Terrible treatment at the hands of rude Discovery Vitality device call centre agents (Bukho and the previous agent)

To Discovery Vitality

I had absolutely the worst experience from the Discovery Vitality device team, particularly Bukho around 16:00 on Tues 26 May 2026 when she was patched through to my number on ***, and the call centre agent before her (from 15:51 pm onwards). I was querying why I wasn’t receiving my Garmin device rebate even though I have been meeting my weekly & monthly active goals for multiple months since I got the device (vivoactive 6) in Dec’25. I upgraded in Jan 2026 to vitality premium and they said that is the reason the benefit fell away. The first call centre agent refused to answer my questions and instead said she’d speak to her team and then made me hold for 19 minutes. When she picked up the call again, she was surprised I was still on and even said in isiXhosa that she couldn’t believe I was still holding and then she pretended that she couldn’t hear me any more, the oldest trick in the call centre book - she could hear me fine, I guarantee you, as evidenced by the clarity of the line till then and her snarky comments to her colleagues. Please listen to the call which is recorded; it is totally disrespectful and disgusting.

The indignity didn’t stop there as afterwards the agent put me through to the switch aboard again and Bukho was the next agent - look her up, that is the name she supp****. Bukho said that if one upgrades one’s Vitality plan then the Garmin benefit falls away. So I asked her to show me where in the terms and conditions it says this and Bukho refused to find the collateral or read it out but said I should do so myself. After I eventually did her work for her, and asked her where on the benefit t’s & c’s it states that if one upgrades one’s vitality plan that the rebate falls away and she couldn’t state where. That’s because it doesn’t exist, I read it and have it there. The word upgrade or downgrade is not even mentioned in the doc. I then asked if the rebate would be reinstated if I downgraded my Discovery Vitality to Active and she said no, which again, makes no sense. Why would Discovery want to disincentivise their members to do exercise by withdrawing the device subsidy benefit if individuals upgrade their Vitality plans and essentially pay the company more money! Absolutely disgraceful behaviour by the call centre agents and treatment by Discovery. I have been a Discovery Health member for most of my life (over 20 years of unbroken membership) and am one of the early Discovery Bank account holders, plus a Discovery shareholder. I trust this complaint will be taken up with the gravity it deserves.

Absolutely disappointed & disgusted! Alexandre Rodrigues