Discovery Health Vitality and Planet Fitness Rivonia SUCK

by Nic Haralambous on 16/01/2009

I have just had my Discovery Health and Planet Fitness gym contract revoked. Why? Because according to them I did not attend gym the required number of times in 2008. That number currently sits at 24 times per year or twice a month. Not impossible by any means.

Because I am on Discovery and make use of their Vitality benefit (which I pay a monthly fee for) I qualify for a great deal at the gym. For about R800 I can sign up to either Virgin Active or Planet Fitness forever. Yes, R800 is a once off fee with no monthly cost if you stick to one gym. Forever. The condition is that you attend gym the required 24 timer per year.

Planet Fitness in Rivonia has a bit of a problem on their hands and have had this as a recurring problem for the whole of 2008. They do not have a sign-in system that consistently works. Which means that for much of 2008 members at Planet Fitness in Rivonia had to sign in manually. This relies on a Planet Fitness employee to enter the CORRECT membership number in to their system and to provide you with a slip (which you now need to carry around with you for the extent of your training session). It is your responsibility to make sure that the employee signs you in correctly, provides you with a slip, doesn’t lie to you that they’ve done it, remember to do or insist that they have done it.

Forgive me for being lazy but this, in fact, is not my job. I pay Discovery every month so that all I have to do is attend gym. And I am not the only one. I know of at least 5 other members of Planet Fitness Rivonia who have all received letters of notification that they have not attended gym enough and their contracts have been suspended.

Last year I attended well over 24 sessions at Planet Fitness Rivonia. But there is no way for me to prove every single one of the times I was there. I can, however, prove one instance. To gain points on Vitality and up your status you can do various tasks set out by Discovery Health. One is a fitness assessment. I did my Fitness assessment at Planet Fitness in Rivonia, which means that I was actually in the gym on the 21st of October but that date does not register on my Planet Fitness Workout dates (I Worked out after my assessment).

Here’s the proof from my Discovery Vitality profile online:

planet-fitness-sucks

This basically means that in spite of signing in to gym, on their computer system, according to their database I wasn’t present to attend gym, but attended gym that day to do a fitness assessment. Therefore I was one short in spite of not being one short and lost my gym contract.

In a nutshell, thanks to Planet Fitness Rivonia I have lost my gym contract. Oh the irony. I am blogging about this because I have been waiting for 4 days for Discovery to call me back with a response.

nharalambous@gmail.com

There are 18 comments in this article:

  1. 19/01/2009Joy-Mari says:

    Has it been 4 business days, or 4 ‘regular’ days?

    Did you speak to a call centre dude or dudette? Those people can’t do much, djy wiet mos. Speak to someone with some clout instead.

    And let us know what happens. This is really ridiculous.

  2. 20/01/2009Nic says:

    Its now been closer to 7 working days, have spoken to two different call-centre people at Discovery and a manager at Rivonia Planet Fitness. all giving me a different story. The saga continues!

  3. 20/01/2009Joy-Mari says:

    Speak to a regional manager, Nic.

  4. 21/01/2009Dianne Shelton says:

    This just goes to show that whether you have good information systems in place or not, nothing replaces being centred on the customer in real life. Especially in a case where the company itself has slipped up!

    Can I suggest that you use getclosure! to submit your complaint? Many of our users have gone the company service centre route without success, so they turn to us to deliver their complaint to the most appropriate person.

  5. 21/01/2009Joy-Mari says:

    I could just be cynical, Dianne, but I think consumers should learn to deal with companies themselves. It isn’t that difficult; I’ve done so many times. And I get results.

    The company doesn’t pay between R250 and R12 000 a year to know that I’m unhappy and I get better service.

  6. 22/01/2009Dianne Shelton says:

    Good on you, Joy, for being a conscious consumer. This is something we are trying to promote in SA by getting companies to handle their complaints better.

    The reality is that not everyone is as successful when dealing directly with companies. Many of our users have used the direct approach, but end up choosing to use getclosure! in order to save time and money. getclosure! is also a free service – we never force companies to pay to respond to complaints.

  7. 26/01/2009STEROID JUNKIE says:

    AGREED AGREED AGREED

    As a prominent businessman in the sandton area – i am appalled at planet fitness rivonia. Needless to say, yes it was used for convienience. VIRGIN ACTIVE IS THE same moer distance from my home.
    i only find the time to drag my sorry ass self – out of bed – for a workout at around 4:30am. And i go 4x a week.
    “this is animal – can u handle it”

    Dont they have the nerve to contact me an say.
    DEAR SIR.
    blah blah blah bullshit and more bullshit
    (i need to attend the gym more or my contract will ‘terminated’) or some shit!!!
    i contact discovery/vitality to look into it…….
    they do – mind you i got a response!!!!
    they say according to records ive been there 10times for 2008

    Afterall – THE TURNSTILES ARE NEVER F3CKEN WORKING AT 4AM… and they to darn lazy to write out the slip!!!!!!!!!

    so to cut this long story short…….
    my membership at planet fitness is no more. NOT BY MY CHOICE OFCOS……..
    and i got a serious dose of GH, test400 and deca300 tapping on my keyboard right now…..

    …i only worked out 10times for 2008

    ….DID I GET TO WEIGHING 100KGS+ PULLING WIRE!?!?!?!?!??!

    im gonna moer a new membership out of someone there!!!!!

  8. 28/02/2009jg3d says:

    I feel your pain brother. I am also with Discovery health and on the Vitality option and I’ve had enough of them. Something that really upsets me is that they give you 150 vitality points per visit, but they limit you to a max. of 15000 points(100 visits a year). SO even if you go to the gym 200 times per year, you can’t get all your vitality points, meaning that it’s harder to get to the next vitality level – silver, gold etc. Of course Disco Health wants you to be healthy and exercise, but not too much, because then they might actually have to give you bigger discounts via their Vitality “benefits” system. I hate Discovery health, Discovery Vitality and Discovery Life.

  9. 2/03/2009Hendrik says:

    Of course they are not going to give you more points than 15000. They feel that visiting the gym more than twice per week will not be beneficial enough to grant you more points. Its more important to do a fitness assessment or have your cholesterol checked. And stop moaning about you points that havent been added and know you lost your membership. Its not like it happened overnight. Is is that difficult to check your points on a monthly basis? You could have told that months in advance that your points are not showing correctly. It no use crying about it and pretending its all their fault.

  10. 2/03/2009Nic says:

    Hendrik – did you read my post at all? It is their fault, their technology was broken for extending periods of time which lead to me not being signed in or accounted for. If they are going to be so strict on their PAYING CLIENTS maybe they should be that strict on themselves and their employees who are meant to be making things smoother for their paying clients…

  11. 23/04/2009Fatima says:

    I have the same problem, the first time i did nothing about it but this time i complaint but my problem is with Virgin Active Meyersdal that have incompetent staff that give you the wrong information went in a few times asked them to check on my card on many times i had been, was told that i had passed the required times to find out that registered are only 23 times, i think they just wanna make money out of us, i thought i was the only one with this problem.

  12. 8/05/2009John says:

    I know how it goes. A few years ago the Constantia Virgin Active gym closed for renovations. Appparently there was a sign INSIDE the gym saying we could go to any other gym in the group. I was overseas when the sign went up, couldn’t see it behind the locked and dusty doors, and gave gym a miss for 3 months – thinking that I would just pick up my visits afterwards. My membership was cancelled.

    The faceless drone in the Vitality call centre had about as much logic and empathy as a stone. I guess they forget that I pay their salary. I’ve moved to another medical aid – it costs less, with much better benefits (which is what the whole Vitality thing is meant to keep us from seeing), and I’m happy to pay for gym at the Sports Science Institute. Adrian Gore watch out! We, the paying public made you the top medical aid in SA – if enough of us vote with our logic, and then our feet…

  13. 7/07/2009Your Mom says:

    Just masturbate. It’s cheaper.

  14. 10/07/2009Piet says:

    Come on 365 days a year you can’t go to gym 24 times no excuse

  15. 26/01/2010Keith says:

    I have been a member of the Virgin gym since it started. The rules initially were that you attend 24 times a “calender year” it is now 24 times over the previous 12 months or twice a month. When did the rules change and was anyone notified in writing

  16. 3/05/2010Mat says:

    planet fitness seems to have more problems than i thought, good thing i changed to virgin. i had those problems to!

  17. 5/05/2010Carmi says:

    All I can say is that I am absolutely appalled at the level of customer service from Discovery Health. I was promised feedback within the same day nogal!!!! from 2 callcentre consultants on seperate occasions and nothing till date. To my disgust I get a cusomer call rating email from a supervisor whom I expressed my sentiments to as well. Till date not even the goddamn supervisor has the courtesy to follow up on my initial query. This company is a money making maketing rip off!!! I’m sick of it and looking for another medical aid that endorses a gym. Can anyone give some advice?

  18. 18/02/2011Zanele Mhlophe says:

    Planet Fitness Rivonia has debited my account 3 times this month and everytime i try to speak to account either i call or go there they tell me no one is available. Am sick and tired of them because this is not the 1st time they have done this and definetely not the last. i want to cancel my contract so that i will stop paying 2 or 3 times monthly.

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