Complaints Process

If you wish to make a complaint about a fitness centre/health club, or an exercise professional, we recommend that the first step you take is to complain directly to the facility or person concerned. If they do not reply, or you are not satisfied with their reply, then you may be able to lay a formal complaint with the New Zealand Register of Exercise Professionals (REPs).  If you do wish to do this, please read the information on this page.

There are two types of complaints you can make to REPs:

1) ‘Let us know’ Complaint

The ‘Let us know’ Complaint. This is where you want us to know about the behaviour or other aspects of a registered trainer that you think is unreasonable.

The ‘Let us know’ complaint can be made by any communication method (email, phone etc.) and we will note it, and take the appropriate action. However, there will be no feedback to the complainant about either the process followed nor the outcome.

Find information on how to contact REPs here

2) Formal Complaint

The Formal Complaint process would be the normal choice for a more serious complaint (harassment, unprofessional behaviour etc).

All formal complaints are to be communicated to REPs by either:
Post: Posted to REPs, P O Box 22374, Christchurch 8140.
or email

We will follow the principles of natural justice, so except where it would comprimise your safety, the full details of your complaint, including your name will be passed onto the organisation/registered trainer for them to respond to.

The process must be as follows:

  1. To ensure there is a fair and transparent process, when a complaint is received, after checking that REPs  has jurisdiction (ie. they must be registered with REPs) then an investigation is started.  As a part of this investigation details of the complaint, including the name of the complainant are disclosed. Complaints may be made anonymously, in such cases the complaint will be investigated, but the outcome will not be communicated to the complainant.
  2. Where full details have been disclosed (permission will be obtained first), in most cases each party will then be given a right of reply to the other parties information.  This means you will see what the facility/person replied, and the facility/person will see your full complaint.
  3. If the complaint related to an alleged breach of the law and there is a statutory body that deals with this, the we will refer the complainant to this body for determination first.  Should that body uphold the complaint, then this will be used as a part of the investigation as evidence. eg a person alleges a trainer breached their privacy. This would be referred to the Privacy Commissioner’s Office. Should this complaint be upheld by the Privacy Commissioner then this would be used as evidence as a part of the complaint to REPs.
  4. REPs does not deal with matters of customer service, except where these lead to a specific breach of a relevant code. Where you think you have received bad service, contact the manager of the facility, or in the case of individuals, the individual concerned and communicate your dissatisfaction.
  5. In most cases, where there is a complaint about a facility or person, we require you to first contact the facility/person concerned to outline your concern, and what you would like done about it (there are a few exceptions to this, where such a complaint would be unwise or unsafe). This contact, and the response from the facility/person should be included in any complaint.
  6. Be clear about what you want as an outcome of any complaint. Whatever outcomes you want, please outline this clearly.
  7. Where the matter you wish to complain about is of a serious criminal nature, we recommend you contact the police directly.