Sky TV bill. Charged for something we haven't used?

InNeedofHelp

I'm just enquiring as to how the Sky system is.

My dad was the bill payer & it came out of his account via D/D each month.

As he's now passed away, Sky tried to take payment on 2nd Oct. His account was frozen, so the payment couldn't go ..... Sky got cut from our house.

No complaints here.

Now, i would assume that you pay in advance. By that, i mean you take a brand new subscription out in lets say January, and you pay in advance for January. You pay in Feb for Feb and so on.

So i would assume (perhaps wrongly) that the payment they wanted to take on 2nd Oct was for Oct & not Sept.

My mum called up on Sunday, told them what has happened & we're going as new customers to them, using existing machinery (dish, boxes).

They've sent out a bill to us requesting the payment of £78.50 which they tried to take on 2nd Oct.


I'm not complaining here, i'm just looking to find out - would this be correct? Is this payment for Septembers viewing or Octobers?

I'd be surprised if their system is to let you view a month in advance, but stranger things have happened.

Keith

afaik - You can't be new customers unless the account is left for a period of time between mum & dad.

I can't cancel and rejoin as my wife for example.

liam8282

I have Virgin and they charge you monthly in advance, so my bill today 11 October 2011, covers 16 October to 15 November 2011, plus anything extra I have used in the past month (such as phone calls).

I presume Sky will be the same.

It sounds as though you are not actually being treated as a new customer, they are just continuing the previous account where it left off.

spike7451

Sort of,when you sign up you pay for whatever part of the month you signed up at until the start of the next billing cycle as well as the following month.So if you sign up on 10 Jan & the billing cycle starts on the 25th of each month,you pay the fifteen days between when you signed up on the 10th Jan & the 24th Jan as well as the next months bill from 25th Jan to 24th Feb & so on..

It looks like Sky are charging you for your dad's missed payment plus the new payment from when you took over the contract,as it would show as a negative balance on your dads account.

InNeedofHelp

We're not continuing his account.

We did have the option to do so, as well as the option to have the account closed & sign up as new customers. (I guess they perhaps make a special exception for cases where death is involved (-this is in reply to Keith), but as i say, i'm guessing).

If we 'took over' (by we i mean mum) his account, then we could pay his account off (The £78.50) & carry on.
However, as my mum wants to replace the standard old Sky box in the living room with a new Sky+HD box, this would've been an additional fee of £150 (i may have the fee wrong, but it was certainly over £100) PLUS the £78.50 balance.

If we instead chose to sign up as new customers, then we would pay:
£0.00 for a new Sky+HD box (so an instant saving there!!)
£30 installation fee (to install said Sky+HD box to the living room)

And that is it. No mention of paying off his £78.50. This is what Sky said to us directly on the phone. My mum had it on loudspeaker so i heard everything.

So with £200+ vs £30, naturally we opted for the £30 and signed up as brand new customers.



So i still don't get why we're being asked to pay £78.50, unless it's an auto-generated letter & doesn't apply any longer - as we're new customers.

macman

What about the 30 days notice that is required to terminate the old account? But surely this does not apply (or is not enforced) when the account holder is deceased?

liam8282

Sounds tricky to me, if I were you I would try and get clarification from Sky.

We can only tell you what we think Sky are doing, Sky will tell you what is actually happening.