Misleading Vitality Promo & Extremely Poor Customer Service

I am extremely disappointed in the service I’ve received from Discovery regarding my 3-month complimentary Vitality benefit.

When I signed up, my medical aid was clearly scheduled to start in March. I was not billed for Vitality in March, but then unexpectedly debited in April, despite being under the impression that I qualified for three months free.

I contacted the call centre to query this and, after being transferred multiple times and spending an excessive amount of time on hold, I was eventually assisted by an agent who confirmed that the promotional benefit had not been app**** correctly. I was told this would be fixed and that I would receive a refund. I requested written confirmation, but was told another team would follow up — which never happened.

Since then, I have made several attempts to resolve this matter, including multiple calls (again with long hold times), emails, WhatsApp, and app support — all without any meaningful feedback or resolution.

Even after finally getting through to Discovery and sending an email as requested for escalation, I have received no response or even an acknowledgement of my email.

Today, I was told that my Vitality membership was activated on 28 January, and that the 3-month promotional period was calculated from that date.

This is completely unacceptable:

I explicitly requested that my medical aid only start in March.

At no point was I informed that Vitality would activate earlier or that the promotional period would begin before my plan was active.

Although I received some communication before March, I could not access or use any Vitality benefits during that time.

It is therefore unreasonable that the promotional period was effectively used up before I had any ability to access or benefit from it.

This experience has been frustrating, time-consuming, and highly disappointing — especially as a new customer dealing with a company of this size.