Trapped on a treadmill

WHAT'S THE STORY WITH GETTING OUT OF A GYM CONTRACT?THE NATIONAL Consumer Agency (NCA) recently announced that it had reached an agreement with many of the State's 600 gyms encouraging (but not obliging) them to be a little more transparent when it comes to taking our money.

In response to an increasingly loud chorus of complaints from consumers about unfair and ambiguous terms and conditions which forced them to shell out for gyms long after they'd lost interest in working out, the agency launched a consultative exercise involving the representative bodies of the fitness industry in October 2007.

The process culminated in the publication at the end of last month of a series of best-practice guidelines aimed at gyms and the unveiling of seven commandments it is hoped gyms will honour to ensure a fairer deal for their customers.

Of particular concern for the NCA and any would-be gym bunny who has ever found themselves at the wrong end of a nasty contract that they couldn't escape from, was a lack of clarity about minimum membership periods and notice periods for cancellation.

Leaving a gym can be notoriously difficult. While common sense might suggest that you should be able to take your gym bag elsewhere without applying for permission in writing and without having to give a notice period more befitting the CEO of a multi-national corporation, such conditions are routinely found in gym contracts.

Two-month notice periods, no escape clauses and rolling contracts are commonplace. Gyms are legally entitled to insert such clauses into their contracts and it is the responsibility of consumers to be aware of those terms and conditions before signing up; the problem, however, is that some companies seem to gloss over all the terms which may make prospective clients think twice before signing up.

Catherine Lenihan, the assistant director of the NCA, has been shepherding the new guidelines through and she believes the agency has made significant progress over the last 12 months. She is careful not to speak too badly of the gyms she has been working so closely with over the past year and suggests that some of the more unfair clauses the NCA unearthed may have been there out of ignorance rather than mean-spirited malevolence.

"You'd certainly be inclined to think the confusion was quite often deliberate but to a certain extent it was a case of one gym following the others, a lot of the exclusion clauses seemed very similar from gym to gym." She says that bringing some of the gyms into line with a better class of practice was not without its difficulties.

"We worked very hard with the gyms and eventually we got co-operation".

ACCORDING TO LENIHAN, the consumer group had to forcefully let some gyms know that if they didn't review their terms and conditions and make them clearer, then the agency would carry out their own reviews.

They were told it would not shy away from instigating legal proceedings if it came across any breaches of EU legislation governing contracts.

Lenihan says that the number of complaints to the NCA about gyms has dropped significantly in the last year and attributes at least some of the decline to the consumer body's intervention. "Now we have the guidelines, the gyms can no longer plead ignorance about what should and should not go into their contracts," she says.

One person who Lenihan says acted very quickly when contacted by the NCA was Ben Dunne, who owns three gyms in the Dublin area.

"When the consumer people came to me to talk about the terms and conditions of our contracts, I admitted straight away to a level of ignorance," he says.

"To be honest I had just copied the terms and conditions I saw in other gyms without much thought. Within weeks I had changed them to comply with all the guidelines."

Dunne is dismissive of the way many of his competitors go about their business.

"Some gyms can be downright difficult and use very heavy-handed methods.

My attitude is if people aren't happy with what we offer they get their money back."

He claims he prefers not to have members who are unhappy as they are inclined to spend their time dissing his business, and he has an old-school regard of the power of word of mouth to drive business away.

He is undoubtedly a breed apart when it comes to Irish gym owners. While he is forever banging on about his low prices (and to be fair they are very low), other gyms prefer to keep their price lists very quiet.

Most gyms absolutely refuse to tell phone callers how much membership is going to cost them, preferring instead to save the vulgar discussion of money until they are talking face-to-face, when they can best be convinced to part with their money.

"The people who ran gyms for a long time regarded themselves as high-end, like some exclusive golf clubs. We have changed all that," Dunne laughs.

The NCA also published seven non-binding best-practice principles for the sector. Among the seven is a promise to give potential members the opportunity to read and understand terms and conditions before signing up, a commitment to take "particular care" to explain to all potential members the requirements of joining for a minimum fixed period, and the cancellation procedure.

The notion that gyms would commit to fully explaining their terms and conditions is to be welcomed.

In an ideal world we would all read the small print of every contract we enter into, be it a house purchase, a flight to London or a gym membership, but the reality is very different.

People don't have the time or the patience, but when it comes to gyms there are a few questions which should always be asked before any money is handed over or any financial details are supplied.

Always ask about the get-out clauses: what happens if you move to another country three months into your contract, get sick or find out you're pregnant?

Many gyms sign you up for a full 12 months and make getting out of the contract next to impossible, if not completely impossible - if there is a lack of flexibility in the contract you might want to walk away.

Make sure to find out what happens when the initial 12-month contract comes to an end. Some gyms automatically renew the contract on a rolling basis unless you cancel the contract in writing at least one month before the initial contract expires; while that might suit some people, others may prefer to go from year to year.

When it comes to payment, although you may be paying by direct debit, some gyms also ask for credit card or laser card details as security and have it in their terms and conditions that they can debit money from either should you fail to pay your direct debit or try to cancel it in the event of a dispute.

Again, there is nothing untoward about this, but you should know it's there.