The Story
After a car accident left him paralyzed from the waist down, the last thing on his mind was his gym membership. But $89 kept leaving his account every month, for two years, long after he’d tried to cancel.
His gym’s policy required an in-person visit to any branch, with valid ID, to process a cancellation — no phone, no email, no mail-in option. He called eleven times. He emailed his hospital discharge papers twice. He sent a certified letter. None of it mattered under the company’s stated policy, because none of it was an in-person visit — the one thing his injury made impossible.
Inside the Courtroom
The gym’s defense rested entirely on the written membership agreement: cancellation required an in-person visit, full stop, applied equally to every member, designed to prevent fraudulent cancellations. From their perspective, they were simply enforcing the contract he’d signed.
His account made the absurdity of that position hard to ignore: he was being required to physically walk into a building in order to cancel a service, specifically because he could no longer walk — the very reason he was trying to cancel in the first place. Despite providing medical documentation and repeated written notice, the charges continued.
What The Law Actually Says
This story is fictional, but the pattern it describes — subscriptions that are easy to join and deliberately difficult to cancel — is one of the most common consumer complaints in the U.S., and it’s now the direct target of federal regulation.
The FTC’s “Click-to-Cancel” Rule, finalized in 2024, requires that businesses make cancellation at least as easy as signing up. If a company allows customers to enroll online or by phone, it generally cannot require an in-person visit or a phone call to cancel. This rule specifically targets the kind of “in-person only” cancellation policies described in this story.
Separately, disability accommodation law (including the Americans with Disabilities Act, in contexts involving public accommodations like gyms) generally requires businesses to provide reasonable alternative methods for customers who cannot physically comply with a standard policy due to a documented disability. Continuing to enforce an in-person requirement against a customer who has provided medical documentation of a condition preventing that in-person visit can expose a business to liability under both consumer protection and disability accommodation law.
When a company continues billing a customer after receiving clear, documented cancellation attempts, it can face:
- Liability for unauthorized charges under state consumer protection statutes
- FTC enforcement action under the Click-to-Cancel Rule
- Chargeback and refund claims through the customer’s bank or card issuer
- In cases involving a documented disability, potential ADA-related claims
What To Do If You’re Trapped In A Subscription You Can’t Cancel
- Put your cancellation request in writing (email or certified mail) even if the company insists on another method — this creates a paper trail.
- Know about the FTC’s Click-to-Cancel Rule and cite it directly if a company requires in-person or phone-only cancellation after allowing online signup.
- If you have a medical condition preventing compliance with a standard cancellation process, provide documentation in writing and explicitly request a reasonable accommodation.
- Dispute the charges with your bank or credit card company as unauthorized if the company continues billing after a documented cancellation attempt.
- File a complaint with the FTC at reportfraud.ftc.gov and with your state attorney general’s consumer protection office.
Final Thoughts
Whether or not this exact story happened, the underlying problem — subscriptions designed to be far harder to cancel than to join — is now directly addressed by federal regulation. Companies that ignore documented cancellation attempts, particularly from customers with a disability preventing compliance with a standard process, are exposing themselves to real legal risk.
Have you ever been stuck in a subscription that seemed impossible to cancel? Share your experience in the comments below.
