KAL Leisure Centres Reviews 52

Kal leisure is nothing but a disappointment.
Customer service department is diabolical and try to go against there own terms and conditions to keep you paying membership fees.
They do not even adhere to the law as to regards to supplying running hot water for its customers, whilst the leisure centre remains open.
They charge full rate irrespective of facilities they close down for months on end. No discounted rate and nothing as a good will gesture.
Not worthy of 1 star due to the worst customer service I have ever experienced within the leisure industry.
I will add, that a number of staff members at the centres in general are helpful and are definitely more professional than headquarters.
I would personally seek a better leisure establishment.

There is no specific date of this experience, but ongoing.

Definitely terrible customer service on phone and by email. I wish I had know before joining.

I wish they had better customer service. They could have possibly retained my membership and that of two other family members if they had more understanding... Oh well, we'll find another place... That's at least £80/month you're losing out on...

Avoid like the plague - membership sign up is unclear - it actually cost 80 not 40 for sign up - I signed up with 40 spare cash and was later chased for a further 40 and shown the door when I went to the gym , asked to cancel and refund and they refused then took another 40 out my account - so yeah they had like 80 off me and I never used their services once.

Terrible customer service, so unhelpful, concentrate on getting themselves out of a hole than helping the customer. I was at the end of my contract and wanted to change to gym only from gym and class. Was told they can't downgrade contracts and therefore I would have to cancel and rejoin. What they didn't tell me is that my gym location was not included in a gym only membership so I was left with the option of paying more for a membership for my gym than I was currently paying for gym and classes due to price rises. In reality i was better doing absolutely nothing. Their response to my complaint suggests that i ought to know more about their memberships than them, they can only advise against specifc instructions, bunch of robots work there presumably. What a swiz, bravo KAL, at least Turpin wore a mask

I have cancelled my membership due to KAL been totally unhelpful and treating me with zero sympathy whilst I was ill and been in hospital so unable to use my membership. They added charges even when i agreed to pay them the same day my direct debit was due. Very unprofessional and shocking company. They do not even deserve a one star. No wonder you have 98% negative reviews.

The major problem is booking onto CLASSES and their limited capacity.
Classes become available at 9pm the night before, the week before they’re on, so every member wanting to book on is in a race to get a place. The KAL app can’t cope with the traffic as there aren’t enough places for everyone wanting one so it’s struggles and you have to click ‘try again’, ‘try again’, ‘try again’ …. for about 15 - 30 mins. Even if you manage to get a place, it doesn’t always confirm you’ve got one so you keep trying. Lots of people have complained - via email, at the desk and to managers who all say ‘we’re aware of the problem’ but no progress after about 6 weeks of booking frustration.
I’ve suggested staggering the bookings, increase class sizes, put on more classes and know if others who have made suggestions but no feedback yet!!!! Some members are talking about cancelling their membership as KAL are not delivering the agreed service. People who struggle with tech can forget classes but can opt for the gym.

Minus 5 star. I never write reviews but I would seriously think before signing up to KAL and want to share my experience. Whilst the gyms we have used are nice enough, decent receptionists and the fitness classes are well run (if you can manage to get a space) for a reasonable price compared to other private gyms, there is a serious problem with how they manage issues such as cancelling or freezing/unfreezing memberships. The “contact centre” where you go for pretty much any problem that you have where you need to call and email only. Doesn’t seem fair if you don’t have skills or ability to write as for some things it can only be done in writing via email, like complaints. No power at the local centre to do anything or so I’m told. In my case, everything was ok until they closed the Scisset Pool where my children had their swimming lessons due to necessary building works. We had plenty of notice that it would close and we were asked if we wanted to freeze the memberships or move to another centre. We were forced to freeze as space at other centres we could get to were fully booked and told to keep ringing the contact centre every day and check online to try and get a slot somewhere else. On 23rd December I finally saw a place was free for one of my children to start swimming lessons again, when I called to book back into the lesson I was told I needed to pay for the full month even though no lessons were scheduled for the rest of the month. I thought this seemed ridiculous to pay for the whole month with no lessons for the rest of the month anyway so I waited until 1st Jan to try and do it then as then she could have a month of lessons. Luckily the space was still available so I went ahead and paid over the phone the cost of her swimming lessons only for that month which was £27 and then the direct debit would come out monthly from the next due date. Prior to freezing I had been paying an extra £15 or so for the training academy (which the instructor suggested we do) also but this was fully booked for another centre within suitable distance so we could only do the swimming lessons. I even remember telling the man on the phone it was only swimming lessons and not training academy because there was no space at that centre for her to go. He said he would email me with confirmation of the lesson booking but I only received a receipt email not saying what it was for. When my direct debit came out this month beginning of Feb they had taken both swimming lesson and training academy. I thought, oh they’ve obviously forgotten to amend it I’ll give them a call and they can sort it out. Why wouldn’t they? They basically refused to refund the difference and said it was my fault because I didn’t put in writing to cancel the training academy part of the membership. Surely paying the price of the swimming lessons only and not the extra for the training academy in January would show the agreement made over the phone was swimming lessons only?! They weren’t having any of it, and actually feels like there is a culture within the company to make the customer feel as though we are completely in the wrong rather than accepting they have actually made an error. When I called back to ask for the name of the girl I had spoke to the new girl who answered said she couldn’t do that but gave her own name when I asked. Never known anywhere where you can’t give your first name, I think they even give their name when they answer anyway. Strange. Rather than accept their staff may have made a mistake they assumed he had followed all the correct procedure but he never asked me to put in writing about the training academy. I honestly don’t think this is my fault. I contacted customer advice bureau who said they have definitely breached their contract with the payment in Jan being different. They said if enough people report to trading standards there could be an investigation. Really horrible to think this is all over CHILDRENS swimming lessons! I know private gyms can be bad if you don’t act within notices and are notorious for these kind of problems but I think this is actually worse, honestly kids swim lessons. Really awful customer care. I have cancelled my membership and will pay more elsewhere at a better gym rather than support my local leisure centre now.
UPDATE now they are saying the January payment was taken by a new advisor and he didn’t charge me enough so now I need to pay another £15.50 to cover training academy fees for January that we never even had! unbelievable. Absolutely disgusting. I wouldn’t touch with a barge pole. Never again for us.

Appalling
Paid for two swims on the app, all booked on, took my money. Day after cancelled by KAL. I have paid for swims via app before no problem. Now apparently, no refund and no swims. After some very unhelpful emails saying I have intentionally booked on the app whilst not on a membership. Didn’t know this was a problem as it’s been fine before, absolutely no understanding of a simple mistake, yet there keeping my money and won’t refund. Just a rip off.
Off to Calderdale for my swims now

Signed my step son up to a flexi card which is a discount card that saves me a grand total of 75p when I book swimming. For whatever reason the direct debit went out and then 2 days later bounced back. My partner missed the email stating that it hadn't gone out and when I went to book swimming found out that they had added a £50 charge to his account. I don't care what the terms and conditions say, for a company to do that to a customer who spends over £70 a month in direct debits, its clear they don't care about retaining membership's. The card is £7 for they year so how they think its acceptable to try and charge me £50 for it is a joke.

Paid for a family of 4 to go swimming. We enjoyed 15 minutes before the alarm went off and we were told to leave the pool and wait in changing area. We did this, we stood for 10 minutes while staff were running around and knowbody knew what was going on. After this time we decided to get changed as our 4 and 5 year old were freezing and we had booked the play gym for after, the slot was only 1 hour in the first place. After getting changed we seen people were allowed back in. We went to see reception who advised us to contact the online services as they couldn’t issue a refund as we booked online. We contacted online and they can’t help as they claim the pool was evacuated and everyone returned within 3 minutes and this was 100% not the case.
I was only asking for a voucher to attend again.

Agree with review below. Exactly the same process. Asked to show proof of being a teacher. Second time in 7
months. Apparently I am not a teacher despite having a payslip from a school, a badge and email address and sign off. Suggested that I can forge the sign off, my payslip wasn’t good enough as did not say ‘full-time’ teacher and my employee badge was not dated with a start date! Would not budge from these quite ludicrous and unobtainable conditions or give me the complaints information. Actively blocked my complaint. This is quite obviously a ruse to increase my membership - no problem with this if KAL is not offering corporate membership to teachers anymore - but they still say they are but with unachievable evidence; this is miss-selling. The staff at the contact centre were obstructive and rude.

I was asked twice in one contract year to send proof of my corporate membership. I sent a copy of my payslip, from my work email as requested. Apparently I am not a teacher, even though I get teacher pay from an educational establishment. They would not accept a payslip or pdf download of a payslip as proof and used this as an excuse to try and increase my fees. They repeatedly told me I could not cancel as I was still in contract even though I could see from my bank statements that I had already made 12 payments. I find out today that they miscounted the number of payments I had made, so they never needed proof of corporate membership in the first place and have wasted my time and harassed me with unpleasant phone calls and rude emails for no valid reason. I was told I was being 'combative' and spoken to like a child when I tried to tell them they had made mistakes about my account. Then they realised I was right and had to apologise. A bit late for me, I have found the whole process very upsetting. The senior management at KAL are the worst, and customer service just horrid. Do yourself a favour and never join KAL, there are better gyms out there.

Absolutely rubbish customer service and poor children's swimming lessons! Change the teachers every week, no consistency, teachers are young teenagers with poor management skills and no proper assessing is ever done. Seems like you just complete 6 weeks or so and get given a certificate, they decide not when the child is actually capable. We cancelled our swimming lessons as we were so unhappy after complaining and not been listened to, they emailed me confirming we could attend until the end of the month (30 days notice) just had an email to say our membership is cancelled with immediate effect!!! EVEN THOUGH WEVE ALREADY PAID FOR THIS FULL MONTH! So you've robbed us of £27 for rubbish services, services we've now been charged for and will not be recieveing. DO NOT RECOMMEND.

Shockingly poor customer service. Where to start? These clowns are rude and obnoxious. They really couldn't care less and believe it is fine to change the terms at will, as well as disregarding the law. I ultimately decided to cancel my membership within 14 days. Using intimidation to coerce me to pay an additional fee as well as making it 13 days for some reason. The staff at the leisure centres are great, however, be very careful with your interactions with the call centre - they are a law unto themselves. Just read the other reviews on here - I wish I had, and run a mile!

Would strongly not recommend.

I was using the Stadium facility before they closed this centre down, when they closed this down they gave 4 days to cancel my memebrship, I instead did not cancel in this short time period and continued to use the Leisure Centre. After using the Leisure Centre paying only 4 pounds less than what I did for the premium memeberhsip I had previously that they automatically moved me from, I realised that this did not meet my expectations of what I had originally agreed to when starting my membership. The Leisure Centre is overcrowded and has poor facilities. Swimming here is difficult as their are classes on almost constantly so you end up in two small lanes that are overcrowded, the pool itself was unclean and always had an unpleasant smell. The rest of the facilities were also unclean, shower floors were always slimy and full of hair. The carpark was often full and the gym over crowded. The Leisure Centre and other facilities do not have the same facilities as the stadium had such as the spa area. I tried to explain this to KAL and that I believed the offer of services had drastically changed and that both their contract and my consumer rights should allow me to cancel my memebeship, they did not agree with this as I had not asked to do this within the 4 days they gave me. So I cancelled my direct debit and spent the next 2 months being bombarded with repeated emails about £15 late charges (3 in total charges) and threats of debt collection. They also reinstated my direct debit without my permission. I now have brought my account up to date and have to continue to make 4 months more of payments. I don't belive KAL have acted in good faith on the matter, and are disappointed in the way they have handled this (especially for a "charity") and I am unhappy that I have been threatened into paying for a service I no longer use or want or is even available. Their are plenty of better value fitness centre nearby that I would recommend above KAL. I have plenty of other things I could write as to why I stopped enjoying using KAL but I have written a long enough review.

Absolute con artists. The sports centre which I was signed up to has been closed since September. They are refusing to cancel my membership and are still taking money by direct debit for a service that they aren't providing. Contracts work both ways and why should I pay for something I am not receiving? I might as well walk down a dark alley and hand over my money to a mugger. This is theft by any other definition and I will be seeking legal advice to get the money back that they have stolen from me and prevent them from stealing any more with their veiled threats.

Rubbish customer service. I booked a squash court and realised instantly that I'd put the wrong day. I called the leisure centre straight away to explain and ask if they could just switch the days, only to be told they wouldn't change the booking. Surely it can't be that hard. you'd think with centers closing they'd want to keep regular customers.

2 weeks after joining they closed the centre I wanted to use. I continued to pay the membership thinking it was a temporary measure for repairs. 3 months later I cancelled the Direct Debit as the centre is closing permanently and explained that the membership is of no use to me if I can't use that centre. I am now getting threatening emails that continuously spout the legal consequences of breaking the contract. They can't give me what I signed up for so they're trying to tie me up in small print to recover the membership fee for a gym I cant use. Do yourselves a huge favour and stay away from these gyms. It's a failed organisation and is having to close Its center's because it has been very poorly managed. Instead of aggressively managing the centers to peform, they are aggressively pursuing monies for memberships owed to them for reducing the service initially offered. The organisation is a discrace and needs to close asap so someone with better business acumen can take it over and offer a legitimate service and run it properly at a profit.

Shambolic admin/accounts dept; read all the other reviews below and you will begin to see the picture.
I gave the Stadium gym 5 weeks notice that I was leaving, this is more than the minimum required. After my final direct debit came out of my bank account, I cancelled the DD because I knew there would be no more payments required. This final DD entitled me to use the gym for a further 4 weeks. When I arrived at the gym this week, they refused me entry. When I challenged the customer service dept over this, they said it was because I had cancelled my DD! I said, 'of course I have, it's not required and you won't be taking out any more direct debits. I have a right to use the gym for 4 weeks after my final monthly payment.' I sent a complaint email to KAL, but the response was the same; completely unwilling to be flexible and unable to acknowledge that I had the right to use the gym for a further 4 weeks because I had paid for it! I have paid £30 to use this gym for the final 4 weeks of my membership and they have refused me access, surely this is illegal isn't it?? The organisation should be ashamed of itself.