Sky admin error

jenny198

Hi, I have never posted before so not sure if this is the right place or not but hopefully one of you lovely people can help!
Last week I recieved a letter from Sky saying that my account balance was £380 pounds and that it needed to be paid by August 20th or our service would be suspended. My usual bill is around £58 so I was very shocked and called them to find out what happened. The man I spoke to was very apologetic and explained that we had not paid anything for 6 months, as due to an admin error sky had not attempted to take our direct debit. I then asked if as it wasnt our fault could we pay the money in instalments. He said yes but only if it is fully paid by August 20th. I then said I would speak to my boyfriend and call back. The next day my boyfriend called and spoke to a girl who was very unhelpful! She again admitted it was completely their fault and said we needed to pay the balance in full by 20th or we would be cut off until they recieved the full balance. When my boyfriend said he wasnt sure what to do she went silent on the phone until he said he would pay. Personally I would have asked to speak to someone higher but he was so frustrated with her he just wanted to end the call.
Our bank account that sky is paid from is purely for standing orders and direct debits so we only check it when a company says they havnt recieved a payment, which did happen once a long time ago with sky and they emailed me asking for payment but that did not happen once within these 6 months.
I know now the money is paid we dont have any chance of getting it back but we really couldnt afford to pay a lump sum that high. Is there anything we can do?

Niv

Although I have sympathy for the way SKY has gone about getting this payment, you have said that you have an account specifically for DD’s so I assume that you ensure you have enough in there to cover all your DD’s, you also state that you only check this account if there is a query from a company due to non-payment so as you would have been unaware of the funds building in the account you wouldn’t of taken it out and spent it would you? As such you should have had enough there to cover this back payment, so I am unsure why you say you could not afford the lump sum?

I would suggest that in this case, now it is resolved, that there is not much you can do regarding sky, but maybe in future it may be helpful to check your DD account every now and then? Is it available online for instance, only takes a couple of mins a month to check things have gone out.

dt3887

if you have a specific account that payments go out of, surely the money you would have been putting in there for sky would still be sitting there, so not a big deal?

StuC75

with Niv & dt3887, the bills account should be carrying a surplus of what would have been taken by sky..

If you had this problem before Sky may have put some kind of flag on the account which allowed this to build up without the normal course of action being taken...

So you ought to be able to pay this update for service to continue...

sky_insider

Hi,

Sorry to hear this has been the case. I know that you're not the only customer who was put in this situation, unfortunately. There's absolutely nothing you can do, even though it feels unjust. However, what you CAN do is call Sky, explain that because of their lack of understanding, you've now decided that you no longer want to be paying the kind of price you're being charged. Explain that if you're not offered any sort of reduction, you'll be considering leaving Sky. They'll make you an offer of a discount for the next 6 or 12 months and although it doesn't recover the lump sum you've paid, it's easier on the bank balance for the next few months at least.

giraffe69

but we really couldnt afford to pay a lump sum that high

As others have asked where was the money that you had put into the dd/standing order account?

StuC75

Looks like the OP has disappeared after not hearing what wanted to hear...

Gordon_Hose

Gone to spend the surplus cash in their account I expect.

jenny198

I wish I did have surplus cash to spend! But suprisingly I have to work to earn my money I cant sit in front of a computer all day! I would like to say that I wasnt expecting anything, just wondering if anyone had any advice, maybe it had happened to someone else who knew to handle the situation differently. Also if there had been a different way to go about things someone in the future could have found some help on this thread as I searched to no avail after my first phone call.
Yes I realise I should have kept a closer eye on the account, I usually check before big bills such as council tax and rent are due to come out but only to make sure that there is enough money in there. The account in question is always in overdraft and my boyfriend or I will often put in a little extra in each month so there is no amount I expect to see when I check. We have also had to pay our TV liscence and 6 monthly water bill in the last couple of months so there has not been any spare money in there.
Thank you for the helpful advice some of you gave, I will speak to sky about reducing our payments, even if it is only to cancel some of the many sports channels by bf insits on but very rarely uses!!

Niv

jenny, you have set up aaccount for DD's which is a good idea, but from the sound of it you are not really using it to its full potential. Bills like 6monthly water bill should not be a shock, you know it is coming and in an ideal world you should be putting 1/6 away each month.

I get the impression that your situation is not that dire, but it may be worth going over to the debt free wannabe board, posting a SOA and see if you get some help that way.

Also I think that seeing as you have this account for DD's, you should sit down with your bf and work out how much needs to be put in there each mont from each of you and dd that in as soon as you are paid. That way you will not be running it in OD and also 6monthly bills will be no shock (you can ofcourse pay your water bill monthly dont forget). By doing this you both will know how much money is really left over to spend on the luxuries in life.

This is not meant as a telling off or anything, just trying to help.

Niv