Virgin Active Sales Consultants Lying to Clients!!!

My name is Sinovuyo Zepe. I joined with Virgin Active 25 May 2018 at the Soweto-Bara PHRU Discovery Wellness day at work. The consultant had my attention about gym membership and i was quite interested. The agreement was for the first installment was to be debited from my account 1 July 2018. I agreed and we signed. On the 29th May 2018 i receive an sms from virgin active reminding me on a debit order that was due 1 June 2018. I immediately call the sales consultant because I was now confused, he was unavailable after many tries and text messages, then i decided to call virgin active for clarity of this issue. The consultant over the phone had assured me that nothing on my account is reflecting that and it might be automated and had advised me to ignore the sms and should the debit order go off, i call them back. It did! I tried the sales consultant that i had signed with (Phila from HoneyDew), still unavailable I then called virgin active re-describing my problem. I was then advised to go to the gym physically (the club i signed for is the Southgate one) to stop this debit order that was not supposed to go off. I went to the gym and found a sales manager Lesley. I described my problem again with him and tell him of the directive I had received from the consultant. He was confused because that is not the virgin active processes he says, they do not stop debit orders!

Now frustrated, I ask him to help me because no one was actually helping me. We got to call the honey dew office with Phila and he was once again not available. Unsurprised, I ask to speak to his superior (Sales Manager) and assured me Phila would be calling me soon to solve this problem. And that he did! He then unprofessionally called me at 7pm 26th Jun 2018, at night.

Unimpressed by him, I express my dissatisfaction with his service and his inability to assist me in such early days signing with him. Clearly this is going to be a difficult journey with Virgin Active! He confirmed verbally that he understood my frustration as anyone would be. Things took a turn for the worst when Phila explained that I had not understood him when he made the sale, he meant that the installment taken for June 2018 is for the next month, July!!! How is that possible? Knowing that this cant be from Lesley's conversation, that is when it was clear that this guy is lying to clients!!! I expressed my disbelief of this statement. He then went on to ask me if I want him to pay for my account? and how unfair that would be to him!!!

I never once mentioned anything about him paying for anything, the conversation was quite heated at this point because I felt like he was putting words in my mouth. I told him to stop speaking like this to me and just help me! Only for him to ask me back what would he like me to do? i TOLD HIM THAT I WANT WHAT HE SOLD TO ME TO BE TRUE!!! where I am standing, the most important fact of the sale which involves money was not true!!! After expressing that I cannot speak to him any longer, I will follow up myself with his sales manager as he was of no help.

I have called virgin active again and had the chance to speak to his sales manager, he assured me they will get to the bottom of this and follow up with me. This was on the 28th Jun 2018. I am still waiting to be updated by them. I have only been to the gym once!! once!!! I have requested a cancellation of all this because virgin active sales people are lying to clients then go AWOL when you have a problem, let the problem persist and when you want a cancellation, they tell you the 5 days is over and you have to pay 50% of the contract. Do not get me wrong, the contract stipulates this and I do not dispute it. However, this has been disgusting service from virgin active and now I am trying to escalate this because its not the right way to get people to sign gym membership! You do not lie about facts when selling products to people!!!!!

Everyone has been quiet now, the second debit order went off this month, I need to reverse this because I do not want this gym anymore!!! May someone please help, where can I get an ombudsman for this issue? No one deserves to be ******* into signing for anything! And what makes matters worse is I really want to gym!