Planet Fitness - *****

In December 2019 my husband and I went to Planet Fitness Bedford Centre to enquire about joining. I had been told on the phone by consultant Lydia that they had a "Black Friday Special" where the joining fee was waived and membership was about R200 a month (we are Discovery members). Upon arrival, we got a completely different story - now we were told that special was "over" and instead, we had to pay the joining fee. I disputed this (fortunately I had recorded the call on my phone where I was offered this special). We were presented with membership forms to sign, but neither of us filled in our details - my husband actually walked out with his (unsigned) form.

Two days later I went to iron out this mess with the original consultant who had given me the wrong information. Firstly, I was made to wait 20 minutes before she would see me and then when I finally got into her office I was given a Royal song & dance while she tried to "salvage" the deal. The long and short of it was I left in disgust and said I gave her 24 hours to sort out the mess or would join another gym Virgin Active. The consultant then said she'd worked at Virgin Active and commenced bashing them - very unprofessional. I recorded the call.

Lo & behold, two debit orders came off our company account - one in January 2020 and the other in February 2020. Our office assistant didn't pick this up until the 2nd D/O went off. There is NO WAY Planet Fitness even had our company banking details - all they had was (maybe) my husband's name.

Somehow, they **********ly and *******ly managed to process a membership in my husband's name - and proceeded to deduct membership fees off his company account (we would NEVER have agreed to using our business account for this in the first place).

When we called them, we got the usual "corporate mumbo jumbo" run-around about how they would have to query this with the branch and "verify signatures" (we never signed ANYTHING with them)...... blah blah blah. And that it would take 14 days for them to refund us.

So after lengthy phone calls, being pushed from pillar to post and great time and expense on our behalf, they acknowledged the membership was indeed invalid - and they would be refunding us in 14 days. In today's modern world of IT and instant transactions this is is totally ridiculous.

I have every right to open a case of straight-out ***** with the police against Planet Fitness - what they did was blatantly ******* and **********. And, from reading other reviews it would seem we are not the only ones that have been de*****ed by them.

If we don't get our FULL refund - PLUS expenses for having to run around phoning them and our bank - and the bank charges we will incur for needing to stop the debit order, I will definitely be opening a case with SAPS.

Be VERY careful when dealing with Planet Fitness. They are ************, ********* and clearly skating well below the law. Absolutely disgusting.