Extreme Fitness
North York, presenting a fasles verbal agreement to sign you against your consent

I was contacted by phone by one of Extreme Fitness representatives located in Toronto on 4950 Yonge St., and offered 3 months free membership as a promotional offer. My name apparently came up in a draw.

Upon arriving to Extreme Fitness on Dec 28 2007 to an appointment with the representative I was told the activation of the free membership was conditioned upon providing a bank account information and signing an agreement which was verbally explained as being possible to cancel. This was cleared as I have voiced my concern I am recovering from a car accident and therefore not sure if I will be able to exercise for a long time. It later turned out it was not possible to cancel the agreement, which was in fact a contract.

However, before I realized this fact, I was told that due to my condition of recovering from severe trauma I will need a personal trainer, or the gym wont be liable for me re-injuring myself. In order to provide me with a trainer, my signature was needed again on what turned out to be another 12 month contract, with no option to cancel.

Needles to say, I would have never willingly agreed to similar conditions had I been informed of them. Indeed 2 weeks later my condition had relapsed and I was forbidden by my rehab and doctors to participate in any training. I have contacted Extreme Fitness many times with written notes from my treating doctors and physiotherapists, but Extreme refused to cancel the yearly contract even after reviewing the evidence.

I will now be forced to pay over 2, 500$ over the course of the next year, and I have never attended (or in my situation likely to attend) even once. I will be charged 76$ monthly for membership I was invited to try out for free, and another 186$ monthly which were presented as a condition to start exercising and turned out to be another mortgage-like contract.

Please, is there anything that can be done against this kind of fraudulent presentation of an agreement, or should I just be happier I was not hit for more then 3000$? Something surely must be done about it as complaints about Extreme Fitness are flooding the web everywhere...

Any help/advice is much needed, by me and by many other people I have read being held hostage by Extreme in similar or worst situations.

Erik
Toronto, Ontario
Canada