Virgin Active Italia Reviews 1,028

If i could put zero I would.
I liked the gym but i got offered a permanent contract in france where there is no virgin active. So, as per their conditions, i asked to cancel my membership by sending them my permanent contract.
It has been a month and a half and approximately 15 emails from me without any answers or signs of my membership being cancelled.
That is quite litterally illegal and they are basically stealing my money at this point.

Getting though to customers service is a nightmare club doesn't answer the phone.

Shame on you Virgin Active for using Met Parking to fine members at Chiswick Riverside. We pay a huge monthly sum and were 20 mins late. You are supposed to be a health club not add to the stress of everyone's lives. We now swipe in to the car park so please catch those that are trying to park all day, not the Virgin members. Feeling very let down by this. I tried calling your central office but after 40 minutes, gave up. No customer service channels to talk to?

I used to enjoy going to Virgin active, I know them from South Africa (where they are good) however recently they introduced a new towel policy - I believe the lower the tier the least number of towels you can get, which does not work if you offer a pool! I go to the gym for the pool, so I need one towel for swimming and either the jacuzzi/steam or sauna afterwards and the second to have a complete shower and dry off before I change to go home! How do you want me to do this with one towel? Am I meant to bring my own towel? which if that is the case then I feel it’s fair the price should come down and not up like it has been. I am strongly considering moving gyms.

Worst customer service ever!

After trying the FAQ/Web chat and being on hold for 45 minutes and then being cut off, trying again and being on hold 38 minutes and no answer, felt incredibly frustrated.

Tried the webchat again and asked to speak to an advisor or for an email address, got nowhere so tried to make a compliant. Got put through to Laura - a Customer Service specialist at 4:55pm. She took a while to read the chat then asked how she could help, as i started to type she said "(just as a quick warning I will need to come offline in a moment but someone else will pick this up. Sorry in advance for any frustration here!)"
And went offline when I assume her shift ended at 5pm. Incredibly annoying but I stayed polite and asked to speak to someone else. This took another 10 minutes and someone came on and made me go through all the initial questions again to then not respond to me.

Use AI for chatbots if they can actually help. If they can't don't sacrifice customer service. Rather than upgrade to a more expensive gym as I had been trying to do, I have now quit.

My son joined us n December 31 2024
He was not told on induction he had to put in car reg for car park each time , he visited gym . His other gym put car reg on once and it is in the system. The car park company are charging him £400 pound .They sent 3 tickets all at once .If they had sent one .He would have asked the gym and he would have got the right information concerning the car park . Virgin were not helpful at trying to get these charges taken away . Virgin just sent email they are sorry during induction information was not passed on properly .He has sent that email to the car park company and is waiting for there response.What disappointing customer service . Please can Virgin active Salford look into this . As you have clearly stated in your email information was not passed on correctly to your customer.

22 days ago virgin took a payment from my bank they were not meant to.contacted them over 10 times but they just say give it another 10 to 14 days and see if you get the money.seems they have no intention of paying me back

"Missed" a class I had cancelled on app as unwell but still got a no show email. New "web chat" takes ages to fill in and can't deal with it anyhow. Now been on hold for 70 mins and giving up... ... At £120pcm for membership, this needs to improve.
I have been a member since Virgin took over Esporta, and although I live 5 mins walk from this gym, I am thinking of leaving. Class mix no longer suits as well

was verbally assaulted by Mo Abdalla on reception multiple times, upon being asked if he knew which towels were slightly longer than others, as last week I’ve found a couple that were, which for a female is really helpful in the spa area.
He said “you people” go to canary riverside where they have those and there are no towels as such here. I politely said that I came last week, and found a couple that were longer to which he snapped aggressively and said “don’t argue with me, did you come here to argue or work out”. I didn’t ask him to look for new towels, I was going to take one from the once laid out. But I found his communication skills appalling as I was friendly and happy. It’s Christmas Eve and I was looking forward to enjoying my last workout for the year. I told him I don’t appreciate how we spoke to me and asked for the manager to which he called me several degrading names and said he won’t call anyone, followed by patronising statements like “are you nervous? You look nervous” as I was waiting for him to call someone. He still said he wouldn’t. I don’t understand why someone would even say those things. Then proceeded to call me further degrading words as I kept waiting, and asking for the manager. Not once have I degraded myself to insult him in that conversation. I was in tears upon speaking to the manager as it was really upsetting. He proceeded to talk to other male members who passed who he knew, pointing at me as I spoke with the manager. I pay for this gym to avoid experiences described above.

Given the circumstances, I trust you understand the impact this has had. I would appreciate any assistance or resolution you may be able to offer to address this matter. I am confident that as a valued customer, your company will take appropriate steps that this issue is resolved in a satisfactory matter. Hopefully this review can be changed.

Member ID: 35p108874
Polina

CHARGED ME 59.29 THREE TIMES/ STOLE £177 OFF ME

Virgin Active has terribly gone down… They have reduced the classes, clearly making cuts in the wrong places while spending for things not necessary (e.g. the new app). Its now virtually impossible to reach them by phone, the new app is really really badly designed (the old one was fine), the music in the class v bad (because they dint want to pay royalties). They spend money though on cosmetic changes -no doubt to attract new members.
Can’t they put in charge somebody who actually understands how a gym work?!!!

Virgin Active Krugersdorp they stole my iPhone 13 Pro Max while I was at the Sauna. Someone broke my key lock and gained access to my bag which was locked in the locker. I have never experienced something like this before, someone break your key lock to steal from you. I am so dissapointed with the Manager on duty as he was chilled with all the incident. Not supportive at all, just continued speaking Tswana with me even though I told him I don't understand. Disgusting!!

Virgin active Crouch End has got to be the worst branch. Sunday 24th Nov members waiting outside for 45 minutes because the Manager was 45 minutes late. Unbelievable. Classes cancelled. Instructors leaving. Old equipment, dirty equipment, dirty changing rooms. A very poor standard. Members fed up and leaving daily.

Membership cancellation impossible.

When I signed up for a year I was told by the membership rep in the club that if I moved I could cancel. However it has taken 2 months for me to be able to cancel the membership. It is impossible to cancel via the app, the contact telephone number is not working, the club never pickup the phone, and the web bot is not helpful. When I finally got into email correspondence through the web chat they gave me what seemed a generic name.

I was also told when joining that I had 2 guest passes but when I came to use them, apparently they had expired. I was not made aware on joining that these has an expiration date

How unfortunate and unprofessional this organisation is. I sent three letters of complaint and all of them were ignored. The only time they reached out to me after I sent my letter was when they sent communication about the refer a buddy/ friend promotion. My letter was about the ceiling collapsing and how for nearly three weeks members only had use of half of the gym. I didn’t return after my pass expired bc there was no point paying for equipment that I couldn’t use because of the ceiling collapsing. They didn’t send out communication to members about the gym full y reopening. I had to reach out to them to find out. As much as I love fitness, I decided to not return and try another gym. The way the issue of the ceiling collapsing and poor communication after the ceiling collapsed was unacceptable.

It’s nearly 6 months since the misguided and disastrous decision to banish licensed commercial music use in classes and with talks about a 6 month review coming in October please Virgin head office you need to realise:
1. Your reputation as a premium health chain is going down the drain
2. Members are actually unhappy even though most will not speak out in the face of terrible ES / royalty free music and many cancelled classes due to instructors leaving rather than stay on to use and teach to hopelessly unsuitable music
3. Come April many will not renew membership partly because of the above reasons and also they feel betrayed at being tied down for 12 months again to reduced membership fees BUT at the expense of an inferior class experience and reduced classes
4. If you want to cut costs and boost profits the most effective way as a premium health club chain is to create incentives for members to stay and show some (non existent) appreciation for the fantastic, dedicated and highly motivated freelance instructors who give their all to give members the best class experience they can humanly give !

Unbelievable incompetence

Continuing the saga of trying to get money back from a cancelled PT contract that they broke. They are now telling us that "as a gesture of goodwill" they would waive the debt. DEBT? THEY OWE US THE MONEY THAT THEY TOOK FROM OUR ACCOUNT ERRONEOUSLY! I really didn't think that the level of incompetence could get any lower, but they continue to excel. Judging by the other reviews, it would appear that I'm not the only one who has suffered.

I want to share my negative experience with the Virgin Active fitness center in Assago (MI). Despite having regularly paid the membership fee for my son, he was not allowed to enter the gym today. The justification was that my daughter's membership fee had not been renewed, even though the two contracts are different: my daughter's contract was made a month ago, while my son's has been active for several years. I find this situation unacceptable and a lack of respect towards customers. I expected much more from a facility that presents itself as professional. I hope they can resolve this issue as soon as possible

DISHWASHER at Solihull
I'm only leaving 1 star because of the broken dishwasher, it's been weeks and I do like food and hot drinks in proper crockery, especially at their prices.

This is no way shape of form to discourage the absolute amazing trainers you have: Michael Morgan, Dave Martin, Ben Humphrey, Carly Crockford, Andrea Vivaldi, Supang Martin and Irvin Magno. All are absolutely amazing and are golden to your business, but I’m sure the way you are treating your employees and customers they will grow frustrated.

I have been a member for over seven years, I have been a part of many events for virgin active as well as bringing on numerous of new members to your gym but there has been a change that has forced me to leave.

You have not only destroyed the energy in your classes by removing the music - but you have decided to increase everyone’s membership secretly whilst removing the joy that made virgin what it was in the first place. You claim it is saving money by not having a license? But you are happy to splash money out for cruises (which barely any member wins as these winnings go to staff).

I had an amazing PT Irvin Magno who pretty much changed me for the better and helped me win my first white collar match. After of which I decided to stop after achieving my goals - I informed both the front desks at Wandsworth and Twickenham (my new gym) that I will not need any PT sessions and I was told it was fine and they had been cancelled and I will not be having any money taken out from my account.

However I was charged unexpectedly and when I approached the Twickenham front desk as well as the customer service team and explained the situation, your colleague Orlando told me I would be receiving my money back to me however this never came. I continued to chase for around three months only to be told that actually my refund was cancelled. I was confused and puzzled why this was and was because I upgraded my membership to Twickenham that my pt sessions carried on to another gym. I never agreed to this.

I then chased and spoke to Nadia in your customer service team who told me that she will listen to phone recordings from previous conversations and investigate returning the money and she would call be back (guess what never did).

I chased again… and approached the head of customer service Jonny Glass and explained all my situation. Only to receive this:

Hi David,

Thank you for your email. Apologies for the delay, I returned from annual leave on Wednesday afternoon and I'm just catching up on my emails.

I have done a full review of your account & cannot see any previous record/log of a PT cancellation request.

When a membership is transferred, unless you have contacted us to cancel your PT, the PT will be transferred alongside this & we would allocate a new trainer, at the new club if you're no longer training at the previous club.

Due to this, we would not refund the sessions not used.

I would be happy to offer that we extend your membership to the end of July, at no extra cost (so we'd credit from 14 - 31 July), to give you some more time to use the sessions. If you'd like me to action this, please let me know?

Healthy regards,
Jonny
Head of Customer Relations

This I found was an insult just so virgin can keep money and again not listening to your customers or retaining them.

And it’s because of this I have decided to leave this crooked company.

Believe me your trainers are amazing don’t get me wrong - but the standards in the gyms are slipping - the hygiene and upkeep in Wandsworth both changing rooms and gym floor has slipped dramatically - because you do not invest in upkeep!

But you have lost a loyal customer and I’m sure you will lose many many more because they will become sick and tired of you prioritising money over clients.

And this was all because virgin wanted to keep £174.

My advice to anyone reading this:

DO NOT JOIN VIRGIN ACTIVE!

Find a better gym where they look after you and help you achieve your goals and answer any customer queries with compassion and resolve in a right manner.

There are plenty of other gyms that you could find much cheaper or the same price which you will get much much more for your money.

Regards

David