Sky overcharging complaint.

wrightphillips

The following is an email I am currently writing to send to Sky regarding an issue I am currently having with them. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!:j


On 13th December my Sky+ Box was stuck on standby. I contacted Sky’s technical support line and spent 40 minutes on the phone going through the various processes without gaining a resolution. At this point I was advised the issue would require an engineer to call out for a charge of £65 and that I would probably need a replacement box.

I decided that I would prefer to wait to see if the issue resolved itself, but I was persuaded that I would be better organising the engineer visit as it was so close to Christmas and to cancel the appointment if it started working again. An appointment was arranged for Monday 22nd December.

The following day the Sky+ box began functioning again. I had no further issues so I rang and cancelled the appointment on 17th December, informing the support desk that my box was now working properly.

I thought nothing more of this issue until I noticed on my bank statement that I had been charged £107.37 for my monthly bill (as opposed to the normal £42.50) on the 9th January. When I contacted customer services on the 9th January, I was advised that upon ringing to cancel the engineer, the customer service representative should have put me through to customer service to cancel the charge on my account. I was offered to have the overcharged £65 as a credit into my Sky account. This bill has left my account quite tight and I have several other direct debits including my mortgage to come out this month, so I requested that this money be refunded into my bank account. I was informed that this would not be refunded until the 22nd January. When I asked if it was possible to get this money returned to me sooner, which was taken from my account by mistake due to an error by Sky, I was told that was the best that could be done. I was not offered any compensation, nor apology for the inconvenience this has caused me.

This overcharge has put my bank account under unnecessary stress and I may well go overdrawn this month as a result and have to pay the relevant charges. In addition to this I have also spent over an hour on the phone to Sky trying to resolve these issues.

I have been with Sky, on a Sky Sports with Sky Talk & Broadband package for 18 months since I moved from my parents home into my own house. Indeed we had Sky for the previous ten years in my parents home, and I have never missed any payments.

In summary, my main issues are as follows.
Firstly when I first contacted Sky regarding the issue with my Sky+ Box I was shocked to be told that I would be billed if I required a replacement box. Considering overall I am paying in excess of £500 per year to receive Sky television, I believe that if a fault should develop with this product it should be replaced free of charge. Indeed since Christmas my Sky+ box has been intermittently freezing on standby for hours at a time every few days, so if I remain a Sky customer I will have to address this problem.

Secondly I was appalled that I was charged for an engineer call out that never happened and, which I cancelled as instructed by a member of staff.

Thirdly I felt that the resolution of a refund being issued in 14 days was utterly unacceptable and that a company of Sky’s size should be able to refund a ‘valued’ customer within a much shorter time frame.

In today’s current economic climate I feel that a company of Sky’s size should be doing more to look after their customers and that the customer service which has been offered to me leaves a lot to be desired.

At this point I am seriously considering closing my account with Sky and am looking at alternatives such as Setanta and Virgin.

Have you any resolution to the issues I have experienced over the past month? I reiterate that up to this point I have never had any issues with Sky in my 18months as an account holder or while living in my parent’s home with their account.

I look forward to your prompt response.

Yours faithfully,

XXXXX

lidlest

How would your bank account have managed if you had to pay the engineer? Would you have gone overdrawn then? Seems silly to book an appoinment that you couldn't afford to pay for in the first place.

Now the other things i agree with,why should we have to pay to fix it when we pay so much...

stevemLS

Afraid I don't follow the logic that the box should be repaired free for so long as you continue to take the service.

I suppose the analogy is buying a washing machine and expecting the electricity company to fix it because you continue to pay for the electricity?

Nor do I follow the logic of claiming loyalty based on your parents subscription.

Good luck with it though!

wrightphillips

Thanks for the responses.

I suppose the reason for emphasising my parents subscription was that although I have only been a customer of sky for 18 months in my personal name, prior to me moving from home my family had used the service. (Admittedly probably wasn't necessary to go into in the email).

In terms of the sky plus box, I don't really get the washing machine analogy. The sky plus box functioning is fundamental to the service which sky provide. I initially purchased the sky box, and now receive skys service through it. If this is not functioning correctly then the sky package I am paying monthly for is worthless.

To use a different analogy, how would you feel if the electric board asked you, following a power cut, to pay £65 to restore the service. (I know its a bit of a stretch! lol)

I have read in other posts when people complain about the call out charge and threaten to leave sky, in the majority of cases sky will waive the fee, and I suppose this is what I am hoping will be the resolution.

As for the comment regarding how I would have managed if I had to pay the engineer if he had come out, I had cancelled the call out on 17th December and was not billed until the 9th January. So for the 3 wks in between I had anticipated a bill of £42 rather than £107 I was charged, so hadn't needed to set aside an additional £65 to cover the bill. In fairness isn't January a tight month for us all!
Regardless the charge should not have occured.

wrightphillips

Thanks for the responses.

I suppose the reason for emphasising my parents subscription was that although I have only been a customer of sky for 18 months in my personal name, prior to me moving from home my family had used the service. (Admittedly probably wasn't necessary to go into in the email).

In terms of the sky plus box, I don't really get the washing machine analogy. The sky plus box functioning is fundamental to the service which sky provide. I initially purchased the sky box, and now receive skys service through it. If this is not functioning correctly then the sky package I am paying monthly for is worthless.

To use a different analogy, how would you feel if the electric board asked you, following a power cut, to pay £65 to restore the service. (I know its a bit of a stretch! lol)

I have read in other posts when people complain about the call out charge and threaten to leave sky, in the majority of cases sky will waive the fee, and I suppose this is what I am hoping will be the resolution.

As for the comment regarding how I would have managed if I had to pay the engineer if he had come out, I had cancelled the call out on 17th December and was not billed until the 9th January. So for the 3 wks in between I had anticipated a bill of £42 rather than £107 I was charged, so hadn't needed to set aside an additional £65 to cover the bill. In fairness isn't January a tight month for us all!
Regardless the charge should not have occured.

nomoneytoday

stevemLS wrote: »

Afraid I don't follow the logic that the box should be repaired free for so long as you continue to take the service.

I suppose the analogy is buying a washing machine and expecting the electricity company to fix it because you continue to pay for the electricity?

Not really. No box means Sky doesn't work.
Electricity isn't exclusive to a washing machine.

stevemLS wrote: »

Nor do I follow the logic of claiming loyalty based on your parents subscription.

Neither do I, but hey-ho, it was academic anyway as the call should have been cancelled...

deanos

I presume you pay with direct debit ?

Just use the direct debit guarantee and you will get the payment back immediately

peachyprice

Sorry, I don't understand why you are going to such lengths trying to get money back from Sky, the Direct Debit guarantee has been broken, phone your bank and ask then to reverse they payment. End of.

daveboy

So £65 means you are stuffed. Key to this is handling finances better so such a small amount doesn't kill you.

On top of that...if £65 causes such a problem I'd begin to wonder how you can afford to have Sky anyway.

Sky have been ripping people off for a very long time which is why I will never use them.

wrightphillips

To be honest I may have embellished on "how stuffed I am," to emphasise my annoyance at Sky. I keep an account seperate for my bills and ones for my general usage.........if I had not picked up on the overcharge and transferred money across it would have led to my other bills not being able to be met. Apologies if this misled you, it was more for Skys benefit!!

Thanks for the advice about the direct debit guarantee hadn't been aware of that previously.

I suppose the main initial annoyance was that Sky took money from my account they were not entitled to and subsequently failed to apologise or take appropriate action following admittance of their mistake.

stevemLS

I agree with the people who say get the bank to refund using the DD guarantee.

Apologies if I seemed unsympathetic.

I practice law (not consumer) and often have people asking me things at work (I'm employed in-house rather than in a law practice, so there aren't many lawyers). I recently had someone coming to me with an ancient, creaking sky box that had packed in (something like 8 years old) and they were most indignant that sky wanted to charge them for a new one.

My analogy with the washing machine was perhaps taking it too far - how about expecting the BBC to fix your TV on the basis you pay for a licence?

Anyhow, good luck with it.