Check your notice period before you sign up
I was a member for over a year. When I cancelled at the end of August, I was told the notice period is two months.
Under Danish law it isn't. Forbrugeraftaleloven § 28, stk. 1 gives you the right to cancel with one month's notice to the end of a month once five months have passed since you signed up, and § 28, stk. 5 says a longer notice period cannot be agreed at all. It makes no difference that you accepted it when you joined, because § 33 makes the rule mandatory. Forbrugerombudsmanden has previously found that a notice period leaving a member effectively bound for two months at a fitness chain exceeds this limit.
There is a second problem. When I joined, the notice period was one month. It was changed afterwards. Material changes to a running subscription must be notified individually to each member, in good time, with the reason and information about your right to cancel. Putting it on the website is not enough. I never received such a notice, and neither did the others I cancelled alongside.
I raised both points with the centre in writing in March and again in April, quoting the official consumer guidance, while stating explicitly that I did not want to cancel my own membership. I just wanted the terms corrected for everyone. Both times the only reply I received was a request for my membership number so I could be cancelled. The terms were not corrected. In August, three other members and I cancelled and were again told two months.
If you are a member, check the end date on your cancellation. After five months you owe one month's notice to the end of a month, nothing more. If you have paid beyond that, you can bring it to Forbrugerklagenævnet and report the practice to Forbrugerombudsmanden.
You can read the rules yourself: search for "abonnementsvilkår" on the public consumer portal run by Konkurrence- og Forbrugerstyrelsen, or "Opsigelse" under forbrugeraftaler on Forbrugerombudsmanden's site.
