What you should know
- Going to the gym may be one of the resolutions of many for 2024. However, as time goes by, people may change their plans and canceling that membership could have been a headache.
- The good news is that New Jersey residents will now have an easier time canceling their gym membership thanks to new legislation signed Monday by Gov. Phil Murphy.
- The new law requires gym subscription services that sell memberships online to also offer online cancellation options. The new law goes into effect on April 1.
NEW YORK — Going to the gym may be one of many’s 2024 resolutions. However, as time goes by, people can change their plans and canceling that membership could have been a headache.
The good news is that New Jersey residents will now have an easier time canceling their gym membership thanks to new legislation signed Monday by Gov. Phil Murphy.
The new law requires gym subscription services that sell memberships online to also offer online cancellation options. The location where subscribers can initiate cancellation must be accessible and prominent on the gym provider’s website, within the individual’s account profile, or may be completed through a termination email template provided by the service.
This law will make it easier for consumers to intentionally cancel automatically renewing gym subscriptions and avoid being locked into rigid in-person membership cancellation policies.
“By signing this bill into law, New Jersey residents will be protected from confusing, misleading and inflexible opt-out policies,” said Governor Murphy. “For too long, members have faced difficulties when trying to cancel a membership they entered online. With these new requirements, we can ensure that a simplified gym membership cancellation process for consumers and working 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. Learn more here.
Johnson, one of the bill’s sponsors, said it should be as easy to leave a gym as it is to join one.
“If you have a gym membership that you made online, you should be able to cancel it online,” Johnson said.
But not everyone was convinced by the idea.
“Our main concerns are not treating the industry as an online subscription service; as you know, it’s a brick-and-mortar business,” said Mike Goscinski, a health and fitness industry worker who testified before the committee that took over the bill, after lawmakers approved it. “We share our concerns with the FTC and the IRS about the way the laws are written to ensure they do not set the industry up for failure and create a statute that is impossible to comply with.”
The new law goes into effect on April 1.
2024-01-09 16:53:11
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