Gold's Gym: a fine example of crappy customer service

It's not cancelling AOL but I've been trying to tell Gold's Gym for over 6 months that I don't owe them any money. I have all the paper work to prove it and they can't seem to get their act together to tell the collections company they've hired that I don't owe them anything. 

The story:

I signed up as a Gold's Gym member when they opened the capitol hill, seattle store. I was a very early member and got a great price for being one of the first 200 members. 25$ per month. At that time, Gold's was owned by the same owner of Pro Robics in Laurelhurst.  I had access to both gyms.

Fast forward to 2005. Gold's Corporate bought the capitol hill gym.  They lost my consumer contract at that time. I then moved to Laurelhurst and I went to Gold's Gym Capitol Hill and told them that I wanted to make sure that my membership was good at Pro-robics. They told me about the sale fo the club and that I should have billing transferred to Pro-robics because things were a bit confusing at Gold's HQ. I made the transfer -- pro-robics was great. No problem. At this point, I wasn't even trying to retain rights to use the Gold's in Capitol hill.

I started receiving calls from a collection agency in Dec of 2005. I called the collections company and explained to them that this was all a mess up and that Gold's HQ should get there act together. When I explained the situation, they backed off and told me I should tell the company my situation directly. I didn't....out of site, out of mind. Then another collections company started calling me. Apparently Gold's HQ fired the first one (because they weren't good enough). The amount they claimed I owed went increased from 50$ to 190$.  I finally was fed up enough that I went into the Gold's Gym in Capital Hill with my original paperwork to prove that I didn't owe any money. The woman their was very nice -- Lauren. Well, below is the email exchange I've been having with them and their corporate HQ. I know I'm being too nice....but the story sort of speaks for itself....and remember -- I was one of the first supporters.

First Email (July 3,2006) from Laura (Employee at Gold’s Gym) to April (Corporate Headquarters)

On 7/3/06, lak@u.washington.edu  wrote:

April,
Andy Sack has been has been a member here at Gold's Broadway since we opened.  After the split between us and ProRobics, he continued to pay the same amount to ProRobics and stopped paying his dues to Gold's.  He followed all instructions from Gold's Managment during this time as to assure there would be no conflicts or billing issues.  Now he is recieving past due notices in the mail for the amount $190.00.  He has never missed a payment at ProRobics, nor was his billing information changed during this process.  Can you please rectify these late payments and make sure he is no longer charged by Gold's.  I have a copy of his original contract, as well as a record of his payments to ProRobics.  Thanks!

Lauren
Gold's Broadway
Second Email (July 19) from me (following up on not hearing anything) to Laura and April

From: Andy

Sent: Wednesday, July 19, 2006 8:10 PM

Subject: Re: Member #200xxx5x

April,

Is there any word on this? I have not heard anything from you?

Third Email (July 25) finally a response from April 3+ weeks later

On 7/25/06, April <ap@xxxxxxxx.com> wrote:

Hi Andy,

I just wanted to let you know that I did not forget about you I am taking this to a corp. meeting on Friday and I will get back to you then.

April
Gold's Gym Member Services

Fourth Email: (July 25) My response to April at Gold’s HQ

Glad to hear that. Not sure what there is to meet about ....but ok. I don't understand why this is taking so long to resolve. 
Keep me posted.
Andy