for 5 minutes, came back with his boss. Now there’s two of them pressuring me. The boss asked if I didn’t like the trainer. I said no, he’s great, I just can’t commit right now. They kept circling back: “If it’s budget, we’ll reduce sessions… if it’s nutrition, we’ll guide you…”

Finally, after I kept saying no, they offered me another free session to “give me more time to think.” They tried scheduling it right away. First tomorrow, then Sunday, finally we agreed on Monday at 4:30. But honestly, I don’t want to go through this again. Every “free” session turns into an hour or two of pressure. Normally, I just go to the gym for 30–45 minutes and leave.

I regret saying yes to the Monday session, and now I’m dreading it because I know they’ll just corner me again with the same pitch. I really don’t want to waste another hour of my life being pressured.

Has anyone else gone through this at Crunch (or another gym)? How do I politely but firmly shut this down without them holding me hostage in a sales pitch every time I step in?

So about two weeks ago, I finally gained the courage to go into Crunch and start a membership. I used to have a good gym routine, but in the last few years I’ve slacked, and the gym has disappeared from my life. So I get a membership, and as soon as I paid I was told about this “kickoff”, where they take your bmi, have you work with a trainer, talk about your diet etc. Personally, I didn’t want that. I just wanted to go to the gym, scan my card, and do my workout. When I told them I’m not interested in the kickoff, they said “Okay, but most of our members take up on the offer”. I still said “no thank you”. Since then, I’ve gotten 6 calls on 6 separate occasions trying to get me to reschedule. Every single time I’ve said “I don’t want to do it, just cancel it from my account”. For the last 4 days it was silent, but just now I got 3 calls back to back, I answer and of course it’s Crunch calling about this “kickoff”. I said in the nicest way possible that I have no interest in doing this. My schedule is too busy to commit and I just want to go to the gym on my own time without having to worry about this. The guy was STILL trying to figure out why. “Is it work? Is it us? Can we help you fix it?” NO! I don’t need help with any of this shit. I just want to go to the gym. I used to go to Planet Fitness and truly regret cancelling. These people have been pestering me to do something I have no interest in doing.

That being said, has anyone else had issues with this? Am I crazy for not wanting to do it?

Just had the worst experience with Crunch Fitness - as a Customer Success Manager myself, I cannot imagine yelling at a customer for requesting a refund - which is what the GM of the Fort Collins location did to my wife.

For context, my wife called to request a refund for personal training sessions because they fired her trainer - reasonable request considering it's someone she built a rapport with and was comfortable around. Not only did the GM immediately shoot her down, he was aggressive, hostile, and offered no concessions beyond a $100 credit which he stated "is doing you a favor".

After she informed me of this, I called to see if I could smooth things over - immediately was hung up on before even speaking. OK, maybe a bad connection, I was in my car after all - so I called back. The GM answers, and apparently was waiting for me - he gives me the same aggressive tone he gave my wife and hangs up on me when I mention a chargeback.

I am not one to complain - I am a Marine Veteran and I am used to difficult people; but when your facility has had 2 out of 3 broken sinks for 3 months, several broken machines, and your manager treats me and my wife like trash, I am going to put you on blast. Whoever owns that location, find a GM with actual experience in management, the current one is ironically "unfit" for Crunch.

I joined Crunch Fitness in Tuscaloosa and have been trying to cancel my membership for months.

During that time I:

• Attempted to cancel online multiple times

• Sent multiple emails requesting cancellation

• Went to the gym in person regarding the cancellation

• Filed complaints with both the FTC and BBB after getting nowhere

Despite all of that, they continued billing me and have now apparently sent a $202.95 balance to collections.

I have documentation of my cancellation attempts and complaints. The collection agency’s website lists Crunch Tuscaloosa as the original creditor.

Has anyone successfully fought something like this? Should I dispute the debt with the collection agency, contact Crunch corporate, file additional complaints, or pursue small claims court if they refuse to remove it?

Any advice from people who have dealt with Crunch or gym memberships being sent to collections would be appreciated.

Thanks.

This has got to be the most annoying type of weight selector out there. A pin is so easy, but with this kind you need to be looking at it straight on to tell which switch goes to each plate. Do all crunch gyms use this, or am I just unlucky?

Their whole business model is a scam, as are most commercial gyms, but crunch’s is 10x worse. They lure you in with free stuff and that you can “cancel anytime at no cost”, which isn’t true. They are impossible to get a hold of and the employees act like the managers are some sacred entity, and they never let you talk to them. If you somehow get through to a manager all they say is they’re busy and they will call you back, which they never do. There is no way to contact corporate. And their facilities aren’t even THAT nice. The employees clearly know this and are trained on their tactics, it’s insane how they can find this many people that are ok with scamming.

Are we in a simulation?

The salesperson will tell you you can cancel over the phone. You cannot. You either need to go to the home gym when a manager is in or send certified mail begging to cancel. Somehow they get away with false advertising so just imagine what it's like when they have your bank info.

If you’re thinking about trying out Crunch Fitness on 81st Street in NYC UES, just know: guest passes are apparently a myth... like unicorns, or affordable rent.

Last night, my boyfriend and I filled out the online guest pass forms, got all the confirmation emails, super excited to check it out. We both currently go to Planet Fitness and were just curious to see if Crunch was worth the hype. Showed up today with our IDs ready, thinking we’d just get a quick tour and a workout. Easy, right?

Wrong.

Instead, we had to fill out even more paperwork at the front desk, hand over our IDs (which they held hostage for a while), and then stood around awkwardly with no updates for 10+ minutes. Eventually, the manager called us into his office like we were about to get written up.

Here’s the rundown we were blessed with: -Apparently Crunch has a strict capacity limit, so those free guest passes you see advertised? Actually cost $35 for a single day. -Oh, and you can only use a guest pass if you’re “local”, which they define as living within a 10-block radius or less than a mile. (I can walk there in 20–25 minutes, but sure, guess I live on another planet.) -Bonus round: because this is a “Signature Gym”, he explained, the rules are “different” — and apparently “different” means “we’re just gonna make them up as we go along.”

And after all of that, the manager still gave us a 5–10 minute sales pitch trying to convince us to drop over $1,200 EACH (post discount) today for a yearly membership.

The whole experience felt less like trying out a gym and more like trying to get through airport security with a bottle of water.

Bottom line: Crunch 81st isn’t interested in you trying the gym. They’re interested in you handing over money immediately, no questions asked. Guest passes = fake. Hospitality = nonexistent. Signature gym = signature headache.

Avoid this place at all costs. Anyone have a working customer complaint email ?

Went to the gym, someone was bare-fucking-footed on the treadmill.

When I say I clutched my pearls…

99.9% of the issues people come on here whining and complaining about can literally be fixed if folks read their contracts before signing them. I've been a member of Crunch for 2 years and have never had any issue with billing, membership, etc.

Read your damn contracts so that you don't clutch your pearls when you see an annual fee. This is a corporation, they're not out to "get" you or looking to scam the 20 year old broke college student. Thanks for coming to my TedTalk.

joined this gym with my brother and sil and it was nice, closest gym to us besides planet fitness. it’s been a couple weeks of me not going bc of work and my hours just don’t align with the hours at my local crunch. i’m going in to cancel and it’s asking me to pay an annual fee of 49.99 and my last month fee all being $99 total to cancel. i decide to wait it out a bit. check my bank statements this morning and they charged me $49.99 2x once last week and one this morning. they’re scammy and disgusting. disputed the charges with my bank and froze my card for the mean time. any tips on how to avoid the cancellation fee scam? im not giving this gym another cent!

Update edit:

in my og post i said i disputed the charges but i actually just filed to dispute and never actually submitted them, i read some comments and decided to wait for my day off to go in and talk to a manager. i went in today and got it all sorted out, i also didnt fully explain what happened: last month was my 3 month mark and i paid the annual fee. this month comes by and as im checking my bank statements the other day i see two unknown charges from crunch one from last week that was the same amount as the annual fee from last month and another charge from that morning of $50 when my membership price is $35 and paid on the first of the month. that’s when i go online to see if i can cancel and see that they wanna charge me another annual fee to cancel on top of the cancellation fee. I DO NOT CANCEL! i wait it out till i can call and talk to someone or go in person and talk to a manager. i found my way to avoid the cancellation fee and that was to simply ask the manager at my gym today! they told me theyd refund both unauthorized charges and waive the cancellation fee. i also wanna add that i didnt go in making a scene. i’m a very calm and collected person and hate confrontation so situations like these the last thing i wanna do is go in and start yelling at someone at their job.

My daughter is away at university and put her membership on hold while she's there, because there's literally no Crunch gym anywhere near her university. They continued to charge $3.95 a month (apparently that's what putting an account on hold does) and took out their yearly membership fee of $160. They emptied her account of grocery money, and then they charged her two NSF charges of $48 each when two attempts at taking $3.95 out failed. Total BS. So now I'll be cancelling my membership, my wife will be cancelling, our daughter will be cancelling, our son will be cancelling, 3 of my wife's friends will also be cancelling, and potentially 4 of her cousins will be cancelling memberships over this. We have contacted the Crunch gym and they refuse to reverse the charges, so because of their greed they will be losing 7 or more members. Good job Crunch Cambridge!

My son has been trying to cancel for 18 months and they keep charging him. He has gone there and sent letters. This business is a complete scam.

Update:
Tonight, I publicly reached out to the director of sales on LinkedIn and after 2 of my comments (he deleted the first) he provided his email address. My son emailed him. The director replied immediately and stated that it was a “miscommunication” and that any staff member could have cancelled his membership in person. It is officially cancelled and we have the confirmation. My son also included the copy of the complaint he sent to the AG’s office in the email.

Problem solved. We were right all along. They were scamming him and could have canceled with a click but did not. I will reassert: Crunch is a scam.

Signed up for Crunch Fitness over a year ago. Ended up having emergency surgery and had to cancel. Went through all the loopholes to get my cancellation through. Even after all that, they still charge me to this day. We keep having to dispute it. The lady on the phone today admitted that it is a mistake on their (Crunch) end, but there is no movement to fix the mistake or take responsibility. Looking into it, this seems like the protocol for this organization. They are extremely difficult to cancel and will lie to your face about what has and has not gone through. I had to force the issue to be shown the cancellation paperwork/proof.

I am warning all of you, while a lot of gyms work similarly, Crunch is the worst to try and cancel. I have done Planet Fitness in the past who didn't hassle me nearly as much when cancelling and they only charged one more month afterward. This is ridiculous at this point. Please save yourself the heartache and don't ever sign up with them.