ATROCIOUS NON EXISTENT SERVICE

On 16 Oct 2024 I received an email from Virgin Active stating that they had received confirmation that I had cancelled my membership. I DID NOT?

My spouse then emailed Discovery Life as our Vitality Legacy Virgin Active Gym membership is linked to our Life Policy. On 21 October Mohini Naicker at Discovery Life confirmed via email as such: "Vitality was removed off your life policy effective 01.07.2024 (duplicate Vitality). It appears that there is a Vitality membership on the medical aid on which you are a dependant." We have never had another vitality number connected to a medical aid.

Discovery Life did not have any permission from my spouse or myself to remove the Vitality from our Life Policy. But instead of picking up a phone and calling my spouse and finding out why there is a duplicate vitality and which one to remove, the just removed the Vitality from the Life Policy where our Legacy gym membership is linked.

My spouse emailed Mohini Naicker and asked who had given them permission to remove Vitality off the Life Policy - there was no response - they dodged that question and response. My spouse at that point in time asked that our Vitality benefits and gym membership be activated as per original contract. On 1 November 2024 my spouse got confirmation that our Vitality membership had been reactivated and synced. However my gym membership at virgin active was still deactivated. I then called the Virgin Active H/O customer service and on 1 November Sibo reactivated my membership and I could continue having access to the gym.

In the meantime, Vitality premiums and my gym membership fees was being deducted from my spouse's and my bank account, respectively.

6 months later, end of April 2025 I go to the gym and my membership is again deactivated. I was shocked. Vitality had made my membership inactive, with no reason on the system?

My spouse once again emailed Discovery Life and asked why my gym membership had been deactivated. He was informed that a “new” Vitality policy was started in November 2024, and I would now be required to pay an Activation Fee and a higher monthly Gym fee — a direct result of no longer being on the Legacy Vitality policy." My spouse further stated on the email "I want to emphasize that I did not initiate any changes to my policy and did not consent to or request any new Vitality policy, only a reinstatement of the original Legacy Vitality policy. The cancellation appears to have been an administrative error on Discovery Life’s part, and I request the following actions be taken immediately:

A full investigation into how and why my original legacy Vitality policy was cancelled without my consent. Reinstatement of my original legacy Vitality policy, including all its legacy benefits, without any additional fees or penalties. Immediate rectification of the Virgin Active Gym access and associated fees, ensuring that we retain the original rates and benefits tied to the Legacy Vitality policy.

I has now been 5 weeks going onto 6 weeks. My spouse has been sending emails to Discovery Life every day to reinstate our original Legal Vitality policy and give me access to virgin active gym. Each time a new person responds to his emails, Samukelisiwe Fakude, Aidan Botha, Palesa Mogale.

On 28 May Aidan Botha responded to my spouse "Management has authorized the reversal of policy change movements related to the Vitality benefit on your Discovery Life policy. This request has been submitted to our systems team for processing.

Once completed, the servicing administration team will reapply the necessary changes to the policy in an effort to resolve the issue with your spouse’s membership not reflecting correctly.

We are also working to reactivate the pre-2010 gym benefit for your spouse, which will be linked to her Virgin Active membership.

From the Client Services side, I am the agent coordinating with the servicing admin team and management to resolve this query. Unfortunately, I am unable to provide my personal email address, as our system blocks emails sent to personal accounts. "

Since then, I have been banned from entering the gym, we have asked Aidan to ask Vitality to put a note on the virgin active gym system allowing me access until Vitality Admin/Systems team sort our this issue - yet no note has been place on the gym system.

For the past 3 days my spouse has been emailing Aidan every day enquiring when the note will be placed on the gym system, when the vitality legacy issue will be resolved as it has been over 5 weeks already

My spouse has had not one response from Discovery Life, Aidan Botha. His emails are being ignored.

I have now reached beyond frustration point and my spouse too? All this happened because Discovery / Vitality did not pick up a phone to liaise with their clients before just removed the vitality off the Life Policy and deactivating our gym membership.

When did client service become non existent? Nobody calls a client anymore, we now need to talk to Bots - seriously !!!!

And yet we have asked to speak to a Manager at Discovery Life, Vitality or even Virgin Active and we have been told that there is no Manager available, Manager's do not have telephones to call their clients, consultants work in the back office and cannot make outbound calls - ARE YOU SERIOUS ??? SINCE WHEN ??

My spouse just got a response to an email sent on 3 June to Aidan - this is the response we got from Palesa Mogale "Dear Mr Garces Thank you for your email. Please be advised that there is no direct contact person available for this matter. An email has already been sent to Vitality requesting access to Virgin Active on your behalf. However, for further assistance or to follow up directly, you may contact Vitality by calling ***and selecting option 2 to speak with one of their consultants."

WOW I rest my case - there is no direct contact person to assist? We must Vitality- I have been calling Vitality since Friday 30 May, spoke to Nomvuyoseko, Nadine, Nosisa and Nosisa's manager - Ronel. THEY ALL TOLD ME THE SAME THING - THEY CANNOT PUT ANY NOTE ON VIRGIN ACTIVE SYSTEM - THEY DO NOT HAVE THE AUTHORITY TO DO SO AND THERE IS NO MANAGER TO ASSIST ME?

So why does Palesa say we must call Vitality for assistance - and when did she send the email to Vitality??

I have no words for this atrocious non existent service we have been receiving. Discovery is a big company and this is how they treat their clients???

I guess that all the staff working in Discovery/Vitality are all working on their own with no Managers, no phones, no authority to help clients - SO WHERE TO NOW??