Sky Customer Service is beyond a joke - Rant.

BottomRung

As my Sky contract is nearing the end I decided to compare some prices to try and save some money. When I looked at my online Sky statement I noticed they have been charging me for multiroom, which I do not have, for the last 11 months. I called Sky Billing and explained the situation in detail to the girl that answered. She put me on hold a few times and then would ask a quick question, then back on hold for 5 mins. After 25 mins of this I asked her not to put me on hold as it's frustrating. She puts me on hold and then after 5 minutes transfers me to a random department who know nothing of my complaint. He asks me what the problem is. I'd been on phone 30 mins at this point so just asked to be put on to a manager. He refused this request until I asked for his name to make a complaint about this situation. He then says he will get the manager, puts me on hold, then cuts me off. Getting a little angry now, and nothing solved. Bear in mind this is not a free phone line.

I call back to billing as have no choice but to resolve this and ask the girl to call me back and then get a manager for me. She calls back, puts me on hold, then cuts me off. By this point i'm gobsmacked at the treatment i'm recieving.

I call yet again and get Josh in Bangalore call centre, he promises me a manager will call me in 5 minutes and takes my number again. 30 mins later no call from anyone. So after hours on phone I have got nowhere and have wasted most of my evening.

I look into the Sky forums and make a post detailing all this on there and am responded to by a Sky Forum Moderator. He PM's me, gets my details and calls me back. He agrees i've been overcharged and then starts the refund procedure. All good I think and thank him immensely for his help. I tell him i'm going to cancel but will do tomorrow as have to call sky again to do this.

Next day I call Cancellations and get a scottish guy called John. He asks why I want to leave and so I explain yet again the entire Saga. He asks to look inot the account notes and will call me back. At this point he sounded friendly and helpful. Few minutes later he calls back and with a very elated voice now tells me I'm not entitled to a refund because I never called to cancel Multiroom. I never ordered multiroom, have 1 box and 1 viewing card and the engineer installed the 1 box I have. I explained that if I didn't order Multiroom and didn't have another box, why would I call to cancel. He just says that his system is right and that I am lying. For 5 or 10 minutes he just insinuates that I am making all this up and won't be getting a refund. He then realises that I already have the credit on my Sky account for this amount as it was sorted by Forum team night previously. He asks why I hadn't mentioned this. I explain I only called to cancel my account and never asked him to investigate the solved issue. He then denies insinuating I was a liar and agrees to cancel my account but I will have to wait 31 days for my refund and I would need to call back to claim it.

I explain the Forum Mod told me it will be in my bank account by Friday (today) but he says 'no way you will not get it for over 31 days'.... I go back to the forum and retract my praise for the forum mod and explain he hasn't done what I asked him and has credited my Sky account instead. After some tooing and froing another mod looks into it and assures me it will be in my bank account in 7-10 days (So not friday then?).

I ask for a manager to call me to discuss this whole saga and investiget the abuse i've suffered from these ameteur customer service agents but nobody has ever bothered to call. I gave them the opportunity to rectify this many times and was met with rudeness, accusations and poor poor service.

Apologies for the wall of text, just had to get it off my chest.
Still have no clue if I get my refund or not. I implore anyone thinking of signing up to these cowboys, think again and look elsewhere.

Henry_Hoover_2

What a load of hassle!

We were looking into getting sky, and looked online, but to get a quote you had to enter your details. I made sure that I opted out of any marketing etc, and gave a false name. (Mr Smith)

A few days later, someone from Sky knocked at our door at around 7pm, asking for Mr Smith, as they wanted to go through the "amazing deals" that were currently available for new customers :eek:

I would never deal with a company that would just turn up on your doorstep, with no appointment, to try and pressure us into signing up.

BottomRung

You had a narrow escape Henry going by my experience.

miniemma

Hi BottomRung

I've had almost exactly the same problem with Sky but with Film4, years ago when it was a chargeable extra. Same denials and accusations that we had ordered it and not cancelled etc.

I emailed [EMAIL="jeremy.darroch@bskyb.com"]jeremy.darroch@bskyb.com[/EMAIL] and everything was sorted within 24 hours! You are not actually emailing Jeremy (CEO) but you do get through to an extremely helpful team. Why can't all the staff be trained the same?!

If you do not get your refund I would definitely suggest send a 'brief and to the point' email using the above address.

BottomRung

Thats great, thank you. I will send an email and see what happens. Shame that what started as a request for refund ended so badly purely because of their customer reps. Madness.

stephen77

Sky customer services is not great if you want money back.

Its good when upgrading. i wonder why?

Just make sure you ring from a cheap phone line as some time it cost more in phone charges than what you want amending.

However when we charged wrongly for a multi room they did fix it in the end, though had a little luck after a bit and got a helpful person. That is rare though.

stephen77

On the multi room.

Ask the operator to ping your second box (they can not do this if you one box).
They send a message to your other box. they did with me as we only had one phone line and two boxes. This was to check the second box was at our house, they were going to charge for two seperate package rather then one package until they did this..

Not sure if you have your contract or a email etc confirming your purchase at the time. Unless deal X was on you only get one box free. not to boxes so must be a recpit showing you only bought one box some where?

supersuperpav

Wow! I must say I've never ever had a problem with SKY but that sounds like a nightmare.

Laz123

I believe it's Murdock's policy to employ morons in their customer services depts. Either that or they play childish games. I'll never use them again after so much hassle trying to cancel years ago.

BottomRung

Hi again, after using the email address above I have now been contacted by Sky who have agreed to listen to the calls and take any necessary action. They do seem to be taking the experience very seriously so hopefully some good will come of this. Shame it took so many calls and so much aggro to get to someone that wants to help. Also refund has now been placed in my bank. Thanks for the support guys. :j