Virgin Active South Africa
reviews and complaints

To whom it may concern

RE: Official complaint  [protected]

Dear Sir/madam,

I have been a member for some years at Virgin Active in Namibia. I had only good memories when I was using your facilities, even though at an on-off basis due to my work conditions.

However, my last experience was not good at all, which is why lodging an official complaint. I came back from Malawi and India late in 2020 due to COVID-19. In April 2021, I approached the Virgin Active Branch at Marua Mall, where my daughter is a full-time member. I was assisted by an agent by the name of Emanuel (spelling?) ([protected]).

I explain to him that I want to join for only a month and a half. The reason for this was as follows:

1. My daughter was to get married at the end of May and exercised daily to get herself in shape. I wanted to support her by going with her to the Gym mentally.

2. Secondly, I made it very clear to Emanuel that I am leaving the country for good at the end of May and will only use the Gym until the 15th of May.

He then indicated that it was not a problem. I will only pay for one and a half months. So he went ahead and prepared a document for me to sign. When handed to me to sign, I signed and then noticed there was a debit order. I asked him why I had to sign a debit order. He said it was normal procedure if someone continued using the facilities after the agreed time. He indicated he would ensure that his offices would not initiate the debit order, and they would see the cash payment I made will show a short-term contract. He didn’t give me any documents, and I assume everything was fine. I started to visit the Gym, and on the last day, on the 14th of May, I handed in my client card and indicated to the receptionist lady that she should inform Emanuel that I was leaving and he should make sure my contract was canceled as agreed.

I left Namibia to settle in Liberia. I have not, since I left Namibia in May 2021 till April 2022, heard anything from Virgin Active; neither did they collect money from my bank through the signed debit order, nor did I receive an email in this regard. This was an indication to me that everything was in order.

However, it was not the case. In April 2022, I suddenly, out of the blue, received an email claiming that my account was overdue. I sent an email in this regard; secondly, I phoned Emanuel, and my daughter also phoned him to ask him what was happening. He responded that the system is currently experiencing some problems and due to COVID-19 a lot of accounts got mixed up. He said the system is currently offline, but he will immediately rectify the situation. I also received a call from the Cape Town branch, and I explained to them the as above.

In the meantime, we continue phoning Emanuel, and he keeps promising it is rectified and will send us the proof. He never kept to his promise, and so the game continued. I send him SMS, and he makes promises.

In the meantime, I am bombarded by phone calls from Virgin Active.

Can you please advise me on how I should proceed to get this sorted out?

I am looking forward to your positive response.

Lawrence Pringle

3rd street,

Monrovia

Liberia

Good day,

I am [edited], I called and joined Virgin Active online on Monday, 15 August 2022. I was offered October and November free when my debit order goes through at the end of this month. However, I believe that Mr Khaya Sinqe, the Sales Consultant that serviced me knew more than I do. When I got to the club (Potchefstroom), I was told at the club that if I joined at the club with membership option I have, I could have been offered 3 months free and a free Virgin Active Bag. I was disappointed at the Mr Sinqe for not informing me of such benefits. I believe in fair and ethical business practice. Mr Sinqe robbed me of the benefits that was due to me as a client. He was supposed to have informed me of joining options (club or online) and the pros and cons. I wrote an email to him yesterday, however, Mr Sinqe have not provide any feedback or defend his actions to this time. In fact, I was met by a loud silence from him. I am so disappointed. The reputation of Virgin Active should be protected by all means and above par service being uphold with the reputation of VA at our disposal.

SPINNING BIKES ALL BROKEN AT VIRGIN ACTIVE - LORRAINE PORT ELIZABETH

I joined Virgin Active primarily to attend spinning classes. Several years ago we had over 30 bikes in the spinning class. Post Covid we were down to 19 bikes. Unfortunately over the past few months however, as the spinning bikes break they don't get fixed. Several of us have complained and there are always excuses.

As things stand now there is NOT ONE spinning bicycle that is working properly at the Lorraine branch, not even the instructors' bike!

Every morning we play musical bikes trying to "build a bike" that semi- works. We have complained and complained, they say parts are coming, well so is Xmas. Very sad state of affairs for a health brand that is supposed to be professional. Not sure where else to turn other than social media to get this rectified.

Where there is a will, there is a way!

I am Virgin Active Member and they stopped debiting the Membership fee without my request. I was not aware as i was hospitalized for almost two months after which i had to recuperate. I have not as yet been back at the gym and only realized when i was contacted that i have not paid my Membership and i owe months as they have not been debiting me. I contacted the Bank which confirmed that the Debit order was not stopped by the Bank.

Firstly Southgate virgin active has closed down.All members of South gate were guaranteed a premium membership. Upon calling virgin active two months ago,the agent informed me the premiu magreement was no longer in case.She told me this without verifying. I felt so angry and frustrated. She calls me back after some time to say the agreement is still in place. I paid up the account in full to start gyming again . Another agent calls me back two weeks ago saying I owe virgin active money and then rudely just drop the phone In my ear and say don't u dare talk to me like that.i am being called every day by virgin active virgin active Harrassing me for money I do not owe.my account is paid up to date but instead they telling me the system is calling me. When my account is paid up.

Dear Virgin Active - I must say that I am so disappointed in your service. I have NEVER in my life experienced such bad service as I have with you. I moved to a town with no Virgin Active and have been trying to cancel my membership since November 2021 - emails went unanswered, calls have been forwarded to different people and eventually dropped. My only way to cancel was to drive to a town that has a branch. I finally filled in a form (one that you can easily put online) and was told that it would take 20 business days to process and that the next month’s debit order would not go off - which it did. Why do you make it so difficult for people to cancel their membership? Is it just so that you can profit more? Well, that does not surprise me.. Please could someone contact me so that this issue can finally be resolved. It is not easy to keep up with expenses today, let alone have an extra debit order that goes off for a service I cannot even use because there is no club nearby 😠

Hi,

I moved 3 months ago and have been requesting for assistance to move to another gym, I keep getting debited the old gym contract fee's and on the app it does not allow me to change gyms.

I'm getting so sick of this and want to start using this membership that I'm actually paying for .

I'm going to post over and over again on social media about how shocking your after sales are, its just plain and utterly disgusting.

Good Day

I am having a problem almost daily with your gym facilities having to wait for machines/weights to train.

I have been complaining to your staff but there is nothing much they can do as they are just employees who sets the rules.

Your gyms are over capacity with regards to machines/weights allocated versus the number of people entering the gyms.

Gym is supposed to be a therapeutic time but I find myself arguing more with your staff as to why the gym is always so full.

For example : If there 100 machines./spaces at gym for people to train then your clock in system should only allow those 100 people. Currently its double & what makes it worse is La Lucia branch is closed so now its even worse than usual.

I understand you'll are a company who needs to make money to survive but what about your customers who is not getting their monies worth.

Within 1 hour I sometimes train, I physically only do exercise for 30 minutes as I have to weight for the machines to be empty & this is on a daily occasion.

My complaint is that I have informed Cornelia Manuel, one of the employees working at "The Sanctuary", probably an accountant, that my daughter's account has been canceled and that they are still deducting from my account. She informs me that she will investigate and come back to me. I went to her month after month and everytime the same promise us given but no response and deductions continued. At one stage I successfully reversed the deduction, but sheepishly it continued. I am at a loss of words for it continued for about 6 or 7 months and no other person can help you at Virgin Active because of false excuses that they are not available. What are they doing with my money? Is this to make up for the loss during covid?

Cornelia Manuel asked me to bring proof from the bank, which I did, and nothing was returned of the deductions made. When I ask her to please respond, she still ignores my e-mails. I have also written to [protected]@virginactive.co.za and have not heard from them either.

I have cancelled my contract with virgin active august of 2021,via email. Whereby they have said that they have received my request. They have deducted still after my cancellation. But by January 2022, I stopped the debit order. Now I am being harassed by their collections department for an arrears account. Which isn't the case, since I have upholded my side of the contract, by letting virgin active still deduct 3 months of fees. But they haven't kept to their side of the contract.

Dear Virgin Active, I write to you this evening as it is now 1 month and 2 days since my lock was broken and locker broken into at your Virgin Active gym at Waterfall Mall in South Africa. I lost a pc, wallet, all cards, drivers licence and a mini iphone 13.

Your lady that assisted me to close my bank counts was so on the ball, thank you for that, as this was 06h00 in the morning.

I described the potential suspect to both the police and at the gym when I lodged the theft. I went from changing to the loo to the pool then back to the locker to fetch my swim cap. The lock was broken and contents gone. This gym also has 10 car guards looking after motor vehicles outside.

Your Gym manager Eta, was unable to assist me to review footage, due to both your policy, but now you have cover under the new South African laws. Your gym manager was also never present to see me. I recently emailed and the latest received was from your manager when he called me Mr Jacobs, (thus I assume Mr Jacobs locker was also broken into), as this is not my surname.

I mentioned that I am not comfortable going back to the gym as a thief is harbored there, and has not yet been identified. Is there something head office is able to do to give me some comfort, (by telling me you can suspend my membership is great) if I did not want to gym. Thus there is no value in this.

I am a very annoyed about this, as correspondence is always from my side., No information from the gym, everything is mum at this stage.

I joined the membership of virgin active last month ,April 2022,i 0nly went to the gym once ,when i call them and tell them i want to cancel my membership they tell me that i have to pay R1200 ,why do i have to do so ,they should allow me to pay for the day i went to the gym.

I have filled in a complaint about Virgin active disputed contract. They have my name under people owing them. I have had several contracts with virgin active and when I wanted to take a contract with them in 2018. They told me i was owing from 2014, which it was a contract i disputed. They even have let me got into two contracts after the one they said i owe. I have tried to resolve this with them.

I was debited almost double my normal membership fee, my membership fee should be R440 and I was debited R870.

I have been using the spin class bicycles for a long time now in the afternoons before the actual spin class starts. Up till now it has been good until one afternoon a member came in and just connected his phone to the sound system and proceeded to spin with his music rather loud. I had my earphones in out of respect to others who come into the class and want to spin. They also use their headphones or earphones. I complained twice. The second time, the Manager did come in and said that no members are allowed to use the system. I see that he is still using it and i now cannot go early and do my workout in the spin class, because he is just doing what he wants.

I just feel that this is totally unacceptable. If everyone else can respect each other and use headphones or earphones, then so can he.

I feel that Management and staff are actually scared of him!

Good day,

I was called by a Virgin representative stating I am one month in arrears although April have been paid. I informed the lady the lady that is the debit order is going on the 1st there will be constant issues as I only get paid once off.

Still explaining the lady did not listen but rather said she will put me down as refusal which is not the case and slammed the phone down in my ear.

I am going to take this up with every possible social media device as well as hello Peter as I need this specific lady on your records to apologise and I am making an official complaint against her and therefore Virgin.

My cell number is [protected]

Email [protected]@mweb.co.za

Wayne Hill

I have cancelled my membership last year June in 2021 but Virgin active is still debiting my account every month.

I'm opening a file at my lawyers today.

I have sent numerous emails to you but they never reply. I have been calling Immanuel and Ivy at Virgin Active at Maerua mall in Windhoek every day, but they still continue to debit my account.

I wanted to enroll my daughter there but I'm afraid to be part of this gym. They are too happy to take money from their clients. And they never return my mails or phone calls. I'm so disgusted. So many people are complaining about them. I'm taking this to social media.

My contact number is +[protected].

Regards,

Margaretha Teixeira

I have been harassed since the start of the pandemic about a month payment which had been missed, which I advised timeously and REPEATEDLY that I had lost my job and no longer wanted the membership. I have moved cities and yet you still persist to debit my account since April 2020!? Holds were placed on the account because we were in lockdown and then, I never returned to the gym and canceled my membership because I was unemployed due to the pandemic.

Now I receive an email with no account statement to date, about an amount of R882.20 which is said to now be outstanding. What is it going to take to cancel this?!

I wish for this to be cleared finally, once and for all please. I cannot keep requesting the same thing repeatedly!

I am currently a Cornelia, Virgin Active member. Switched to vitality in January 2022. Was told old membership will can off . Until this day old membership has still been debited, for 3 months. Pathetic service received. Been to club spoken to everyone possible. Really useless and unhelpful staff. Issue still not resolved.

Hi, I need someone to immediately contact me. I cancelled my contract with Virgin Active on the 19/09/2021. I received an email in January 19th 2022 telling me I was in arrears. I resent my cancellation email on the same day and copied the original cancellation request. On both occasions, I received an email acknowledging my request and that it would be attended to and back dated to date of first email request. I now have had my account debited 2 months in a row for R1250. I did not authorise this.

This is theft and I am extremely disappointed that such an establishment can ignore cancellation requests and continue to take money they are not authorised to access.

I have asked Virgin Active to contact me ASAP to resolve, with an immediate refund for R2500.

Account [protected].

I also indicated failure to respond will result in escalating to the authorities.