Are Sky in breach of contract? Should I fight?

Pica_pica

About three months ago I was happily floating along with my £20 BT broadband package and digibox then one day a Sky salesman collared me in a shopping centre (well i say collared but I was loitering around his stand watching shrek while the other half shopped for computer games!)

He checked my phone line and said he could offer Sky broadband and Sky TV for just £28 with a Sky+ box for the first month then down to £18 after that.

Wow I thought, sky tv and broadband for less than I am paying now! I signed up without a thought. A couple of days later I get told i'm outside the free broadband area and have to pay £10 a month extra (the whole point was to save money on my existing broadband and get Sky thrown in!). I told them I wanted to cancel and not bother, then another chap phoned back and offered to reduce the broadband to just £5 extra....So i agreed.

Sky got installed and an activation date came for the broadband. I have two phone lines coming into the house so I thought i'd keep BT broadband on one and put Sky on the other in case there were any problems with the broadband...well there was! 4 visits from the BT engineers hours and hours on the phone to them and 3 months later I still don't have a sky broadband connection but my trusty (and expensive) BT connection still works!)

Now i'm paying £20 per month for BT broadband and £23 a month for Sky....my outgoings have doubled. I wanted to save money and get sky, not spend extra. I would have never gone out and purchased Sky on its own. 3 months down the line all I watch are the freeview channels anyway!

I've e-mailed 6 times, written a letter and sent it recorded, spent hours on the phone trying to explain this scenario only to be transferred, have to spend another 15 minutes explaining the situation to somebody else and then get cut off.

I want to cancel my Sky package. The reason is, I am not receiving the package I signed up for. Their cancellations department were just terrible. I think the bloke enjoyed winding me up. Like a parrot he kept repeating "you can't cancel until your 12 months are up"!

So, I have cancelled my direct debit and refuse to pay them anymore. Surely they are in breach of contract? What do you think? Will I win if I fight? They haven't called me for over 3 weeks and were happy to keep taking the money for the broadband connection that doesn't work and tv package.

I'm at my wits end, what should i do? :mad:

DatabaseError

Am I missing something here?
To save money, you had another broadband service installed, on a 2nd line...meaning you'd be paying for 2 providers?!
You've had 4 visits from BT (openreach?) did they find a fault?
Can you explain what the problem is? Is there no sysc?
I'm no expert, but I imagine 'I'm just watching freeview channels" is not a reason that sky will accept for cancellation of the TV contract, so I'd be expecting a spot of bother for canceling the DD if I were you, though you may be justified in canceling the BB part of the contract if the fault is down to Sky or BT (which it usually isn't)

Pica_pica

DatabaseError wrote: »

Am I missing something here?
To save money, you had another broadband service installed, on a 2nd line...meaning you'd be paying for 2 providers?!
You've had 4 visits from BT (openreach?) did they find a fault?
Can you explain what the problem is? Is there no sysc?
I'm no expert, but I imagine 'I'm just watching freeview channels" is not a reason that sky will accept for cancellation of the TV contract, so I'd be expecting a spot of bother for canceling the DD if I were you, though you may be justified in canceling the BB part of the contract if the fault is down to Sky or BT (which it usually isn't)

The 2nd broadband service was installed on the other line to "maintain" a connection. Once the sky connection was working, i'd have cancelled the BT service.

There was a battery fault on the line but that was solved easily and still didn't solve the BB problem. Openreach sent a BB engineer (not a phone engineer) and he tried all sorts but thinks there may be a "broken joint" somewhere...here comes the problem. Our lines run through the headquarters of the Ministry of Defence training base. They won't let engineers on to fiddle with anything! So the BT engineer put the job back to sky as "needs more time". From that point Sky made no contact with me for three weeks.

The fault is definitely down to the line outside the house somewhere. 99% sure that there is nothing wrong with the wiring this side of the socket (actually there is only 1 wire running direct from the BT cable to 1 socket with no housing circuits on it so 100% sure!)

My question is...can I cancel the damn contract if they can't provide part of the services I signed up for (and which they stated they could!)

DatabaseError

I can't see why you can't cancel the broadband contract, as sky clearly are unable to provide it. The TV contract on the other hand you may as well enjoy until the contract is up and then cancel, as it's not sky's fault that you don't want to watch the channels you're paying for (be aware the recording function of the +box will cease to ...er...function after the contract ends)

diamonds

if you signed up for both then yes, email the chief exec @ Sky

Pica_pica

DatabaseError wrote: »

I can't see why you can't cancel the broadband contract, as sky clearly are unable to provide it. The TV contract on the other hand you may as well enjoy until the contract is up and then cancel, as it's not sky's fault that you don't want to watch the channels you're paying for (be aware the recording function of the +box will cease to ...er...function after the contract ends)

I know i'm fully entitled to cancel the broadband. However as I originally stated I was sold this as a package and now my outgoings have increased instead of reduced.

The idea was to take skys "Package Deal" and get broadband and sky for less that I pay now for my BT broadband. Sky checked the availability for broadband in my area and said it was available, I also have an existing connection from one of the pairs coming into the house from the BT cable so it seemed like a safe bet.

Now i'm distraught that sky won't let me out of the contract for Sky TV when I signed up as a package and now have increased my outgoings.

Pica_pica

diamonds wrote: »

if you signed up for both then yes, email the chief exec @ Sky

Whats their e-mail address? :rotfl:

DatabaseError

get the sky bband moved onto the bt bband line, cancelling bt bband at the same time, you know the line is good (not been blown up by the MOD)...sudden £20 pm saving

Pica_pica

I can't afford to lose connection as my living comes from having a solid internet connection. It really is too much of a risk to jeopardise my existing connection. I would have overlapped them for one month to test the quality of the service before cancelling anyway. What if skys service drops out and is slower?

We have no neighbours and I can only get 1/2meg speed when I pay for up to 8meg. It took me 6 months to get the exisiting connection working!

mdmdigital

Yes, you should fight.

Sky are a complete bunch of theives with pushy salesmen and CSRs who won't let you cancel.

The reason I found your post was because I am specifically looking for stories about Skys customer service (or lack thereof). I'm in the middle of my own battle with Sky to cancel my contract, I had them in my old house and cancelled there but ended up paying two months more than I should because they refused to cancel (I was 100% within my rights to cancel as my 12 months was up, yet their CSRs spun me lies etc and wouldn't let me cancel). At the moment I am in the the process of cancelling my exisiting contract in a new property and i'm recording every phonecall I make to them.

Don't let them take you for a ride.

FYI - Cancelling your direct debit will incur an extra £4 on your bill each month which they call an invoice charge (because it costs them £4 to print and send a letter out )

Good luck.

DatabaseError

On the bright side, sky don't provide a business connection, so if theirs was for that purpose you would be in breach of their t+cs. I'm assuming the BT connection is on a business line?!