During 2003 I helped a friend of mine, to get back on track. My mate was in drug rehab and he asked me to pay for a gym membership at Virgin Active. I knew how much a gym membership would mean to him, especially at this very important stage of his rehab.
He phoned me when he was at the gym signing up the contract. I entered the gym salesman’s office where my friend had already been waiting and had filled out the forms. The Virgin Active salesman then filled in my name in the payment details sections of the contract. I did not write in any of the details but merely signed in the spaces provided by him. Unbeknown to me a box with the option “automatic renew” was ticked. I did not recall ticking this box; it is not in my handwriting and certainly did not authorize the salesman to do same. For all I know, the box could have been ticked after I signed the agreement.
My Mate attended Virgin Active for a total of six times. This is verified in his attendance report which has been sent to me by Virgin Active. Notwithstanding this, the monthly debit order was renewed from 2003 until 2006. An amount in excess of R8 000-00 has been debited from my account. It is clear to Virgin Active from their computer systems that they can see which members are not utilising their services. This is an elementary computer function. Notwithstanding, my credit card was debited in circumstances where it was clear that no one was utilizing this gym membership.
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Virgin Active may claim that my signature exonerates them from reimbursing me the many thousands of rands which have been paid for a gym membership which has been used a total of six times. But I do believe that sanity, common sense, fairness and ethics must play a part as well. Virgin Active has not come to any financial loss from the membership staying open; their facilities have not been used. For the periods 2003 to 2006, no prospective members were ever turned away from joining Virgin Active Old Eds as your membership quotas were at no times full.
The decision of Virgin Active to refuse to reimburse me the amount of R8 000-00 for a gym contract which was used a total of six times, is unconscionable and falls beyond the pale of common decency and justice. I accordingly request that Virgin Active’s reconsider their position in this matter.
I would furthermore like to raise the following issues:
1. I found out that my card was being debited at the end of 2005. I immediately phoned up Virgin Active and asked them to stop the debit order immediately. They only stopped the debit order some five months later.
2. Your computer system can easily check to see if a member is utilising the Virgin Active services. Do you think that it would not be ethically astute to notify a member that they are being debited for their gym membership fees and that they have not utilised the services of the gym for the past year. This indeed happened for three years in a row in my case. How can Virgin Active conscionably defend the indiscriminate billing of persons who have never used their services?
