Virgin Active South Africa
Reviews and Complaints

Called in and said that my life circumstances has changed, and that I can no longer afford the monthy subscription.

The agent on the line told me that I could not cancel, but can offer that I pay half, and dont go to the gym.

In the mean time I have now a poor payment profile, because Virgin Active is debiting my account twice every month.

This does not work for me at all!

I want to cancel, and they do not debit my bank account again!

My name: Frederick Frits Japp [protected] id number. Cell number +[protected]

Firstly I am so upset, I am a loyal paying member for over 5 years, do not complain about anything, ..so when I find myself having to deal with my issue at hand, then having to be the one sending email after email without response it makes me think that maybe I should take my money elsewhere and about more than 10 family members I have had signed on aswell.so here goes, I have had a medical condition starting last year, having me not been able to go to gym for months .I've called in and have spoken to one of your consultants .I have told her I want to freeze my account for2 months, 1 for post op and next Ramadan and she said she will forward my the info via email..I am still waiting, I wasn't happy with my response I received from her coz why do I have to choose to either take free month freeze of Ramadan or half price freeze for post op healing..you can go back to the recording where I told her I will only make payment after I have received the info and proper information to my request ..the call was made on 2/05/18 at 15:47..

I am very aggravated about the discriminatory practises at the virgin active K90 Branch.

Incident 1
I have been a member of the K90 boksburg branch for years. I have a 10 year old son so on many occasions like all the other kids he sits and plays at the computers while I train.
I will always keep an eye on him from wherever I am. Until 1 day when he was the only kid at the computers and i was told he couldn't be there unsupervised. Absolutely ridiculous cos the minute a white child was left there it was fine for him the next time to be unsupervised like the other white kids.
I did fill in a complaint and sure if it was escalated though.

Incident 2
Today I went to the gym and unfortunately my son forgot his card so we we denied access by the gym manager who said that it's against the POPI act to use my ID to access my son's info. I said that this was done in the past and he must access my info. He was rude and denied me access despite me saying I have a training session at 8. Anyway i lost my temper swore him and walked out to go and get the card details. I wish to bring to your attention the POPI act is not an excuse to be discriminating. I was asking for MY information to be accessed. The Act came into existence a few years now so that's a pathetic excuse. Yet during the school holidays recently my son accessed the gym with my partner who is obviously more of the race type accepted at the gym. They forgot my son's card and then he called me at work and I gave him my ID details. The gym then accessed my details from a white looking stranger and didnt think that was against POPI.
Is this the practises of Virgin Active?

Good day . My self and my boyfriend signed up at cape gate virgin active in March. We still haven't been to the gym yet. The first month came off my bank but we are relocating to East london and there is a Virgin active but not a Virgin red. We moved to virgin red because it was cheaper. We moved in April and had to pay R200 each just to move to a smaller gym. I can not afford the gym fees. We honestly haven't even used our gym cards. I'm sure you can look on the system. Please help us. I'm trying to save to relocate and can't afford the monthly fees. There is no virgin red in East london and I won't be able to pay for the big virgin active monthly fees. It's far to expensive.

Please could you contact me urgently on [protected] regarding what I can do. I honestly have no money to pay. I shouldn't have registered . I didn't think I would be without a job in such a short time. Now I have to relocate.

Good day sir/mam

I would like to bring to your attention your sunvally virgin active branch an the things that have been going on there.

I have been a member of virgin active gyms on an off for a few years now an have recently decided to leave due to work an other things I have seen in the gym.

I was training in the crossfit section of the gym in sunvally when I witnessed a rather large women trying to train. While training one of your staff an a group of members were shaming her, pointing an laughing at her. This is only one of the few times I have seen this happen. The women picked up her stuff an left the gym in tears

When I tried to find a manager or some one to talk to about the above incident I was shoved off or told there was no manager to speak to.

After this I canceled my contract with the gym, an left. I was told all money I paid in advance would be paid back to me with in 72 hours. After 5 days I called to find out were the money was an they told me I had to wait 14 days. After the 14 days they told me 22 days. I have been waiting since the 16th of April for my money an they still have excuse for not paying it in, or not having any one to help me.

You advertise your self as a professional gym, an I have been to others both abroad an in SA, an have been treated as you advertise. This gym however is not such. An I would love to go back, once the staff has been sorted out. An there is some form of management in place.

Thank you for your time an any help to solve these problems both on my side an the gyms would be greatly appreciated.

Kind regards
Davin Opperman

In December I signed a new 2 year contract. The bag I got broke in the first few days because it was bad quality. I have for monthes been asking for it to be fized or replased. This monthe a girl at Virgen Kleine Kuppe in Windhoek said I should bring it in. I did. The next day I was told the bag is missing. I cam back in the 3de day and my bag eas where she put it. She lied and probably dit not even look at the bag.
+[protected]
Pieter Mostert

I have a complain about my membership contract, it's been over 4 months trying to get it resolved. My old membership was cancelled which I was given a chance to reinstate it with a legacy program, I was offered a grace month to make up for the 6 remaining visits to the gym which my joining fee was gonna be waived and for the month of January and February to pay R80 pm and going forward R100 a month but it never happened. I have been paying an amount of R200 a month which is not what we have agreed on. Consultants and mangers are even arrogant to assist. Today I spoke to Wendy who also was arrogant and don't have the willingness to assist me. I personally take it as false advertising

I joined the Sunninghill branch end of March 2018, i was told there was a promotion as a result I will get April and May free and only pay from June. In addition, I needed to join vitality as the aforementioned deal also qualified me for a discounted rate. Upon signing up I told the consultant that I'm not in JHB all the time- I was told that was not an issue- I would just need to inform her whenever I leave and she will gain access to any other gym (all I need provide are the dates) I did all of the above (payments etc.) and informed her as to when I won't be in JHB most of the reminding and following up was carried out by me. I was then told I had access to another gym, that she spoke to the gym and it was all sorted. Upon arriving at the other gym this was disputeed I was told this is not the norm and that I was ill-informed. I then messaged the Sunninghill consultant who continued to lie to me. She said her manager spoke to them and that she has emails. I then requested that the Sunninghill manager get in touch with me and send me the email (I'm still waiting). I can't understand why someone would lie to you as opposed to providing you with all the details. This is highly unprofessional and now puts my contract into question, what else am I being lied about and why the run around?
Additionally I now lose out on my vitality points for May as I will be out of JHB for a week with the intention to have used a different gym.

There isn't really anyone I can call or address this with- in most instances it me that has to follow up and running around which is not customer service.

24 April 2018
Club Fichardtpark
When I went into the bathrooms to change this morning there was an overwhelming stench of sourness.
When I had finished my session, I went back into the bathrooms but the smell had not changed even though it seemed that the cleaning staff were busy. Something was wrong with the way cleaning was happening.

The cleaning staff could be using disgustingly dirty and old cleaning equipment and not enough chemicals.

This is the first incidence that I have come across for this situation, but I have only been a member for one week.

Last week Bedfordview members were told that the gym would be closed for the weekend to bring in new and upgraded equipment. What they failed dismally to tell us was that they would be removing roughly half of the weight section equipment with the upgrade. Almost every single machine/exercise equipment has been reduced to half the amount that was there previously. I would love to know how the gym with probably the biggest membership in the province is able to go for the minimalistic look, when previously people already struggled during peak hours to find suitable weights and to find available machines, making the gym sessions twice as long as it should be.
Dumbells, an imminent problem at the gym, has now been reduced to an exclusive amount, with sizes that don't exist anymore (such as 5's or 7's).
There is a lack of equipment and it is highly unacceptable. I would suggest that either the old equipment is fixed and brought back or there needs to be an increase in the amount of new equipment and machines at the gym.
There have been numerous complaints amongst groups and written at the actual gym. There should be immediate action taking place in-order to avoid losing loyal members.

Okay... so I was forced into a sale which I didn't want, I was given a 5 day cool down period, which I adhered to but the sales consultant didn't namely Lazola at Table View Virgin active. Lazola Phoned me everyday for a week to get me to sign up eventually he came to my work place in his personal Car to try and get me to sign up, I gave him information and I sent him on his way. 3 Days later I phoned him on his cell and informed him that I was no longer interested in the membership and that he needs to cancel, he then proceeded to ask me to send him a Whatsapp with my email address so he can cancel it, on the 29th of March 2018 I received a SMS from virgin active saying I owe R494.50 on my current membership I then proceeded to phoning him again on his cell to see if he did cancel it and he confirmed he did and that he can resend the confirmation of cancellation, I am still waiting for the email that's says I have cancelled the membership, clearly he hasn't cancelled it after today's phone call I had along with my many many other phone calls to virgin active Head office to try and get this sorted out and off my name as I don't want to ever be part of Virgin Active ever again after R700 was stolen out of my bank account for a freezing fee... WOW I am shocked how unhelpful Virgin active staff members are when something like this is happening to their customers, I made a promise to the Lady from the Head office and the Sales manager at Table View that assisted me on Monday the 16th of April 2018 that weather this was sorted out or not I was going to complain and here we go guys here is my complaint.

You guys are trying to get me to pay for something I never gave authorization for. Now when I phone the branch to speak to the sales consultant that so called signed me up is avoiding my calls at work on his cell and over Whastapp. I am very unhappy and no one seems to be comprehend how angry this little man can get. If someone from Virgin active doesn't phone me and sort this out the same day I am going to complain again and I will continue to complain until this gets sorted out. Plain and simple I refuse to pay for anything, I live alone, I can't afford for Virgin Active trying to make a quick buk out me again. I have phone call records from my cell phone and they most defiantly have the recordings of me screaming and shouting and swearing because no one is helping me. People can't remember any names at all because they speak so unclear when giving names, have promised me they will call me back this is now 3 weeks later... and still I am waiting for the first person to call me back I think the problem is the head office is emailing the branch manager or the sales manager he is deleting the emails and he is going with his life because today I spoke to Kaylyn and she told me every entry from Head office has emailed the sales manager and he just doesn't get back to anyone, then they just forget. Let me make this perfectly clear I am not paying anything to anyone for anything and virgin active can try their luck they ain't getting a penny out of me I expect the sales consultant to pay for his mistake of not cancelling when I asked him too.

I joined virgin active last year Aug. What a disappointment. Some equipment was always out of order, no water ect. Then comes the problem. Virgin active never got my banking details correct. My daughter can't gym as they never took my banking details down correct, on several occasions did I call them to correct it. make provision for arrears amount due to you not being able to take down my correct banking details. Last month I got a call for collections on the arrears amount. I ask the lady will this be the only amount"yes" now a month later I am being harassed by more incompetent people who can't even speak properly you constantly have to say excuse me? I had to get alternative gym contract as virgin active is too incompetent to make the necessary changes on their systems and I constant had to be humiliated.

It is with great regret that I write this today. I have been a member of Virgin Active, Cornubia for the last few months and had no issue until this past Saturday (14/04/2018). I completed my normal workout and proceeded to the ladies change room ... I then went into the steam room for about 2 minutes ... as I exited ... I blacked out ... I clearly recall waking up and crawling back to the steam room to get somebody's attention ... a member that was in the steam room ran to my aid and then proceeded to press the panic button ... by then other members were around. Again, another member pressed the panic button and again no response ... the member ran again to press the panic and STILL NO RESPONSE! By the third time and 10 minutes into this ordeal ... the member had ran out the ladies change room.to get the attention of a staff member ... she located a manager to which he had to go get a medic. By now I was stabilized by a member at the gym that thankfully was a trauma nurse! What if she was not there ? I reported the incident to the manager Joshua, with a written statement from a witness! I till now have not received any remorse from Virgin Active, not even a phone call, till now (17/04/2018). The manager advised that their systems were not configured correctly ! Do they not test their alarms ? What if it was a more serious injury ? A life could.be lost due to the LACK OF RESPONSE! I am absolutely appalled by this. Why.have a trained medic at your facility if she does nothing! There is a two minutes RESPONSE time in these situations. Will you wait for a life to be lost to "Configure your system".

Regards
Tenal Chetty

To Whom It May Concern,

It is with a great deal of disappointment that I write this to you.

I have been a Virgin Active member for years and have remained loyal. I am not used to being treated with aggression and disrespect by your staff members, as I was treated this morning.

I went to the Gateway branch at around 10:15 for my session. There was a woman, Xoli, behind the counter accepting cards. She politely greeted the woman in front of me, and outright ignored me when I went through.
Now, I am not an arrogant person and am not one to complain over not being greeted once. I understand slip ups do happen and people have off days. However, this is not the first time this has happened with the same woman. Multiple times I have gone to gym with friends, and she has greeted my friend and not me. I let it go each and every time, but today was the last straw when I watched her yet again greet someone else and not me. I don't see why I should have to allow someone to consistently behave like this towards me for no valid reason.

So, I decided to call her out on this. All I said to her was "how rude. You greet someone else and not the person behind them. Rude." And I walked away. I didn't expect anything else to come of it, except hopefully that she would get the picture about how unfair her behaviour is and how it is not fitting with good customer service.

When I was half way through my gym session, Xoli chose to come upstairs to interrupt me and ask me to meet her in the office when I was done. I told her I was on a time limit as I had somewhere else to be. She said to me "Don't worry, I won't be long." I agreed, thinking she wanted to resolve the issue in a professional manner. If I had known her true intentions, I would not have wasted my own precious time.

To my shock, instead of wanting to apologize and sort the issue out, she had actually called me into the office to scold me for "shouting" at her, and tell me she did not appreciate it. It was a total slap in the face. How dare she firstly interrupt my workout session, and then waste my time to yell at me for calling her out on her rude and unprofessional behaviour?
Her customer service skill is 0 and she is a totally rude and unsociable person. How can Virgin Active has someone like this behind the counter? Even my partner was shocked at this situation and the audacity of what she did.

I am so angry right now I am shaking.

To top it all off, I called later to acquire the number for customer service, and I was told by the woman who answered that she was informed by someone else (obviously Xoli) that she was not allowed to give me the contact number. Since when are your staff not allowed to provide customers with contact details?

I am furious. I am seriously considering moving to another gym as I do not see how a staff member can get away with treating a customer like this.
I am in a customer service industry and one of the things we have to abide by is TCF.

I have never in my life been treated this way by anybody in any service department or at your club. The ladies are always professional and will always greet with a smile.

Regards,
Khanyi

Good Afternoon
Please can you assist as I have emailed the Century City Branch manager on a few occasions and he never replies.
1. Many lockers in the ladies are broken
2. There is only 1 treadmill which you can plug your ear set into to hear what is being said on the TV. There are 5 TV's all on different channels yet you have to wait for 1 treadmill to listen to the channel you want. Why have all the tv's?
3. Rowing machines there are about 5 or 6 and 9 times out of 10, 2 of them will be broken.

This is not acceptable, please can something be done about it.
Many Thanks
Samantha

I visited Virgin Active at the Beach Front in East London in the month of January 2018, to my surprise my account had been handed over. I was then informed that I would be contacted to listen to a voice recording, which never happened. I again went to the branch on 12/03/2018, and a recording was provided. I was then advised to write a statement in dispute to my virgin active handed over account, which will be handed to admin and I will then be contacted.

From the recording I noted the following;

i) After telling Lwando (retention consultant) that I will pass on his offer, he persisted to freeze my membership. Which was a great sales strategy from his side.

ii) Lwando advised to freeze my account for 4 months, day of contact 17/11/2016 - 17/03/2017. This would happen with no cost on my part, yet my salary account was debited from Jan 2017.

iii) I was advised to call in Jan 2017, informing virgin active whether I am accepting the offer or not.

Once I realised that my salary account was being debited by virgin active, I contacted the call centre. This occurred on 17/03/2017. Please do take note that this date is within the 4 months of "freeze". I was perplexed, and fuming with anger when a call centre consultant informed me that I am on a 2 year contract, yet I was telling her that I had cancelled this membership. Still my VA Membership was not cancelled.

I am starting to question the values and culture to which this group stand by, as it is proving to care more about money that the people whom they service. I am the one who called to cancel, which I stated the reasons. Virgin Active wanted to retain my membership. I never called in Jan 2017, and yet the group decided on a 2 year contract without my consent. VA could not get hold of me, yet on previous contact no consultant bothered to confirm my email address and work telephone number.

I am truly disappointed on the business ethics of this Group. Please advise, to whose benefit was the 2 year contract for, as I never stepped into a Virgin Active gym since September 2016.

I have visited the branch 3 times since I submitted the statement, and no one bothered to contact me. Today I called the branch and was advised that they will check with admin, meaning no one bothered to track the status of my case.

I joined virgin active sunning hill club in Feb 2018, I advised the sales consultant that I would rather join the club in march due to financial commitments, she said no lets sign you up now and for the next 2 months (March and April )you only pay R99 and the club will take care of the rest, as Feb is free due to some promotion, at the end of March I get debited R650, i was being sent back and forth between, the club and head office, and after leaving 2 messages for the manager, went to club and spoke to the manager, She advised she will call me back and nothing yet, when I asked her to cancelled my contract as a customer i was incorrectly informed, she advised me I must pay a cancellation fee for their mistake of pushing a sale onto me.

I do not wish to be associated with a company that has given me contracts on two or more occassions and I get told that I cannot renew my contract because I owe money from 17 years ago. Really!

Why was I not informed on the occassions that I took out a contract - something is amiss in this big institution of yur and you need to inform all your patrons that if they have outstanding moneys from, lets say 17 years ago, it will affect them when considering taking out a contract - in this 17 years not once did anyone bother to call - so if you guys or your partners that deal with outstanding moneys so long ago have not heard of prescribed debt - then something is seriously wrong

How can I be penalised for something that has happened so long ago - virgin active took over the health and racquet group in october 2000 and 2001 I dont even think the gym was opened in george as yet —

Virgin Active Complaint

I recently (more specifically 3 April 2018) visited your new VA branch in Loftus Park, as I attend school and my mother works just down the road from my school so we were very excited at the prospect of a gym so near by. Unfortunately this experience has given both of us a very bad impression.

I arrived with my aunt in the morning, and I was assisted, in a rather unpleasant and rude manner, by an employee by the name of Anna. I told her I wanted information on the package prices, classes etc. She then asked me how old I was, and when I told her I was 16, asked if the woman with me was my mother. Once I told her she's my aunt, she told me I could come not inside because she wasn't my mother, and told us that she would provide us with a consultant to answer all our questions. Therefore, we waited.
We waited for approximately 3-4 minutes and another couple came that she helped very attentively. While she helped the couple, there were two men waiting behind her, looking at us, and speaking with each other, after that one of them simply waved at us. Anna seemed to acknowledge their presence by looking back at them occasionally and saying nothing. It took over 15-20 minutes until one of the men came to us, we then assumed that he was our assigned consultant, as he did not even introduce himself. We were quite confused because he had been staring at us for quite awhile without doing anything and had not introduced himself in any manner.

He was told by Anna that we couldn't come in, so I told him I wanted information on the packages and he proceeded to tell us about the student packages, but nothing that was applicable to my mother or I. Afterwards he seemed to not be able to answer my other questions (Those being if there was a family package available, If classes cost extra etc) and cut me off before I could ask others. My aunt proceeded to ask for a pamphlet, and he gave us one, writing down his name, which is Koos, his number, and prices. The rest of the pamphlet had no useful information (Picture in attachments).

All in all I'm exceptionally disappointed at the quality of service, especially after hearing about such positive reviews from frequenters at other branches and I'm reviewing my decision to do business with this establishment. I'm also quite appalled at the fact that I spent nearly 30 minutes at the gym, and got less Information than I could've gotten from your website. I hope that decisive action will be taken, and request feedback on the matter ASAP.

O.N.

Yesterday the 02/04/2018, I went to Cycling Class with my 11 Year old Son. we cycled for +_ 30 minutes, then came the guy by the Name of Thomas Amukelani. He first stop my son bike, who was cycling next to. He then turn his eyes on me by asking, 'is this your son, I said yes, then he asked, 'how old is he, I answered ii years, then he said, he is not allowed to be here. I then stop my bike and tell my son to leave the class.
My concerns are the following:
1. His approach to me was no different to militant Police Man approach.
2. Some of the issues he spoke to me deserve a different approach than the one he apply.
3. It would have been much better he could have call me outside the class, and then explain to me his concern or rules, not in front of everyone in the class, my son was terrified by his approached as yesterday was not the first time that my son has attended the cycling class, since he was 9, 10 and now 11 years, he attended several classes at sunward park, and few in germiston without any disturbance.

In Sunward park, I have told that as long a child is being supervisor by his parents, he may be allowed in cycling but not Treadmill and Weight.

Would you please clarify me and other parents who might have a similar situation.

As parents we take our children to the gym with us for different reasons, surely I don't understand if clubs have different approach to same situation.

I am committed to cooperate with your staff, But please manner of approach is the key to good cooperation.

Regards
Hlengani Manganyi ([protected])