Request for refund from Virgin Active due to incorrect advice given by their Call Centre Agents

During Covid-19 Lockdown in 2020 I contacted Virgin Active wanting to cancel my gym membership when the gyms were re-opened. My membership was now on month-to-month since I had already fulfilled my contract. The Call Centre Agent gave me an incorrect advice so that I can keep paying Virgin Active monthly instead of cancelling even though I had stated that I will no longer be going to gym. The **** from Virgin Active said if I cancel, I’ll have to pay over R2000 when joining because I’m using Bankmed medical aid and on Vitality, I told the Agent that I am not on Vitality and the person insisted I’ll have to pay the over R2000 when re-joining, and I was convinced to rather freeze my membership instead of cancelling at a then rate of R96 per month.

In January 2022 when I wanted to go back to gym, I contacted my Virgin Active Club in Carlswald, Midrand (Gauteng Province) and they told me that the joining fee is R100 when using Bankmed Medical Aid and therefore, there was no need for me to freeze my membership. Also, when I initially joined Virgin Active, I had paid R100 joining fee and not the thousands that the Call Centre Agent was telling me about. I could've just cancelled my membership in 2020 and paid R100 when re-joining in 2022.

I have contacted Virgin Active many times from January 2022 until July 2022 regarding this matter and when I call, they say they'll get back to me and ask me to send them a direct email on the Call Centre Agent’s email account and they will never respond to those e-mails. I will attach emails that I sent to them without getting any responses.

I have requested them that they give me my refund of R1,707 that I paid because of incorrect advice when my membership was frozen because there was no need for me to pay that freeze fee. I gave them my calculations on how I worked out the amount and my banking details and they have never responded even though they have read the emails. The banking details I gave them are the same ones that they have been using to take money from my bank account. It doesn't make since to convince a person to pay you R1,707 to only save R100 for re-joining Virgin Active.

Even after I had asked them to cancel my membership per the email; dated 25 January 2022, they continued debiting my account every month and I just kept reversing those debit orders because I had asked them to cancel my membership and they continued forcing me to pay and getting their collections team to call me to pay back the premiums for the membership that I asked them to cancel until the matter of my refund has been cleared. I was clear to their collections team that I have a dispute with Virgin Active and I will not be paying any membership fees and I will reverse any debit orders that they will be processing in my account.

Could you please assist me in getting a refund from Virgin Active and to get them to stop taking people’s money unnecessarily.

My ID number is ***. I think my membership number is ***, I took this number from their references on the debit orders.

Regards, Thabani Nsele (Formerly Mafuleka)