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Sponsor renews effort to cap health‑club automatic charges after members report delayed cancellations
Summary
Representative Phillips reintroduced a measure (House Bill 5215) to require health clubs to stop automatic billing within 30 days of a customer’s cancellation request, citing widespread consumer complaints about delayed termination and overdraft fees.
Representative Phillips reintroduced House Bill 5215, a consumer-protection measure that would require health clubs to stop automatic charges within 30 days after a member requests cancellation.
Phillips said the House has passed similar bills in past sessions and that consumers frequently report overdraft fees because companies continue to withdraw membership payments for months after cancellation requests. "It takes the companies 4, 5, 6, 7 months to stop taking that amount of money out of their account," Phillips said, and argued a 30-day cap on automatic renewal withdrawals would reduce consumer harm.
Committee members did not press further in the hearing; the bill was presented and then held for further study under the committee’s procedural motion.
