DO NOT LET THEM ***** FROM YOU. CHANGE YOUR MEMBERSHIP TO THE YOUTH PREMIER PACKAGE TO PAY ALMOST HALF OF YOUR PREMIER FEES FROM 22-25 ! THEY DIDNT EVEN LET ME KNOW THAT THIS WAS AN OPTION.

SHORT DISCRIPTION OF COMPLAINT:

I ENCOURAGE EVERYONE FROM THE AGES BETWEEN 22 and 25 TO PLEASE CHANGE YOUR MEMBERSHIP TO THE YOUTH PREMIER OPTION SO YOU ARE NOT TAKEN ADVANTAGE OF EITHER !

It came to my attention that Virgin Active(VA) has been unjustifiably enriching themselves at my expense and who knows how many other members expense. I have been a member of VA since I was about 11 years old. I am now 25 years old and I have not missed a payment. Being extremely loyal and dedicated to this company, you would think that they would not deliberately try hide information in order to con you into paying much more than you should be paying. At the time of joining, (roughly 14 years ago) the particular membership in question did not exist so I was not aware of this offer. I have been paying full price for a premier membership for years. I have now seen that the membership for ages 22-25 should be paying much less. I have been paying roughly R600 for my membership for these three years where in fact I should've only been paying 400 rand. No communication was sent to me to inform me of this option, nor was it publicly advertised, offered to me or brought to my attention. I have been on the "premier" membership *********ly where, should I have been aware of the membership that I should have been on (having fallen into the age bracket 22-25) - I would've been on the "youth package (22-25). I have spent roughly an additional R10000 over the three year period over an above my "membership free. Details of steps taken to resolve the complaint: Contacted VA to rectify this misleading, hidden information and self enriching act and they responded with changing my membership, with an extra cost to me so they could gain even more and they didnt even bother addressing my problem.

After their “attempted resolution” - please see image.

I responded:

Good morning Tracey and Nadima

I have no missed calls from you and I will happily have a chat, should you wish to discuss this. I do prefer having communications in writing as this is now a legal matter with the ombudsman being involved.

I appreciate your generosity behind the matter.

However I would like to make it clear that this is inequitable as I have “qualified” for your youth premier membership and matched the requirements for this from 22-25. Should I have been aware of this option, I definitely would’ve taken it. You have allowed customers to benefit from this, and not shared the information with me in order to do the same. There was no communication of this “new membership” from the time I joined.

I understand I have been a client of yours for 15 years and that the membership is newer than 15 years but surely, you would appreciate my dedication and be honest and share this package with me rather than *********ly omit to inform me of this for your own benefit.

You have now been unjustifiably enriched at my expense to the accumulative amount of roughly R10 000 and in order to rectify this, you are allowing me 3 months memebership on the the plan that should’ve been active from when I was 22?

That amounts to R795 savings.

Something is better than nothing but I am still absolutely astonished and dissatisfied with this.

R10 000 compared to R 795.

It’s honestly a slap in the face, especially after providing you with 15 years of uninterrupted and dedicated business (with no missed payments).

I would still like to hear the ombudsman jurisdiction on this outcome as I would’ve preferred to have been refunded the entire excess amount that I have unfairly paid over the 3 year period or to have had the amount credited to my Virgin Active membership in order to pay for the next few months until the amount has depleted. That would’ve been fair.

Regards Tylah Lambert

I have followed up with Tracey (the communications specialist apparently) … who has blatantly ignored every messages from me thereafter. No one from VA seems to respond to me it’s shocking!!!

I WOULD HIGHLY APPRECIATE IT IF ANYONE FROM VA COULD PLEASE HAVE THE DECENCY TO CONTACT ME.