Your gym makes you show up in person to unsubscribe

You return the card at the reception of Gym Fit24 in Alcorcón, on a Thursday at a quarter past seven in the evening. You fill out a form. Marta — the girl at the desk — puts it in a blue tray, on top of four identical ones. You lose twenty-two minutes between the M-40 traffic jam and the signature.

Before that, you spent ninety days calling a premium-rate number that costs €3.49 a minute. The app offered you 'sports holidays' at €12 a month. The chatbot closed on you three times when you asked for a human. The email with the subject 'unsubscribe' always got the same canned reply: in person.

Many Spanish gym chains still keep the 'in-person cancellation during opening hours' clause — a lawful, though tacky, way to bill one more month, or two, from those who no longer show up. Spain's consumer organisation OCU has flagged it in several reports. Law 4/2022 tightened the small print but left the loophole open for 'highly personal services'. The gym qualifies.

Score: two stars. One you pay for training. The other, for actually quitting.