The assault course of trying to cancel sky!

StrawberryTwist

Can anyone tell me if I was to cancel our Sky direct debit will this affect our credit rating?

We have had a Sky subscription for 13 years, so we are well out of contract. Trying to cancel is a nightmare! My husband is on exercise at the moment and Sky is in his name, so we have tried emailing them to cancel under their contact page, they have a link just for cancelling as long as you are signed in with your sky ID, they replied 8 days later saying we have to call, that they cannot do it by email. He has since tried to call them himself to cancel from his mobile but they are passing him round the houses, offering incentives to stay etc and when he says no he just wants to cancel the phone loses connection - twice now?!

We would like the original date that we tried to cancel to be notice of the 30 days but its proving relentless trying to sort it out!

So, will I be messing up our credit reports if I just cancel the DD? And what would happen if we did decide in the future to go back to them? ( doubtful after this?!)

Thank you for any advice.

pen1

Hi StrawberryTwist,

Emailing via sky.com is a legitimate cancellation method. However, staff commonly find reason not to complete the cancellation without demanding telephone contact. The reason that is commonly cited when it's questioned is "data protection".

According to Sky's terms & conditions, the information that must be provided by the account holder when they are cancelling a product or service is name, address, post code and customer number. I therefore advise that this information be inserted in to downgrade/ cancellation messages sent by any legitimate route, so as to eliminate "data protection" being cited in all but exceptional cases, as a reason for not processing cancellation notices at the first time of asking.

For background to my comments/complaints procedures etc. see information and links in my posts at https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4461561

There's additional information and examples of the problems customers are experiencing cancelling products/services, on the Sky forum, in threads such as:
http://helpforum.sky.com/t5/My-Sky-Account-Management/Feedback-for-Sky-on-difficulty-cancelling/td-p/950332
http://helpforum.sky.com/t5/Billing-Payments/Remove-a-package-or-cancel-your-subscription/td-p/763558

Cancelling the direct debit is, of course, your husband's prerogative, but my advice would be, in the first instance, he use the complaints mechanisms if necessary, and demand that rights to cancel are appropriately respected (cancelling the direct debit can exacerbate the issue, although I cannot give an absolute answer as to what point it would be likely to affect a credit record). A refund can, if necessary, be sought at a later time, per the Direct Debit Guarantee .

Terms & Conditions (tv):

....
YOUR RIGHTS TO CANCEL
.....
1. Call us on 08442 414 414; or
2. Write to us at: Sky Subscribers Services Limited, PO Box 43, Livingston, West Lothian EH54 7DD.
3. Fax us on: 01506 484343
4. Send us an email by visiting the "Contact Us" section at sky.com

• You must give your name, address, post code and customer number when you are cancelling any product or service you have ordered from Sky.
....

http://www.sky.com/shop/terms-conditions/tv/

Sky Customer Complaints Code of Practice:
http://help.sky.com/my-account/complaints/sky-customer-complaints-code-of-practice

macman

Cancelling the DD without cancelling your contract first does not constitute cancellation and will result in your credit record being trashed.

Fruit_and_Nut_Case

pen1 wrote: »

Hi StrawberryTwist,
<snip>

I'm not a Sky subscriber but I think you deserve a for this.

poppasmurf_bewdley

I cancelled Sky at the end of April, simply by ringing them on their phone number, and telling them I wanted to cancel. It took about five minutes in total. When I was asked why I was cancelling, I told them I was now a pensioner and my reduced rate subscription of £52 for Sky World plus HD and 3D was coming to an end, and I could not afford the full price.

Within five days of cancelling, I had received a phone call offering to renew my Sky World plus HD for £35pm for 12 months, which I accepted.

visidigi

I emailed them and they tried to ring me, I was out of the country when they emailed me and said they had tried, I mailed them back and told them to stop trying and to just cancel inline with what the web page says is a viable method.

4 hrs later I got a confirmed as cancelled email, backdated to the first email.

Just persevere.

ellie27

We phoned them last night to cancel and within 5 mins or so it was put through.

We are paying £80 phone/broadband/tv/sports and they offered £5 off per month to which we said no.

We are hoping they are going to call us and give us a better price.

We will wait out the 25 days or so and then if OH wants to change his mind about cancelling then he can phone up!!

pen1

Sky like customers to telephone because it gives them the opportunity to undertake customer retention activity, but they don’t have a right to insist upon it for that purpose.

Many customers will choose to telephone in any event, but it isn’t always practical, for example where the main account holder is working/serving abroad; and customers have a right to choose an alternative option in any case.

Customers who choose other alternatives are often told by email or letter that they need to make telephone contact, but often are not told in Sky’s reply what information is needed so that they can provide it by means other than telephone, and only learn later that it’s for “data protection” reasons.

Sky’s online help article- entitled “ Remove a package or cancel your subscription "- doesn’t identify any information that must be included with cancellation requests for “data protection” reasons, and given that an account holder who chooses to “email via sky.com” enters their password to access a secure area, why would they think that they’d got to include other information that the help article doesn’t identify?

The article even directs customers to cancel through one route- “Live chat”- that isn’t available, as customers have found part way through conversations. When challenged on the Sky forum, the response was that the option was only available to discuss cancellations, but that cancellations couldn’t be completed via this method due to “data protection”.

The approach to “data protection” on cancellations differs to the approach to sales through the same secure areas.

Consequently, cancellation processes are attracting a significant amount of complaints, most notably on the Sky forum, with some customers complaining of making multiple attempts by different means to get cancellations processed.

Several posters have indicated that they had been happy with Sky until they wished to cancel (sometimes out of necessity, due to moving home etc.) and had experienced Sky’s cancellation processes, and that the experience had affected their thoughts of re-subscribing in the future.