Virgin Active South Africa
Reviews and Complaints

Good day,

I cancelled my gym membership as I no longer could afford it and I did not have time to use it. Virgin Active Cape Town phoned me today 23/10/2018 me and tried to convince me to continue with my membership. After I explained the above to the man his tone turned rude and he just drop the call. His telephone etiquette at the end of the call was horrible. My husband and one of my colleagues experience exactly the same. I had really wonderful service from Virgin Active up to this point and thought I would just like to inform you of the matter.

Kind regards,
Christina

I am currently overseas and can't phone the customer services at Virgin Active South Africa.

I need to get in contact with collections department and need to get hold of them via email.

I need the email address of the collection department or if the collection department can reach me on higgs.[protected]@gmail.con

Please advise or get in contact with me via email.

I am currently in Vietnam and can't talk over the phone

I'm Harriet Box, ID no [protected], and I've been paying a regular gym fee of R781 on a national membership contract.

Complaint 1: On 2 October a fee of R828 was deducted. I don't recall being notified that there will be an increase in gym fees. Can you perhaps provide feedback on the matter?

Complaint 2: I signed myself and my daughter, Haley-Anne Box up (start of 2018) - to join the Virgin Active gym in Tyger Valley, Bellville for the express purpose of joining their Zumba classes. A few months ago the classes were suspended without any notice or explanation to club members, despite numerous complaints from clients to staff at the Bellville branch. Classes are now discontinued permanently with no alternative Zumba class in place. The needs of the customer are not met, yet we have to keep paying for classes we literally didn't sign up for.
I would like Virgin Active Tyger Valley to offer a quality Zumba class again or give my daughter, who doesn't have a national contract) access to the Virgin Active branches in Cape Gate and Century which are currently offering Zumba classes.

Your guys are promising us bags to joing gym after that they keep postponing which means they are running a scam in thus case I dnt want to be a member any more and if there is anyone who has to pay the cancellation fee it's him southgate branch by the name of Thabang to make matters worse I even have him referrals who also want to cancel if this is not being sorted out I will have to move to social media and my lawyer let ppl know that virgin active us running a scam

I am unhappy with the service provided by Virgin Active Amanzimtoti regarding the Cold water in our pool.Management has failed to resolve this matter even though it was presented to them on numerus occasion.This matter has been going on for weeks on end and nothing has been done .Going to the Gym has become a burben because i feel as if i am not getting my moneys worth .

Hello there

So i would like to complain about the Watt Bikes, i know for a fact that im not the only Person who has complained about this issue either.

I have a National membership and I Train and Bryanston, Waterfall, Sunning Hill and Dainfern. I train 6 days a week a 4 days are on the Watt Bike. I also pay a coach to give me a program on the Bike and i do it on the Watt Bikes. However every single bike that i train on i get different readings, which tell me the bikes aren't being serviced (IE calibrated every 3 months). so the readings that go back to my coach are being Sku'd cause they not correct. (im either getting to my numbers very easily or i cant even get to them) THIS is UNACCEPTABLE

This is a huge issue for me cause I pay a monthly gym membership and the equipment isn't even being serviced correctly, this is unacceptable. So with the readings not being accurate I'm now either over training or undertraining. Why is this not happening on a regular basis ? I'm aware that there is a large cost to calibrate each bike but at the end of the day people pay for a service and want the equipment to work properly.

Re calibrating a bike is pretty much taking it apart and servicing it properly, inside and cleaning it out and checking the belt and resizing.

I would like someone to contact me urgently to resolve this. (cause currently im paying a gym membership and a coach and not getting the full benefit of either)

I have been a virgin active Lenasia member for approximately 2 months now, overall I have been satisfied with the facility, until the evening of Tuesday the 16th October 2018, when I received a terrible customer service from the lady by the name of Fifi, she was rude and not interested not forgetting the facial expression I mean who pulls her face while talking to the customer. Even after I addressed my issues with her she did not have a decency to apologies "BAD ATTITUDE". I got to the gym with my 10 years old son who does not have a gym membership yet I was advised to open a membership when I asked her to proceed with the membership she asked for a birth certificate which I don't normally carry around. I had to leave my son sitting at the reception couch as I needed to attend a class, I trust and believe that this matter was suppose to be handled in another manner rather than leaving my son sitting at the reception alone. No professionalism at all, I mean Virgin Active is a big brand to have incompetent people like Fifi at reception.

I joined the gym in order to swim to strengthen my back and neck but after joining I tried the pool and it was extremely cold and the water level very low. The cold water made my muscles cramp up and I wasn't able to swim at all. So I decided to try a personal trainer to help me and was recommended one by a staff member. I was told he is very good and gets straight into things, so I paid for 3 sessions. How disappointed I was when I was met by a very unprofessional guy who wasted the whole first 'session'. The second session I was at the gym a few minutes early and I approached him 3 minutes before the start of our session and he was very rude telling me that he still had 3 minutes and that I can wait, turning back to his phone and ignoring me further. I then asked him if I must rather leave because he really didn't seem very interested at all in doing the session upon which he said no but at that point i didn't feel very welcome or motivated to do the session. We started the second session but unfortunately he didn't understand that I have a very bad wrist and back and the exercises he gave me buggered my back and wrist up even more, to the point that i was unable to walk or use my hand. I cannot handle any pressure on my wrist and he gave me weights and floor exercises that had me putting my whole weight on my wrist. Although he was nice during the session, he was quite uninformed about how to help correctly and quite frankly very unprofessional with the things he was telling me. I cancelled all sessions with him and lost the extra money I paid him rather than not being able to walk properly again. I was messaged by another staff member, asking me why I cancelled and I told them and they just didn't bother answering. The level of professionalism at this gym is quite questionable and it makes using the gym a very unpleasant experience to say the least.

Good Day, please see below email that was sent to Manager on 12th of September and still I have not received any feedback . No one was able to help me with when and who donated the shoes to charity or which charity it is donated to . Everyone was just looking at each other and no answers were given to me .

My name is Elizabeth Southey I'm a loyal customer at Virgin Active Paarl. First of all i want to congratulate you guys for having such great facilities and always keeping everything nice, neat, tidy and forming a healthy environment for your customers to train at. I have recommended lots of people to you're gym and have always only had good things to say about virgin active Paarl until recently... I work in Stellenbosch but live in paarl and only have a few minutes a day that i can relax and work out all my daily frustrations at the gym, but the last few days i was very ill and could not make it to the gym... On Monday I wanted to start excersizing again, but when i came to the gym is saw the locker where i put my workout shoe's was open! I work for a very basic salary and have hardly enough money to provide food every week, and to see the locker where i safely stored two of my brand new gym shoe's I was at tears! I asked for the Virgin Active personnel for assistance and no one was willing to help, there was 5 staff members standing around doing nothing and not one af them was willing to help me find the shoe's... They told me the virgin active personel cut the lock self and took the contents to the lost and found but now they can't find it anywhere. I spend over R3000.00 on those shoe's that I especially bought because I joined your gym and now its gone, and I'm not even mentioning the shampoos ect. that is also gone... This is unacceptable, I spend a lot (that I actually cant afford) to support you, I make sure you don't have any problems with me as a customer and my payments, and i have recommended you to lots of people and convinced people to join your gym, and this is how i get rewarded... This is unacceptable and unprofessional for me and I'm really looking forward to hear how you are going to composite me for my loss and discomfort.

Please can someone competent enough kindly contact me as I am highly frustrated with calls from your head office on a daily basis. I have to repeat myself all the time to different agents. Promises were made and unlikely kept up to. I just want to cancel me and my husband's contract like right now as I cannot deal with the professionalism.
I was debited twice this week on Mon and wed and got a call now about an outstanding payment. It seems that there is no communication with the team itself . I am highly disgusted. Please contact me asap.

We signed up on the 19 August 2018 at Virgen Active Belairs.on the day we signed up we were promised bags for my hubby and myself.They informed us that they didnt have stock at this point but they will arrive in 2 weeks time since then week in and week out the consultant keeps on telling us next week...next week...yesterday we spoke to the manager regarding the bags as this was going on since August.he informed us that the consultant was not really allowed to give us bags...YOU CANT PROMISE A CUSTOMER SOMETHING AND NOT COME THROUGH WITH IT.All they wanted was the sales of us signings up amd dont care about after sales SERVICE.PATHETIC

My account was just debited with R680 without any communication. My husband took me off keycare and I was not aware of the premium going up, this was not communicated with me in any way or form. How is virgin active just allowed to debit a person's account with whatever they like. I am stopping this now. from the word go I have had endless problems with virgin active.
Michelle Harypursat
[protected]

Someone call me from Aliceline try to confuse me teling me liars that if im upgrating my card im going to get free personal trainer and i must go and collect my new card at Menly main when i went there then i explain the whole story about my new card n i must get free personal trainer they said no ways so i tel them they must down grade my card back to hazel dean they agree with and they said i must sign the form and i also tel them i want to active my vitality, on the 29 September i went to hazel dean and i tel one of the lady check my status about my card they said to me mainyln main upgraded my card and i must wait for 3 months to down grade and she said im going to do that December because my first debit order of R1250 staterd now September but the lady when she is busy checking my profile i notice that last month they also took my R1250 this is unfair treetment to me i cant tolarate this please assisist me . My name Zampie Sarah Masimula id no [protected] cantact no [protected] email [protected]@yahoo.com

I signed up on 27 September 2018, and was advised that there wegre no bags available.

On 28 September 2018 upon attending at the gym (Pavilion) for my first session, I had made some enquiries and was told that bags had come in however I did not qualify for a bag as I had signed up the day before.

Personally I believe this is an unfair policy being applied.

I should not be prejudiced from receiving a bag based on when I signed up.

I am absolutely disappointed with the gym and I've only been a member for a day.

On the 12th of July 2017, my daughter sent her student card via email to one of the agents to request a status change from a normal full access membership at Wembley Square to a full access student membership.

they replied saying they need a date on student card .she then submitted her student statement with registration and and student card number from UCT .

The one agent replied saying she will get back to her and forward it to some club manager to see if its acceptable.

Since then they haven't changed the status, he didn't get back to confirm status change and if documents were sufficient and as her parent of a student they have been billing me the amount of R933 monthly instead of R701 for a full access student membership .

Emails as proof on your request cause you only have upload functionality for photos and videos!

Staff members involved : Paul.[protected]@virginactive.co.za and Jady.[protected]@virginactive.co.za

Does this mean I get credited for R933 - R701 =R232 July 2017 - to date ?
cause we have supplied what they asked for and still no status change or any follow up emails or communication /correspondence ?

I cancelled my virgin active contract end of August and rejoined the 4th of September with the normal red facilities . When u asked them to do the contract with vitality they said that an error was coming up stating I have an active virgin vitality and they don't know why they cannot link it they don't know what's wrong maybe because it is still in the grace period it will just link up I must try link it another day

So a week goes by and I want to move my contract to the normal virgin active (bigger facilities and again the error pops up when we try add my vitality, again I have an existing virgin premium. Sales person says I must come back the next day all I need to do is call vitality and make sure my virgin vitality premium is still active then I can come back and not pay the 799 . Next day I did exactly that And go back to virgin and yet again more errors no one can help. We contact vitality and they advise me that virgin needs to downgrade me move the vitality to my red contract then move me to the bigger facilities .
Virgin active said no I need to cancel my current active vitality reward and then reactivate a new reward paying the 799 then only I can move to the bigger facilities .

I have returned to the virgin 4 times and I'm still stuck with the same problem . They have now logged an admin call to cancel my virgin vitality just to open a new one and make me pay and activation fee (when I already have an activ vitality premium )
Why can I not keep my active virgin vitality premium and move it ?

Please can someone help make this process end . This is redeculious Because I tried having the vitality added when I was still in the grace period and virgin red didn't know what to do .

For the past three months, throughout winter, we have had an impossible situation at the pool, with the water extremely low, too low to do our class in safety, and at very cold temperatures. Despite many complaint cards filled in by myself and numerous other aqua ladies, we have seen no improvement except warmer water for a day or so now and then. I understand about our water restrictions here, BUT the large rainwater tanks were not timeously connected up, so missed a huge downpour. Since then I believe they were connected, and hopefully collected the second downpour. The water level has not gone up, so I am not sure that this water has been put into the pool. It is very difficult to obtain reliable info in this regard.

Today, 25th September, I went to the gym to speak to the Manager, Michelle. I had spoken to her by phone about two weeks ago. Apparently she only comes on duty at 12.00 noon, so not available. A huge problem is the aqua instructor for a Tuesday. I joined this aqua class in the year 2000, and have had some very good, some very bad instructors, but this lady is clearly unable to run a class. We generally had 20 to 30 people in the class over the years, but the Tuesday class now has 4 people participating, with two others walking up and down another lane to get some exercise which they do not get in the class. A manager, Ruan, who says the pool is his area of responsibility, says this instructor is "excellent", despite all the complaints up til now. I pointed out that there were just four people left in the class, nobody wants to waste their time attending this class, but his response was that she is excellent. I can't decide whether it was a problem of monumental ignorance on his part, or just a deliberate brush off. I can't deal with this kind of attitude.

Please, please help us. The lady in question is really pleasant, but she has no idea how to give us some energetic exercises, especially in such cold water, and she can't address the whole class at once, only one or two at a time. After 18 years of loving my aqua class, I am desperate, and so are many others. We are not getting what we are paying for.

Please enquire whether the collected water has been put into the pool. If so, the temperature of the water will at least be passable. Please try to get the management to listen to us about the instructor, and to see that nobody wants to be in the Tuesday class under these circumstances.

Waiting in hope. Thank you.

Dear Virgin Active team,

It is unfortunate that the current renovations to the bathrooms at century city have left many of your members unhappy - particularly those that train in the morning. While allowing members to use other gym branches may be somewhat of a relief, for those living in and around century city it is not necessarily practical.

Why I am writing this note is less about the current renovations but to ask you as an HQ team to visit your Century City branch as if you were a patron, so that you could experience the challenges with the equipment, more specifically the cardio & machine weights (Circuit area upstairs). This morning I had to change treadmills 3 times as on all 3 there are plates/pieces of the covers that are either loose, broken or both. Eventually on the 4th I accepted that I would have to make a trade off and settle for a working machine that has a fuzzy screen. Some of your cardio bikes /spinning bikes have rusty pedals, thus the tradeoff you make here is to enjoy the ride, but wear old shoes… Lastly some machines (Circuit area) have faulty cables as well making it unnecessarily cumbersome to use. This is not the first, second nor third time I have had this challenge (And judging by the discussion in the office coffee corners, there are others like me who are experiencing this, some of whom have already opted to cancel their membership with VA and move to other options).

There are many good things about the gym as well, most notably the friendly and professional staff. I just feel that it is important for you to be aware of this and consider visiting the branch to butts for yourself. I am sure you will agree that in the current financial climate, investing in monthly gym fees are not cheap & some may consider it as a luxury/non-essential expense - as a member you pay this fee with an expectation that the facility delivers the service and tools equivalent to the brand promise.

I trust you will look into the above.

Thanks
David Kadalie

Good day

It has come to my attention that one of your staff members (Smangele Chilion currently working at VA Khayalami) has been using v enquiry to locate me and contact me, I learned last year she has been having an affair with my husband, my issue is she calls me threatening me and really disturbing my peace, she gets my number and address from v enquiry as I previously had an account with virgin active, my husband used to work for the same company(Frans Teffo), I had to change my numbers relocate because of this, it has cost me a lot financially, emotionally and physically, I am currently consulting my lawyers regarding taking this matter feature as my understanding is our contact details and or contract we sign with virgin active is private and not to be used by any staff members for their personal gain and the law states I can sue for breach of confidentiality hence I am consulting my lawyers. I currently live in fear as I have received threats before from her stating she knows where I live and will send people to come sort us out. My husband had said he will open a case against her but fears it will ruin his career. There are a lot of scandals regarding front of house staff members who use the company as a tool to attract married men and women, please look into it as I am sure if I state it on social media a lot of people will come out men and women and this will put a negative image on the company. Please update me on your policy regarding breach of confidentiality and the indemnity she signed with this regard, I'll appreciate feedback and I am available for a meeting regarding this issue should you require more information. I look forward to hearing from you and possibly resolving this issue without having to go to court as it has serious financial implications on my side and I have a four year old daughter whom she knows from the gym, it has taken me too long to do this I was hoping it would stop but unfortunately it hasn't and I need to live freely as it is my birth right, I can't join the gym as her friends contact her, my twin has experienced bad customer service at wonderboom because of this but fortunately the husband intervened with the club manager and she got an apology.

Contact details
Zoe/Zodwa Teffo
Cell: [protected]
Email: [protected]@gmail.com

Regards

Zoe Teffo

Good day. We registered with VA table view on 24 August 2018 contract no [protected]. We are 3 people Trevor, Carin and Kiara Grace. Marvin said we can register Kiara who stays in MP Middelburg also at Table view. Which did not work like that in Middelburg. We paid 3 x R799.00 and then Kiara had to pay R80.00 in Middelburg for her card? Now they deduct R200.00 extra from Trevor which Taz and Marvin said would be paid back more than a week ago. It did not happen up to date. Is it possible to find out why the R200.00 is not yet paid back because every time we ask they will say "next week" . It was not a smooth registering proses with lots of battles just to get Kiara to Gym at VA Middelburg MP without paying additional fees. Marvin also said that after 36 times each card swipes the monthly fee for all 3 of us will be paid back. Is that true?
Your prompt responds will be appreciated.
Regards
Trevor Grace