Anytime Fitness

I expressed to a colleague my fitness goals and how I was thinking I should try a gym and exercising each morning for an hour before going to the office. She told me a friend had a 21 day trial pass to Anytime Fitness Wallsend that I could have, though she said it expired the next day but if I went in and signed up and left a $50 deposit I would be able to use it for 21 days. She brought it in the next day and I went to Anytime Fitness after I left the office for the day but sadly, their door said their office hours close at 2:30pm on Fridays which was rather unhelpful. As I stood looking at the door wondering what to do a person attending the gym said he'd let me in and there may be staff there working. Now, I think he should not have let me in the gym as I was not authorised but his intentions were kind and maybe there were staff so I walked in with him. A lady immediately came over and very firmly, even aggressively, told both he and I off. I can appreciate the guy should not have told me to come inside but even so, he was a paying customer and she was aggressive to him. However, I was a potential customer who knew nothing of this gym and hardly was sneaking in or doing anything dodgy and how she spoke to me was quite unjust. Nevertheless I tried to ask her about the pass and if I could activate it, but she said, no, you need to come in during office hours. I said could I come in tomorrow and activate it and she merely said 'not a chance'. As I spoke with this lady it was clear Anytime Fitness has a hiring policy based on people looking healthy and being gym users more than having any shred of customer service capability. She could have said, "Look, I'm very sorry, I understand you want to sign up with this pass, however that was time-limited and it's now expired, but please do call on Monday and we will run through other options with you" or any of a myriad of other much more polite, much more useful, much more helpful things that would reflect well on Anytime Fitness and make me want to come sign up. Nevertheless, I tried to talk to someone the next day but it turned out there are no office hours on Saturday or Sunday. So, I sent an email from the Anytime Fitness website and received an auto-reply that it was received and someone would respond. I also sent a message via Facebook Messenger and similarly got a message saying someone would come back to me in three to five days. On Monday I phoned but nobody answered so I left a voicemail. A week later nobody called back, nobody wrote back, nobody chatted back. I really don't think Anytime Fitness is out to get new customers and it most certainly cannot be wanting people to think it is a friendly place with helpful, interested staff. This is all somewhat ironic given its prices are higher than other gyms in the area, yet the service quality is non-existent for the most part, and abysmal for the rest. Perhaps a secret handshake (or maybe bicep flex) is needed to gain entry, but my attempts to reach out to Anytime Fitness how I could test their facilities with a view to joining up all met with rudeness and silence. So, I'll just go elsewhere ... it's not like this is the only gym in the area, so why ignore potential customers? It doesn't make sense.