Virgin Active South Africa
reviews and complaints

I send an email to Virgin active to cancel my membership, my husband's member, my brother and my son membership. They only choose to cancel mine and my brother, and didn't bother to reply on email I send to confirm cancellation,and now the excuse is people over 18 where supposed to cancel themselves, but funny my brother is way over 18, we want to rejoin but we will never pay for arrears never, if after 2 years this matter is not taken into consideration, I am going write to the oumbusman

Good day

Can you please assist me.I have been struggling since last year in December.I have cancelled my subscription after the Lockdown 5 since I have lost my job and I was afraid to got to the gym during the pandemic.I went to Maponya Mall to cancel and I was given a phone to call the head office and I did the cancellation in August 2020 and now they are telling me that that I owe R4700 for the service that I have cancelled and did noy use the facilities since then.If you don't want me to come back to the gym I will go to the competitor as I was traying there since it was still Health and Racquet,now after more than 10yrs of being a premium subscriber you giving me a service like this?I called the customer care more than 10 times today and I was taken from pillar to post and I was intending on going back to the gym since the beginning of January 2023,Please assist me

I joined virgin active braamfontein one day ago. I attended the gym to collect my access card, and since I was there I informed the staff that I had a motorbike accident 3 weeks ago and that for 2 weeks I could not walk because of severe hip pain ; I also informed them that when my x-ray results came the doctor noticed that a had a slight pelvic tilt and he gave me a series of exercises to perform at home and he recommended me to attend a gym and specifically use the treadmill on an incline, the elliptical and the rowing machines ; he gave me a complete list of exercises to perform. I left the hospital 5 days ago and the doctors, the chiropractors, the nurses and the interns who attended to me have cleared me for exercise.

But the staff at virgin active braamfontein is more qualified than all the doctors who attended to me and cleared me for physical exercises, and they barred me from using any machine or show me how to use them unless I had a personal trainer. So for me to exercise at virgin active braamfontein I need the authorization of the personal trainer, even though I explained to the staff that I had been cleared, they did not believe me which is insulting.

Did I need to bring my x-ray results and my medical files for me to have access to the machines? I will never because I will never set foot again in a virgin mobile facility. I want my membership to be immediately and permanently cancelled.

If this is the way you are going to treat your clients than good luck with you business.

This morning just after 5 AM we went to train as normal, there was loadshedding and when we got there, we were declined access, we normally train this time if there is loadshedding or not as there is enough sufficient lighting and we only do weights and no power/electricity is needed. We pay for a service and we can't use it as one manager by the name of TK has a different outlook on enough natural light as the other managers on duty. (We have trained at this gym with a lot less natural light than this morning!)

They have chargeable lights that were not charged, I feel declining members access because somebody didn't do their job and charge them is unacceptable. The gym has so many members that train if there is loadshedding or not, why can't they make provision for this. Surely a generator or inverter to run the lights only is a must. I feel like leaving this gym and moving to another in the area that has this!

We were about 8 members at that time that was declined and surely many more before and after us. The feeling of getting to gym and not being sure if today's manager will let you in is unacceptable as it's a waste of people's time and money.

Attached photos of the lighting outside this morning.

My daughter has been going to the Virgin active beachfront gym for a couple of months now, she was at the gym on the 8 of December 2022. She was busy with weight lifting in the one section in the gym, when this older male person came and stood behind her, about a meter away from her and just kept staring at her, it was so bad that she felt uncomfortable and even stopped and put the weights down, she then walked up to him and he turned away and walked off. It was obvious that he was not there to gym. My daughter is only 16 years old, this should not be happing to anyone who uses the gym. Firstly Virgin Active's fees aren't cheap and a person expect a certain level of safety when you go to the gym, surely there should be staff walking around making sure that stuff like this doesn't happen.

I am so disappointed in Virgin Active's service that I'm considering cancelling it and also telling all my friends and family about what happened, people should feel safe to let their children go to gym, this does not make me feel safe.

Membership:[protected]

I have been trying since Aug 2022 to assign the EFT payments I made to my membership and my daughters (ID number [protected]) that is linked to my account.

I have sent the POP to Bonita. [protected]@virginactive.co.za and to Danielle. [protected]@virginactive.co.za in several ways. I have emailed all the POPs from Gmail account and I have sent the POP from banking app.

They did not and have not to date acknowledged payments via email. Instead Virgin active keeps trying to debit my account and return it because I make the EFT payments monthly by the 25th of every month without fail.

I have this in place for a very long time and now it seems your are not able to assign simply payments for my membership.

Can you urgently allocate the payments from Aug'22 to last payment made 25 November'22 to my membership accounts and STOP debiting my account.

If you are not able to do this by 22nd December please cancel this membership and I will find another gym who can give me the service of allocating my payments on time. I am not able to attached the POP to this compliant.

I will post this horrible service on Hello-Peter post the cancellation of this membership 22Dec'22.

I would like to lodge a formal complaint against management at Gatesville Virgin active. On this day 29.11.2022 at round about 10:00am, after my workout I went to the dressing room (Steam room) only to be informed that the steam room is going to be put off. After liaising with the manager at she assured me that it will be put off after my steam session. She left me hanging for 10 minutes, knowing that the steam was already put off. I asked one of the cleaners to call her, as this was very unprofessional, and I wanted a explanation. she informed me that an open aqua class had been organized by one of the instructors without managements knowledge. No notice was displayed as they just decided to inconvenience the member by putting the steam room off because they do not want all that people in the steam room. Why did they give free passes to enter, as this was not an arranged event by management, How can they allow an instructor to make decisions. They toilets and dressing room was left in a mess as puddles of water was left everywhere (safety risk). I don't blame the cleaners because they could not keep up with the big amount of people that was allowed in the aqua class. Manager tried to shift the blame on the instructor, shouldn't management be kept liable for this kind of happenings in the club? After all members should be the main priority, and not an instructors reckless decisions.

Bedfordview branch management is pathetic. Cleaning is not done properly in the spinning studios.

Members do not use sweat towels.

Not enough equipment between the 2 studios.

As members we have to keep running up and down searching for equipment.

Some of the leg raise machines do not work. They have been faulty for months now.

When Katlego phoned me on Tuesday after I complained on Twitter, he still couldn't answer to my concerns!

Virgin Active please get competent staff in the correct positions.

Years ago, you had an amazing manager that all the members were raving about. I can assure you; many members are not happy with the way in which Bedfordview has gone to the dumps. This use to be a flagship gym.

Now it's just an old, dilapidated gym.

Please note that my daughter has been a member of Club V until she turned 8 years old in March 2022. I was unaware that her gym membership was cancelled when she turned 8. When I subsequently tried to take her to gym with me in October 2022, I was informed that her membership had been cancelled and that I would need to do a new kids membership. I was also informed that the sales consultant was not there. My details and a copy of my daugthers birth certificate was taken, and the personelle from the gym advised that a consultant would call me the following day.

A week passed and I went into the gym again to enrol my daugther. This time I was asked to wait. I waitied for 30 minutes. And only thereafter I was told a sales consultant was not there. I again left my details and a copy of my daughters birth certificate but got no response.

On Monday 31 October I went into the gym again to enquire about the memebership. This time, yet again, no one knew anything about the lost documents. I supplied a copy of my daughters birth certificate again. And was advised that a sales consultant will contact me by Tuesday 1 November 2022 by 2pm. No one contacted me.

I asked a friend to check with Virgin Active staff on Wednesday 2 November 2022, and he advised me that the staff at Virgin active want me to come in and supply them with "more documents"

On Friday, 4 November 2022, I went to the gym again to enquire what further documents were needed. I insisted on speaking to the manager who advised that they had she did not know anything about the birth certificate. She stated that they do not have an in house system for filing documents and she did not know who took the document on 31 October. She displayed a very disinterested attitude when I asked her to check the CCTV footage and find who has my daughters document.

She then asked me if I would wait while she checks the footage. I then told her this was unacceptable. That I would sign the new member documents and she could then look at the CCTV footage and find who has the document.

I then met with sales consultant "Kush" who filled out the forms and he promised to call me on Monday 7 November 2022. This never happened.

Again on Wednesday 9 November 2022, I sent a friend to enquire about the membership. IT was only thereafter that "Kush" calls me. He then askes me to sent him another copy of my daugthers birth certificate.

When I attempt to find out as to what happened with the plan for Virgin Active to locate the missing document. He advised that it was not his responsibility. And that the branch manager and regional manager are away, so there is no one available at Virgin Active Ballito who can assist me.

When I asked if there is a chain of command and if there is "someone in charge", he said that he will let his supervisor know to contact me.

I am still unclear on what has happened to 2 copies of my the documet.

Hi!

My wife and I are long standing members of Virgin Active, we origninally got our membership at Kingspark, Durban and subsequently transferred to Amanzimtoti. We have lodged several complaints about the general upkeep of the gym, and no improvements have been made since

The C V machines have a media screen and very few of them work. I espcially enjoy working out and watching sports while doing so

The water tempeture in the pool as well as in the showers is not comfortable most of the times

The mens shower as a sewer smell most often

Management at the gym listen to the complaints and do absolutely nothing about improving the conditions

After the revamp of the spinning studio, which looks great but does not deliver.

The air-conditioning in the spinning studio delivers about 1/3 of the volume that it used to.

This has been brought to the attention of the club but 3 weeks later still nothing has changed.

We have to open the doors after 10 minutes or members are likely to dehydrate.

Sound also keeps going on the blink and needs to be attended to. Very annoying for members and instructors.

To whom it may concern :

I have a Virgin active member for many years and never missed single premium on my account. I went into your cornubia branch 4 months and requested a copy of my contract as I had some queries regarding the contract duration. I was told by the receptionist that the branch manager will request the contract and contact me once it's at the branch. In good faith i left the debit order to run whilst sorting out this query. One month passed with no feedback from anyone. I stopped the debit on the account with the hope that the manager would make contact. Nothing still. I received many calls from your call center and I explained what happened, nobody has gotten back to me. No I received an email threatening legal action if I fail to settle this account. Would you pay for services you not receiving. Your business does not have poor customer services, you have NO customer services. I have no hope that anyone will look into this matter but anyway.

I am a member of Virgin Active. Last Tuesday 29 Sept. my daughter wanted to join the gym. we then completed the documents with the sales consultant and left the gym. on Monday 3 Oct my daughter received a call from the consultant requested all the information that was already provided. the consultant then informed my daughter that she should sign the document when she goes to the gym in the morning. This morning when when were leaving the gym the reception asked that we sign a blank contract. The sales consultant who was assisting us was busy training upstairs and only came down when i asked the reception to call her.

The service received from the staff in general at the Honeydew club is absolutely pathetic and they have a dont care attitude.

Good afternoon, I have send a complaint in and it is still not resolved. The reason is that you have incompetent people working at the gyms. I wonder if the CEO Dean Kowarski knows about this lack of interest in resolving problems from the gym in Montana, Pretoria. Waleed Fortune and her incompetent Patience Maphanga is running this gym into the ground. I have send Waleed a email a month ago and when I called HQ today then only did she read the email. Please give me my money back or give me two years gym membership back as you deducted the money out of my bank account knowing ling that I have cancelled it. Dean Kowarski I hope you read this email and resolve the problem as it seems that no one in you company can. Shocking !

I moved to Finland in August and had a contract with Virgin Active (Claremont branch) till the end of September 2022. Seeing that I would not be in South Africa to see my contract through, I proactively gave notice for my contract to end in September, stressing to the assistant in the club that it is NOT an early cancellation (with cancellation fees added) but rather an early notice that I will not renew my membership. Early in September a fee was deducted from my account that can only constitute a cancellation fee from Virgin Active. I have requested this to be rectified twice on the Virgin Active website, to no avail. No-one has contacted me either.

Please get in touch (via email).

Virgin active green point has two rooms/studios, other thank that there's machinery and a small piece of clear space not bigger than my bathroom. During peak hour virgin active decide to utilise both studios, no actually all day there are classes in both studios leaving the rest of the clients to wander around looking for open equipment. Its disheartening because you leave work go to gym, do some cardio if you're lucky to get an open machine then you have to wait until all the classes end at 7 just find some spare space to do a decent workout. The only reason you have to wait for the studio is because the rest of the equipment is being used. Reserve one studio for classes and let the rest of us get what we're paying for. We are not paying for other people's disco dance classes. There's actually another studio for biking classes too and three rooms for squash.

12 September, 2022

I would like to lodge a complaint about the cold temperatures of the Gatesville branch swimming pool. Members have not been attending gym for two weeks due to the situation, and our Aqua coach, Thomas, has had to go without pay as a result. We are not happy about this situation. Temperatures have also been intermittent before the last two weeks. Some of the members are more senior than others, and do not do any other fitness activities, except swimming and aqua. Please could we have constructive feedback to this situation ASAP.

Thank you.

Esther Alard (on behalf of the aqua group).

Virgin Active Staff Member at Virgin Active Kyalami/Waterfall(Patience) Not responsive/completely ignores messages and follow up emails. Her turnaround time to respond to queries is as and when she please

Completed form for Club V for my Daughter in January 2022

Card was issued but was never linked to Vitality

I have been paying normal rates for my daughter ,I was under the impression that it is already linked.

Upon discovery that it was not linked I raised the query with Patience at Virgin Active Waterfall/Kyalami

Two months down the line my issue is still not resolved.

I raised pointed questions to her via WhatsApp, she completely ignored my messages.

Sent emails to her with Her Manager in copy hoping that the matter will receive attention .I raised pointed questions as i needed to be clear about next step. Even requested her to give me a call

To this day ,no resolution.

The reason i am following up with her is that she initiated the process in January 2022 and i wanted her to complete the process.

why was my card not linked

why is it difficult to close this matter ?

Regards

I am quite worried about the fact as to what employees you as a company employ to fit with your company image, morals and values.. It came as quite a huge shock to me that your personal trainers are offering extra services over and above just personal training and hitting things up with married men instead of focusing on what their job really is. I would like this problem to addressed and necessary steps to be taken unless this is what you are connecting your brand with!

Good afternoon, My name is Theunis Botha and Id no [protected]. I use to go to gym at Montana in Pretoria. I had an good experience over there until one day that a lady came to me and went of about my mask in the lock down period. I explained to her that you can take it of if you do extensive training as Virgin Active press release. She was very rude and one of her colleges apologies on behalf of her. After the above it happened twice and I was livered and went to the office to cancel my membership. There was a biokineticist, this lady from Virgin Active and a gentleman from Virgin Active also in the office. I explained my dissatisfaction from this lady's attitude and cancelled my membership on the 12 Jan 2021. I received a letter from the bank regarding these deduction as I was not using this account. I contacted Virgin Active and spoke to a very rude lady by the name of Patience Maphanga and explained myself. She tried to make me out to be a liar. I send her proof of when my Vitality was cancelled with Discovery just to back up my story, here response it is two different entities, I know that. If they did what they were supposed to do we would not have this conversation. Expecting as call from your office. Regards, Theunis Botha [protected]