Virgin Active South Africa review: Contract cancellation

It seems like Virgin Active can roll over contracts and then take debit orders with changing amounts to their hearts delight without communicating changes to their clients beforehand or during the contract cancellation call. In November we spoke to a consultant Mandy, to cancel our contracts for myself, my daughter and my son effective immediately. I asked her if we would still be able to go to the gym for the month of December which she confirmed we could but never mentioned that we still needed to pay for December and that the membership amount will change. We were vitality members and our combined mouthy debit order for Virgin Active was R1 030.00 but because we cancelled both the gym and vitality the same day they took off a debit order of R2 225.00 on December 1, 2023, we should not have been billed for the month of December because of the cancellation.

Not once were any changes in fees communicated by the consultant Mandy during the cancellation process via the phone call, a default on her side, or was this communicated via email before the debit order was taken off, default on Virgin Actives side. After reversing the debit order I have asked the call center consultant to send me a bill/statement with the breakdown of each membership for this new amount but till today I have received nothing, except phone calls from their debt collections department, on which I each time have requested a statement and communication done via email, with no results up to date. They expect me to pay for something I did not sign up for nor did I receive any clear communication via phone during the cancellation process or a statement before the debit order was taken off with each membership breakdown with the new debit order amount of R 2 225 for December 1, 2023.

As a Virgin Active and Vitality client I have the right to receive communication when there are changes made by Virgin Active to my debit order amounts before the debit order date, I also have the right to insist on a statement with the motivation of the new R 2 225 debit order amount requested by them for December 1, 2023 after cancellation in November done via phone with Mandy. They were also very clever trying to phone my son asking him if he was happy with his cancellation, unfortunately he does not see the monthly debit order or was the new amounts of his membership communicated to him via email or phone during the cancellation process. I will not advise anyone to take out a contract with this company.

My other son paid his membership in full for the year in advance, he was denied access to the gym and was told that the card he was given belonged to a different client. He phoned, sent emails, went to Menlyn Gym to speak to the manager which was never there, but the consultant promised each time that the manager will get back to him, which they never did till date. He repeated the process four times but eventually gave up. He had two months out of his twelve months membership that he paid for in advance. Virgin Active's customer service is a disgrace and Vitality should not associate with Virgin Active at all because they put their members at risk by doing so.