Anytime Fitness review: No due diligence

Can I first please acknowledge that I did sign an ongoing contract (stupidly without reading it carefully - my fault) and I accept responsibility. However I thought it was for 12 months. In February 2020 I rang and notified Anytime Fitness Currambine that I wasn’t going be attending anymore. The last time I used the Fob was on 24 February 2020. Again I never thought to check my bank statements regarding D/D payments. In my defence I was 68 years old at the time of signing the Contract and verbally pulled out ant the age of 70! As soon as I realised that these payments were still coming out and traced it back to 24.02.2020, I rang Anytime Fitness, spoke to the Manager (05.02.2024) and queried this, he advised me that he would contact the new owners and get back to me. I rang AF each day and eventually on Friday 9 February he rang me back to advise me that the new owners hadn’t replied to his email messages and he rang them to be told that as I had signed this Contract, they weren’t interested. I then asked why I hadn’t been contacted at anytime to find out where I was or why I hadn’t been attending. I realise that I wasn’t the only member they had, but felt that as I was a regular attendee - at least 2 - 3 times a week, they would have contacted me to see if I was ok or had passed away. Also I noticed that the price had gone up from $69.11 to $73.45 again without me being notified. I requested a copy of this Contract as I couldn’t remember any dates or details. So I now have a copy of this contract.

At this point I went to the Ombudsman to find out what I could do. They suggested that I approach AF again and see if they would agree to some sort of a compromise. The answer I received was “they’re not interested.”

Contractually they’re correct, morally it’s wrong on every level. I’m 74 years old and feel that I’ve been taken advantage of.

There’s never been any contact made during the 4 years I hadn’t attended. In my opinion there was no due diligence. Is this what Senior Citizen's have to deal with? Very unfair!