Using false tactics to sign us up

I am very unhappy with the experience we have had through VHI.

My hubby and I went to the presentation, and immediately we were presented with a form asking if we are both over the age of 30. My husband is not, and I indicated this on the form. I also mentioned this to Johan who was our representative, but he said that it would not be a problem at all, and it was purely for information gathering - I did not know that this would preclude us from using our 'free' vouchers, nor did Johan say anything.

We sat through the whole presentation, and when the sales pitch started, I asked how much we needed to pay for the smallest package, and Johan responded that it would be around R9500. I immediately responded that we did not have that available on our cards, but he kept talking, eventually saying that an EFT could be done.

When I queried him about the fees over and above this amount, he indicated that a membership amount of R1508.75 would be payable annually. At this point we had a discussion about people who sign up in the latter part of the year, and how they should be exempt from paying this amount in their first year, as it means that we are only paying a full annual subscription for only a few months. He shrugged, and said this is how things are done. When I saw that the amounts in the contract were monthly, I again asked him, and he said that this was an old contract, and he assured me that this was an annual subscription. He wrote a whole lot of figures down on a sheet of paper, and said that if we were to pay our monthly subscription, we would end up paying around R3500 per year, so it made more sense to pay once off at the end. I told him that I am a freelancer, and that there was no way I could afford to pay R1500 per month, and he was adamant that this was an annual fee. We went so far as to work everything out, estimating that we spend less than R12000 per year on travel. For us to sign up to something which will cost us R18000 per year, just in membership fees (excluding the R9500 we had already spent), and still have to pay for our holiday on top of that is just crazy.

I asked him if there was a cooling off period, and he said no.

We sat with him for a long time, because I thought that for R9500 odd, plus R1500 per year, we could use this to travel the country. As a result, when we did finally get around to the contract it was very late, and the rest of the men had already finished their pitches and were packing up, as they were apparently driving straight back to Cape Town. When I started reading through the T&Cs on the contract, Johan took the document from me and ran through them very quickly, obviously missing important information, because they wanted to get on the road. It was only when I received an sms notification from the bank on 1 Jan, for a second 'annual' amount that I realised something was very wrong. I also then picked up the clause which states that no matter when is said verbally, the contract supersedes everything, which means that VHI knows about sales tactics like this, and approves them for the signup, then hides behind the clause. That is low. And for a company who expects 'social marketing' from their customers a betrayal of trust like that is unthinkable.