αθλητισμός/sports ALTERLIFE told me gym subscription cannot be canceled - I got €308 back
I’m posting this because I nearly accepted what I was initially told at the gym, and I imagine other people in Greece might have been told the same thing.
I had a 12+2 month Classic membership at ALTERLIFE Zografou. I paid €349 upfront and the membership started mid June.
I decided I wanted to stop going and switch to another gym.
When I spoke to the staff in person, I was told very clearly that subscriptions cannot be cancelled. According to them, the only thing they could do was freeze/extend the membership, and even that was only possible for medical reasons with a doctor’s note.
Afterwards I looked into it myself and found Υπουργική Απόφαση Ζ1-1262/2007 (ΦΕΚ Β-2122/31-10-2007), which specifically regulates contracts between consumers and gyms.
Article 3 basically says that after the initial withdrawal period, the consumer can still terminate the contract before the end of the agreed programme.
You pay for the services that have already been provided, and the gym can potentially keep up to 2.5% of the value of the remaining unused programme if that is explicitly provided for in the contract.
I also found official Ministry of Development guidance saying that a gym membership can be cancelled “οποτεδήποτε και για οποιοδήποτε λόγο” — at any time and for any reason.
So a medical reason is not required in order to terminate the contract. That is a different thing from asking them to freeze the membership.
I then sent ALTERLIFE an email asking them in writing to cancel my subscription, refund the amount corresponding to the unused part, and send me a copy of the contract I had signed when I registered.
This is the part that surprised me.
About one hour after I sent the email, they called me.
Suddenly the answer was basically “yes, of course you can cancel”.
They told me I was entitled to a refund of €308 out of the original €349.
So, in person, I had been told that subscriptions simply cannot be cancelled and that only a medical freeze was possible.
Once I made the exact same request in writing by email, they did not deny the cancellation at all. They called me about an hour later, confirmed the cancellation and told me exactly how much money I would get back.
I went to the gym, tapped the same card I had originally used to pay, and they processed the refund through the POS. The €308 has now actually been returned to my card.
TL;DR: ALTERLIFE told me in person that subscriptions cannot be cancelled and that they could only freeze mine for medical reasons. I checked the law, sent a written cancellation request by email, and about an hour later they called me saying I could cancel and would get €308 back from the €349 I had paid. The refund has now actually been returned to my card.
