Virgin Active South Africa
Reviews and Complaints

Hi Attached is my 400r swimsuit that was taken in the ladies room George Virgin Active i had so much plans to enroll my daughter at the Club V and swimming lessons. I am now thinking twice. It was a terrible First experience, i am not one to complain but this was expensive. I really hoped it was in the lost and found coz that what i would have done

Good day

I signed a contract with Virgin Active, Little Falls two years ago agreeing that I would pay R399 per month for my now 17 year old son to train there.

It was a new package that had just come out in the March and we took the offer.

We have been paying R399 every month with no problems, until this month July 2019, when my debit order was R421 instead of R399.

We were never informed in any way that the fee had increased and therefore I did not budget for the extra cost which has now caused me to have problems with my bank balance.

I wish for an explanation why it has increased without informing me.

This is absolutely disgusting service, you are in a way stealing from me.

Please get back to me urgently.

Many thanks
Tracy Pretorius

I am Palesa Moeti, 2 days before the termination of my husbands contract(21&22 July 2019), We made an inquiry about the cancellation fee, we were told to pay R860.00 to terminate the contract. On the 23 July we went to the gym around 4 or 5 o'clock to pay to pay the cancellation, we called the head office via the gym to for cancellation. We specifically asked if the debit order will go through on the 25 for the cancelled membership they said NO, during the course of this week(29 July-3 August) I have been receiving calls stating that I need to R290 for Pro rata. I do not understand how is this possible after the agent stated that no amount will be due to you from that moment forward.I refuse to pay the amount because I was given false information from an agent that was hired by Virgin Active.
ID number:[protected]
Gym: New Market

hope to hear from you soon.

A friend of mine referred me to virgin active and the said particular saleman, who called me and told me about the promotions that were happening at virgin active. He called me for an entire week telling me the promotion was R75 to join and I will get the month of June and July free and start paying in August the once of fee of R919 and my monthly fee which is what we agreed upon. He also mentioned to me that it will be access to all virgin actives besides classic and when I decide to downgrade to just one gym, I can let him know in July before the debit goes off my account and he will sort it out for me. I could only make it to the gym to sign up two days before the promotion ended which was fine. Once I had signed up and my account was debited, Ii was still under the impression it was for R75 only to see my message showing R919 was deducted right there and then. Upon approaching the saleman the same time, he said he thought I wanted to activate the vitality all at once which he didn't bother to ask me at all. When I explained to him I did not budget for this at the time he said he will call his manager and see what can be done. The manager on the other hand seemed uninterested, said there wasn't anything he could do and his hands were tied. If he cancelled the contract it could only be done on the Monday as the call center was closed and by then the promotion would be over and he was to call head office and give me feedback as he acknowledged it was a fault on their side. Few days later the saleman called and said that there isn't anything they can do besides to give me a bag and bottle to compensate for my troubles. I let it go as I understood that these things happen since we are human. Today being the end of July, I asked him to downgrade me to just The Pavillion gym only to be told that I need to pay a once of fee of R200 to do this. This was never told to me at the outset! Had I known when I signed up, at that point I would have already restricted my access to the gym I want to use instead of now paying to do this. When I told him this was not told to me, he said he is very transparent about these things yet he also never told me he is debiting R919 from my account. Upon telling him I will be now lodging a formal complaint, his response was alright ok. The nerve. And to think I have given him referrals and myself work for a franchise of Discovery and if this could happen to me, how many of our clients is this happening too. Yes they say we are given the copy of the t's & c's but should all of this also not be disclosed upfront to clients? As a saleman you are there to create a relationship with a client and give them a a great experience yet all it seemed like, this guy just wanted to make a sale and get his commission at the end of it and didn't care how he had to do it. He even told me about a competition that was running and I needed to add 5 peoples names on a card for the competition only for one of those people to phone me and tell me that he has been phoning them and pestering for them to join. He again didn't tell me that he was going to be calling these 5 people. What transparency is this? Who would actually be dealing with all of this since the manager also doesn't care much. Now I'm left to cough up more money to pay a fee to downgrade which again puts me out of budget and I'm told nothing can be done to waive it. This is unacceptable and totally disgusting for a gym with such high standards. Everything should be disclosed upfront to every gym member when joining! I want some feedback on what is going to happen going forward with the lack of communication from the saleman and manager. My contact number is [protected]

Im a Virgin active Hatfield at the fields member, I've been visiting the gym without any issues for the past 3 months, however today the 27th of July 2019 the lady at the reception was very rude, unprofessional and her tone disrespectful. The receptionist, namely Mary, has no language etiquete towards clients and this is the first unpleasant encounter I've experienced in the club since I've joined the club in February. The manager at the club failed to discipline her and I'm not happy. My ID number is [protected] should there be a need to verify my membership. Thank you in advance.

I phoned two months ago to cancel my wife's membership and myself and was told they will give me two months at a reduced rate to see if I will be able to meet my vitality requirement. I agreed but still could not make the time to use my membership. I then phoned at the end of the two months to cancel as its not working out. Now I have to pay another month (August) Full premium because I did not give 22 days' notice. I do not agree as I tried to cancel two months ago. This is not fair and I feel needs to be reversed. Call centre was not helpful at all and not empowered to assist and understand. I want my money back for August.
Membership id: [protected]

To whom this may concern.

Good day.

I hope this letter finds you well! I have recently transfered my membership from virgin active in Victory Park to virgin active in Glenvista.

When I initially transfered, I was not hesitant because I believed that all Virgin actives hold a certain standard because of the credibility attached to the companies name.

I got used to a certain standard at Victory park & expected a little more from Glenvista especially because the fee I pay is slightly higher at Glenvista.

The complaints I have about the gym :

1. It is dusty. The floors constantly feel as though it has not been sweeped. I recommend that the gym has full control over their cleaning staff, as I often see them socializing with each other instead of doing what they need to done. This makes the gym feel dirty.

2. The gym is untidy. The people who use the facilities provided to them, do not pack equipment away. This makes the gym feel cluttered. I recommend putting up signs asking people to pack up after themselves.

3. The men that attend your gym are perverts. They constantly stare at women, especially when they are doing excersises that would generally make you feel uncomfortable (i.e. Squatting). I have experienced this on 2 occasions. The first, an elderly man (aged around 50) came to deliberately stand behind me, shamelessly not even acting like his working out to watch me work out.

I do recommend that the staff at Glenvista go to victory park to understand how the operations are run.

When you walk into victory park, you feel healthy, you feel as though the equipment is clean & there is no clutter. When you leave the gym, you feel as though you are in a better headspace.

Good day
Complaint regarding lack of management skills of Sule Human, Bryanston club manager.
My daughter, Maxine Gorbunova, use to work at Bryanston VA as a personal trainer for almost 2 years. She was not able to pay full amount for rent for December 2018 & January 2019, she informed Sule Human regarding the matter and asked if it is a problem? To which she was told to contact financial department and arrange for repayments, which was done on advise of Sule Human. In January 2019, while training her clients, she was approached by a manager on duty and told in front of client to leave premises for non-payment. She advised that agreement was in order, at that stage she had proof of emails etc. Then she was told that it was a wrong advise to arrange for repayments, and Sule Human would not take responsibility for the embarrassment she caused by daughter in this regard. Thus leading to my daughters resignation, which was accepted by Sule Human in writing on 28 February. The agreement was arranged for to pay the outstanding money till end of March, since my daughter was leaving the country. On her request if all in order, she was told that it was all sorted out. Four months later I receive a phone call from Sule Human stating that my daughter owes gym R 22 000, which is WRONG. The proof, AGAIN, was provided, this time directly to Sule Human, regarding payment done in accordance to their demand. The amount of R 15 000 was done, before end of March and proof sent. Sule Human instead of sorting matter out and apologizing for another mess up on her side, got unreasonable and said that she does not want to be contacted regarding the matter anymore, since obviously she could not sort it out at the first place, and it took here 4 months to start all over again. The job of a branch manager is to ASSIST people, and not get moody and unprofessional. We still did not get anything from here stating that matter is solved, she just went into "hiding". My question is: what is manager's job description, ignore and accuse?
I am awaiting for your urgent response, have no intentions any longer to deal with Sule Human, since I am not sure if she has enough skills to do her job.
Please contact me and investigate the matter. If, for whatever reason, which we were not informed originally when resignation was accepted, there is outstanding amount, it is most definitely is not R 22 000, and if there was a short payment on our side, purely because of ill advise from financial department and Sule Human. Why does it take 4 months after resignation for her to start "digging" into the matter and accusing of something that is not true. On top of everything it came to my attention, so one of the managers of Bryanston club was approached by a totally non-related person to the matter and was told that my daughter owes money and never paid before she left. This is a total bridge of confidentiality, and unacceptable yet again. Is there any control in the management of the Bryanston VA or nobody cares?
Please contact me on [protected] with explanations.
Regards, Angelica Gorbunova ([protected]@Lparch.co.za)

My first failed attempt at contacting you on your telephone number was at 12:38 in 11 July 2019. After being on hold for far too long, I completed a contact form online. 6 days later, let me repeat, 6 days later on 17 July 2019, I get a scripted email from Naeema stating that my contract only ends in September and that I would need to pay an amount in cancellation fees should I wish to discontinue.

First, my contact was signed in July 2018 which means that the 12 month contract would come to term in July 2019. Correct?
That is also clearly stated in writing in my contract which I downloaded from myvirginactive.co.za.

I responded to Naeema on the 17 July 2019 stating that my contract comes to term at the end of July and that I do not wish to continue with my membership.

Well it has been an entire 2 days since and all I get from Virgin Active is an email survey requesting feedback on my experience with Virgin Active.

My experience was fantastic until I tried getting in touch with to confirm that my contract will stop at the end of July.

I did not know that my 12 month contract was a 14 month contract. I did not sign up for that.

Can I please have this resolved asap.

I took out a contract for my 16 year old in February 19, the boy does not want the membership anymore and not even going to the gym. I am the contract holder and my son was merely a beneficiary, I requested for the usage benefit to be transfered to me, ie simply change his photo on the contract profile to mine so I can use it and not pay for nothing.

I was told I have to pay whether the boy attends or not or cancel the contract and pay a cancellation fee with a very appalling attitude from the team leader. Basically, they would rather lose a client and future revenue than change my user profile on the membership and continue receiving revenue.

Poor commercial reasoning...

To whom it may concern

For the past 3 months, it has been really difficult to train at Virgin Active Groenkloof, as they do not use the Air conditioning, they only make use of the fans. There is no fresh air circulating, and it feels like you going to pass out.

Could you kindly look into this. I did enquire about it this morning, and the reply I got "well we have been here sins the morning, and it is cold", to what I replied, "but you are not busy training, lifting weights"

Kind regards

Ella-curtis Haasbroek

I have tried numerous times in the past 3 months via phonecalls, emails and Hello Peter, to get a copy of my account statement, and my son's, to no avail.

I received someone elses contract with her personal details sent to me via email from one of your incompetent staff members, when I pointed that out, they sent me a copy of mine, but still no account statement!

Now I find out that they handed both mine and my sons accounts over to attorneys, and refusing to give us statements. Underhanded tactics?!

Facilities might be good but that is where the service stops, no wonder members are leaving and going to other gyms. Word of mouth and customer service keep customers, VA has neither going for them in SA!

You have lost a family of life long members across two continents now due to this! Really need to get better staff if you do not want to loose more people due to incompetence!

I a gobsmacked that in all these months, whilst trying numerous routes I still do not have account statements, something simple that should take an efficient staff member 5 seconds to download and email!

All I want is a statement for each of the contracts!

Dear Sir / Madam,

I am writing to you to raise an issue about: Gym

The issue that I have experienced was: i was emailing a team leader RONEL VAN LOGGERENBERG, she was not helpful at all and was very rude about this contract, i was owing the gym R2500.00 she asked me to make a R900 payment which i did and thereafter cancelled my access to the gym asking me to settle R3900.00 outstanding i did advise her i had just got a job and was willing to pay atleast half every month to get the amount down and reduce my arrears but she refused is this how you guys treat a client who has been with virgin active for more than 4years?

It occurred on: 30/05/2019

This meant that I could not access the gym and this left me to find another gym to use in the same area which i have done! From what i can see you guys are not very client friendly once a contract is taken up you guys just want payment even if we didnt use the facility more than 1 month your above mentioned team leader is the worst to deal with and mark my words you guys will loose more business because of this rude person! the gym i am at now has more than 50 people that has moved over from virgin active now i see why they complain about virgin active!

i would have liked to pay my account in stages and have access at the same time to train! surely you can understand when you change jobs over it effects accounts but i was willing to stay and pay but Ronal insisted i cannot use the gym until i pay the full amount which i didnt have so she cancelled my contract and sent it to a debt collector but guess what i will never pay the debt until virgin active sorts this problem! should you need supporting emails i will send through without a hassle!

I look forward to your prompt response on this matter. As recommended by Trading Standards, I would like to keep a complete record of my case, so please reply back via this email account.

Yours faithfully,

Deshan pillay

Gym location amanzimtoti
Membership number [protected]

50 arbor road, 129 arbor sands
amanzimtoti south africa
4126

We moved over to Vitality 2 months ago. Currently we cancelled the national option as we rarely travel and it does not justify the excessive monthly fee.
I went to the gym at George and was hoping that I could train (45 minutes treadmill) for a small fee. The daily fee of R250 if you are not national is a total rip-off and I am utterly disgusted.
Why R250?
There is nobody that will spend the entire day at the gym. Why not make is R80 for a visitor with normal Virgin Active Membership.
I then had to find another gym in George which kindly helped me and asked me a fraction of what my own gym does.
I need you to address this issue soon.

I dealt with a sales consultant who said that the first month will be free and I need to activate my vitality in the mean time- once activated I will pay R200 gym fees.

I went in again and activated my vitality- however, I paid full gym fees of R800 plus vitality for two months- When I went to query this the manager said She cannot help me as the sales consultant is not in and I will have to pay an extra R350 to change my contract to vitality and only then can she refund me. She said she needs to do an investigation and she cannot say when the sales consultant will come in so she can't tell me when.

However, the issue is that my account is now in excess as I did not accommodate for this extra amount of R1200

Virgin active does not inform their members if something is wrong. they suck on so many levels their customer service is so pathetic its a joke. The advisers are unhelpful and don't know anything about customer service. They place customers on hod for long periods of time without refreshing the customer. I'm so disappointed i joined .

Rayaan Cape Town

Good day
I first reported an issue with the hyperextension on the 3 June 2019. It was sent for repairs, but was sent back with 2 left cushions, rendering it unusable for me and I would imagine for most men. I have spoken to several managers and evetually spoke to the club manager, who informed me that the company who repairs and maintains the virgin active equipment did not have stock, and were busy trying to source. It is a poor reflection on virgin active part to have members pay every month, only to have 1 of a certain type of machine or wieght. This really hampers ones progress, especially given the fact that virgin active promotes success through setting and achievement of goals. To date (1/07/2019)it has still not being repaired.

I train at the Honeydew Virgin Active

Brett Charles

Good Day Sir/Madam
With all due respect I would like to complain about how your contract is presented to us as members.I recently signed a contract but your workers didn't read the contract to me before I had to sign it, they didn't even tell me options regarding my membership, I didn't even know I can sign up for the gym for only 3 months until I recently went through it myself, now I am in and out and I can barely go to the gym, had I knew there was a membership for 3 months I would have taken that one, now I am paying for a year gym membership of which I can't go to, so I am practically paying for a gym I don't even go to which is unacceptable.

Good morning,

It is with complete disgust that I write to you this morning.

I sent the following email to my club:

To whom it may concern,

My husband and I have been going to Lonehill virgin active for 2 and a half years now, year after year we see valentines day being celebrated, Christmas is celebrated YET the month of June (Pride month) is not celebrated?

I can understand how this is a sensitive subject to some but Virgin active prides itself in promoting equality - I cannot see how this is any different.

Your motto reads " Virgin Active's mission is to bring positive change to people's lives, because life's more fun when you move. "

Let's move together as a very broken society and break barriers between the socially accepted and socially not excepted!

In an all inclusive society we should encourage not only being different but also celebrate those who have been scrutinized just for living their lives as their true selves, some people face these challenges all alone due to unaccepting friends and family and some have taken their lives due to the public's perspective of them...it worries me that we are very picky with what we celebrate publicly and what we do not.

We are approaching the end of June and I would like to see Virgin Active Lonehill set an example and make a change.

The response I received from the manager:

Good morning Charne

Apologies for the late response, things have been very busy. From a National marketing Point of view we don't associate with anything / any cause that presents itself outside of the health & fitness space because it ultimately leads to the exclusion of a particular interest group, where we are a brand we stand for divewrsity and inclusion.

Have a great day further.

In Conclusion:

The above is very contradicting seeing as Easter, Christmas and Valentines day gets promoted in the gym, surely these celebrations have nothing to do with fitness? I am shocked at the response that I received and feel that further action must be taken against the club this is blatant exclusion of LGBT community!