Sky TV

dycebabe

I was wondering if any of you would be able to help me with a problem I have.

My elderly (83yr old, disabled) granmother has been in the same house and had sky TV for over 12 yrs in this house. I was shocked to recently learn that she was paying between £70-£80 for a basic package with a second box upstairs.

I called sky 3 weeks ago to see if this could be reduced as my granmother is only on £300 a month pension. I was gobsmacked to learn that she was only on their basic package but that they were charging her £20 every month because her second box upstairs was not connected to the telephone line(and had been since June 2011). This box was installed over 12 years ago and has never been connected to a telephone mline.

I am angry because without informing us they just decided to start this charge as of June last year and I still would never have known if I hadn't phoned them to discuss why she was being charged so much. I spent 2 days speaking to various people and managers over the phone but got no where (Have now cancelled the second box).

I was tod to contact Sky at the Livingstone address as this was the only place that could deal with this, whic I did. But its now been over 3 weeks and I still have not heard anything. I think that this is appaling how they have treated my granmother, if it wasn't for me calling up to see if we could reduce her monthly bill we would still not no anything about this charge.

What should I do now?

brettcta

you'll probably get this money back - i dealt with a few like this when i was at sky and we had one that got a rebate of 2 and a half years worth of overpayments.

Markb06

Even though I agree with the above part of your contract with Sky with multi room is a connection to a telephone line.

Hopefully they will refund you though.But you should connect the box to a phone line.

dycebabe

so why were we not charged for the first 11 years and then without warning they charged us from June 2011. How can they legaly do this?

The second box was cancelled and has been disconnected

melbell

dycebabe wrote: »

so why were we not charged for the first 11 years and then without warning they charged us from June 2011. How can they legaly do this?

The second box was cancelled and has been disconnected

read your terms and conditions.

Its not disgusting they are enforcing the t&cs your grandmother agreed to.

thumperrabbit

I posted here as I was in a similar situation. As someone has made an insulting remark I decided to remove my post.

Yours
'Mug'

Mk14:37

thumperrabbit wrote: »

I did not keep track of the payments and it was a couple of YEARS later when we were reviewing all our finances I called Sky to ask what I was getting for my £104 per month.

Then you're a mug twice over - firstly for paying £104 per month and secondly for not knowing what you were getting for such a ridiculous sum.

Tropez

dycebabe wrote: »

so why were we not charged for the first 11 years and then without warning they charged us from June 2011. How can they legaly do this?

The second box was cancelled and has been disconnected

Sky Multiroom wasn't available until 2003 so you couldn't have had it 11 years. I know this because I joined Sky in 2001 and the only thing they were offering back then was a Magic Eye.

Anyway, the way it works is Sky periodically and at random send a signal via satellite to a set number of boxes telling them to phone home. The boxes phone a freephone number and this confirms to Sky the boxes are where they are supposed to be. The reason Sky do this is to prevent someone with say the full Sky World package taking out multiroom then giving his mate the second box with the £10.25 subscription.

Not all boxes are told to phone home at once. There's several million Multiroom subscribers and it would crash the system if all the boxes started trying to phone home so it is quite possible for someone not to have one of their boxes given the instruction for years. Instead, the computer in charge of this selects a random chunk and then any that fail to call home are elevated for further scrutiny. In many cases, it is just a glitch with the phone line and they'll call home next time, or sometimes a faulty modem.

If they repeatedly fail to call home after being instructed to do so then Sky send a letter to the owner with instructions on how to ensure the boxes are connected and to test for errors if they are. Your grandmother is clearly claiming not to have received such a letter. Now, maybe she didn't and the letter was lost in the post (certainly possible, plenty of letters go missing in our area). Or, she may have received the letter and not understood what it meant because she didn't seem to understand she was paying more than she should have done for Sky.

At this point, if the letter receives no response, Sky's Terms and Conditions allow them to operate under the assumption that the second box is not where it should be and they will charge the owner for two full subscriptions to make up what they may be losing if the box is being used by an unauthorised third party.