Recently I found myself trying to sign up for a gym membership. I thought this would be fairly simple and straight forward: Membership Fee & a per month fee. Simple enough, right?

Well, what I found was this:

• Down payment JUST to join a 14-month waiting list.


• Fairly high membership fee


• Per month after that.


• Deposit to use the "Sister club" while on the waiting list


• Per month fee to use the sister club.

This went on for over 20 emails and a couple phone calls, over 5 days. There were built-in loopholes to get around the waiting list, and high membership fee, but none of them seemed to apply to me. (This was just as confusing as the I.R.S. tax code!)

All which led me to call an entirely different club, who had the pricing structure that I expected. One quick phone call, a 10 minute visit to sign papers, and I was done.

No catches, no hidden fees, no complicated pricing. In fact they gave me 2 months free!

A complicated price structure is a turn off. It leaves the customer confused and feeling like there are hidden fees for everything.