Virgin Active - ********* Practices, ***** & Theft & They Don't Care

You're going to have to hold onto your hat for this one because it passes ********* behavior and goes straight to outright ******* (and they don't care). We are a family of 4; 2 adults, and 2 kids under 18. We decided to join the gym when we joined Discovery Medical Aid. We went to our nearest branch where we went for information and eventually signed up. The customer service throughout the sale was absolutely next level. I'm pretty sure if we reached out at 3 in the morning they also would've happily helped. There was constant communication, feedback, you name it, and we were very impressed with the friendly and helpful service.

We also signed up during a Black Friday promotion which we were told gives us January and February for free. Signing up took some persuading though, because we would be flying abroad in December and only returning mid-January, which made us feel that we should rather revisit the entire thing once we're back. But it was explained to us that if we signed up now, they would simply freeze our membership over December (with a charge of R50) and then reopen it in January when we don't have to pay for it anyway. So, we signed up.

From the get-go there were issues. None of the cards wanted to work - even after a replacement was made. Then things were wrong with our profiles on the system, but it could never be fixed, because everything was constantly down due to loadshedding (why a big VA like that doesn't invest in having solar on its roof is beyond me). Then there were constant issues with the app as well, either not connecting with our membership or not logging visits. We get rewards according to the Vitality and Virgin systems, but these also can never be redeemed due to the Kuawai also always being offline due to loadshedding. So, the rewards just end up expiring. I understand that there's an arrangement in place that one can go to another VA during loadshedding, but it's not like the next VA is within walking distance - it's quite a lot of effort going to another one.

To this day our things are still all over the place between what's on the branch system, what's on our cards, what's on the app, and what's recorded by Discovery. We also experienced something at this particular branch that I have never experienced anywhere else in SA, but this is fairly sensitive and won't be discussed on a public forum.

Taking all this into account, imagine my surprise when on the 1st of December A VA debit went off my account. Not only was the membership clearly not frozen, but the debit amount made absolutely no sense and was not what was discussed with us or what we have in writing. I immediately contacted the same contact person who promised to resolve the matter. Apparently she sent a mail, but nothing happened and despite continuously following up with her, absolutely nothing came of it. I then reached out to the escalations team for assistance. They came back and basically told us that none of what we were sold was actually true, and never fixed the issue or communicated with us further. So, in essence, they have crossed every line of the CPA, what makes a sale legal, a debit order legal, etc. It seemed like they just wanted to ignore the matter and hope that I would just accept whatever they did with me now that I was a member. This became even clearer when prompting them for a response. The answer was simply that X, Y, and Z weren't possible and that they would be charging full debits (whatever that may mean since these amounts were never discussed with us and we never signed for such amounts). They even went as far as to tell us that we went to the gym the day before we actually signed up for the gym. How in this world does that make any sense? Why would anyone go to a gym they're not a member of? So, clearly, the paperwork has also been tampered with. If this matter is not urgently attended to and fixed we will be escalating the matter to the relevant authorities.