Reregistering Sky TV using a fake name

[Deleted User]

macman wrote: »

If your girlfriend can't pay her existing Sky bills, then why does she want to resubscribe and potentially run up more debt?

Clearly, because she thinks (and has apparently been told) that she can have the bill "wiped" by subscribing using an alias!:eek:

macman

And she believed that?
This sounds more and more like a silly season wind-up.

robti

Just on the other side of the coin, I know of someone who has had 5 accounts in the last year and keeps being accepted as a new subscriber ( with new equipment) each time putting a fictitious name on the account.

And the worst part of this is she tells the salesman she has been disconnected before, and she is told by them just to sign up with her sister/ nieces names

[Deleted User]

robti wrote: »

And the worst part of this is she tells the salesman she has been disconnected before, and she is told by them just to sign up with her sister/ nieces names

Are you certain this is the case, or have you just been told it was so?
If Sky are providing new equipment to the same address because multiple aliases are being used than that's a clear case of fraud.

mije1983

robti wrote: »

I know of someone who has had 5 accounts in the last year and keeps being accepted as a new subscriber ( with new equipment)

5 in a year?!? I'm very surprised that Sky haven't looked a lot closer at the accounts.

macman

I'm sure they do, but with 10.5m UK customers, even a 0.1% fraud rate (one in a thousand) would result in 105,000 fraudulent accounts.
It's cheaper to sell new subscriptions than investigate fraud.

[Deleted User]

macman wrote: »

It's cheaper to sell new subscriptions than investigate fraud.

Five new accounts to the same address in the space of a year would surely not require a great deal of "investigation"? Sky's systems are surely capable of picking up on that?

Regardless, I doubt the veracity of the story...

robti

I didn't believe her at the start but she showed me some old bills first one in her name then second and third with the same surname but different first then the last two in her niece and nephews name.

To make matters worse her latest box is the 2tb wireless that she asked me if I wanted it as she is just waiting to be cut off again, and freely admits to selling the other boxes (main box and two multi room ones) and only one bed room wired up for sky.

So it is possible that sky don't know everything regarding customer accounts or she is very lucky

Heinz

Words fail me.

mije1983

macman wrote: »

I'm sure they do, but with 10.5m UK customers, even a 0.1% fraud rate (one in a thousand) would result in 105,000 fraudulent accounts.
It's cheaper to sell new subscriptions than investigate fraud.

There is a difference between someone cancelling their Sky account and getting their husband/wife etc to sign up to get new customer deals, and what was suggested above though.

Signing up to obtain new customer deals in a spouse's name will probably not concern Sky. After all, they most likely would have offered the outgoing customer 50% off at some point during/after the cancellation period anyway. So they are no worse off, barring a new box which won't cost Sky anywhere near the price they charge customers anyway.

However, I find it hard to believe that when it is obviously an attempt to defraud Sky (5 new accounts to the same address in a year?!?), to which they will never see any return from the customer, that they wouldn't have some sort of mechanism in place to spot this. A lot of large companies' anti-fraud measures are computerised anyway, so it's not even a case of a human having to look through reems of information.