“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”

-C.S. Lewis

I’ve come to realise I HATE gyms. Not that there’s anything wrong with the facility itself, but the institutions that run them are the personification of all that is evil and corrupt about marketing.

I mean, there’s no such thing as a reasonably gym. First thing that happens when you visit gym is that they make you sign a “Guest Book” with your name, address and phone number by which they will use to harass you into joining their gym if they failed to make you join that day,

Then, they will take you on a tour of the facilities and they will never fail to point out all the fun and exciting “Value Added Services” that you get for “Free” when you join their gym.

After the tour, comes the business. Quickly you’ll learn why it is that on none of the Gym websites you visit you’ll find a price list for their services. Essentially you’ll first be introduced to an outrageously over inflated “normal membership fee” which is a misnomer because NOBODY actually pays that fee. The only point of that pumped up charade is to make the “after flavour of the month discount” fee (which is still ridiculous) look affordable by comparison.

Take a serious look at it and you’ll realise it’s the same deceit and underhanded marketing Telephone companies wrote the book on. There are all sorts of hidden Registration Fees, Processing Fees, Administration Fees, Monthly Fees, Yearly Fees, Fee for the sake of Fee Fees etc… and of course what sort of lopsided money grubbing contract would be complete without the Lock In Fee, Early Termination Fee and If-You-Don’t-Hand-Over-Your-Credit-Card-or- Bank-Account-Number-For-Us-To-Leech-You- Dry-We’ll-Charge-You-Extra Fee? By golly it’s like shopping for a mobile plan all over again.

What do you think is a reasonable price to pay for a gym? Personally I’d put that figure at about rm60-90 a month. But what’s the cheapest price I’ve been quoted? Rm160, if I agree to pay a processing fee and two months upfront, sign a one year lock in and hand over my bank account details. What am I? Applying for a loan from a Shark?

Yea, I’ve been looking at gyms lately, trying to help a close friend lose weight.

As seen on digg

Replace Telstra with “Telekom” and Australia with Malaysia and it’s just as true… *sigh*