Hi, I emailed the YMCA in March to cancel my gym membership right before the quarantine. They emailed me back saying I would not be charged in April after I return the signed form to them. I responded with the signed form the same day back in March.
My credit card was still charged in April. They are closed so obviously no one answers the phone. I haven’t gotten a response through email. Should I dispute this charge or wait until they reopen to ask for refunds? Or should I dispute every month that I’m charged from now on? I’m worried they might not reopen for many months and it will be harder to dispute the past charges.
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For most issuers, you have 120 days to initiate a chargeback for a recurring transaction that you’ve cancelled. Thus, there’s no rush.
You’ve already emailed so you have documentation. And, there’s a good chance their business staff will check in from time to time and fix it. I’d say give them the benefit of the doubt for now. If you hear from them and they refuse to refund, then initiate the chargeback.
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I want to quit the gym. - YouTube
Exactly. You have two choices - be an ass and file a dispute right away, or be patient and give them a chance to fix it.
I’d be pretty positive that they do no just let their monthly membership batch process without someone initiating and/or reviewing/recording it. Maybe no one answers the phone, but someone will get a message.
If you are the Nervous Nelly type, and want to be patient but incessantly worry about missing your dispute window, you could always try calling your credit card and asking them to document the erroneous charge in your account notes, but not initiate the formal chargeback yet given the circumstances. But there’s a decent chance that doing so will result in a chargeback being initiated anyways.
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Related matter. Can Covid closures be used to cancel gym memberships? Timeshares (have one locally to use gym,pool there)
Update: I called them and their voicemail had a general email address so I tried that. Got forwarded to some VP of the area and she said they confused my membership with someone else’s, then said they would put mine on hold. It should have been canceled, not placed on hold - so I emailed back with copies of the original cancellation form and confirmation and I finally got my refund! I just hope they took my card off of auto pay for next month.
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