MORRIS COUNTY — Gym membership sign-ups see an increase in January as many make New Year resolutions to get healthy, lose weight, and get fit. But as days get busier, those memberships take the back seat.
For those who are frustrated at the expense and difficulty of canceling those memberships, Governor Murphy has signed legislation streamling membership cancellation policies and protecting consumers across New Jersey.
The legislation A3892/S2952 requires gym subscription services that can be entered online to offer an online cancellation option. The location where subscribers can initiate the cancellation must be accessible and prominent on the gym provider’s website, within the individual’s account profile, or it may be completed through a termination email template provided by the service. This law will ease the process for consumers to willfully terminate automatic gym renewal subscriptions and avoid entrapment by rigid in-person membership cancellation policies.
“By signing this bill into law, New Jerseyans will be protected from confusing, misleading, and inflexible subscription cancellation policies,” said Governor Murphy. “For too long, members have faced difficulties when attempting to cancel a membership they entered into online. With these new requirements, we can ensure a simplified gym membership cancellation process for consumers and hardworking families can evade the financial burden of perpetual automatic renewals.”
Primary sponsors of A3892/S2952 include Senate President Nicholas Scutari, Senator Gordon Johnson, and Assemblymembers Paul Moriarty, Verlina Reynolds-Jackson, and Angela McKnight.
“We thank Governor Murphy and our legislators for once again making consumer protection a priority in New Jersey,” said Cari Fais, Acting Director of the Division of Consumer Affairs. “This legislation establishes clear ground rules in an area where unscrupulous health club operators could otherwise take advantage of consumers by making it unnecessarily difficult to terminate memberships. The Division stands ready to enforce these new protections and hold violators accountable.”
“This is a straightforward consumer protection law,” said Senate President Scutari. “It shouldn’t be complicated for consumers to cancel their health club memberships online if they were purchased online. This will give them that option.”
“It’s simple, if you sign up for a gym membership online, you should be able to cancel your membership online as well,” said Senator Johnson. “This is a good policy which will undoubtedly benefit the consumers of New Jersey and save people from undue headaches.”
