Am I being conned by SKY? I am trying to reclaim monies overcharged?

skb***

I AM ALSO WONDERING IF I MAY BE ONTO SOMETHING HERE???
Can anyone help, advise or have had similar problems?

After years of problems with sky I am about to complain at the highest level and demand monies overcharged? Many of you may tell me I should have done something earlier but it has been one of those things always at the bottom of my list in a very hectic life but now I am mad and have the time!!!

A quick list of problems to give you an idea....

Have been with SKY for 15+ years
Also subscribed to the full packages - all the channels etc
TIME after TIME had problems with telephone connections. When SKY is plugged in eventually our BT line goes down - OR the SKY line goes down.
TIME and TIME again we report it to both SKY and BT. BT blame SKY and SKY blame BT!!! BT have been out - AT EVEN MORE COSTS TO US - nothing wrong - SKY have been out - NOTHING WRONG!!! Neither will accept blame or help - a constant battle....
SKY is not affected other than we cannot buy Movies via the line or go on-line with sky Interactive - not a problem for us.
Then SKY contact us telling us we are breaching our contract and are going to charge us extra.
They then do this and we go through it all again (BT and SKY) but over and over again and now constantly (SKY send us round and round in circles if we call to ask for help trying to resolve this - MORE PHONE BILLS COSTS WHEN HOLDING FOR OVER AN HOUR SOMETIMES!)
We are talking our monthly subscription usually £50+ - they have been charging us £90+ - THIS HAVE BEEN FOR YEARS THIS HAS BEEN GOING ON
(AND BEFORE ANYONE SAYS WE SHOULD HAVE SORTED OUT EARLIER - IT HAS BEEN SUCH A HEADACHE HAVE JUST LEFT AND PAID TO DEAL WITH LATER AND WE KNOW WE CAN CHANGE OVER BUT AGAIN - MORE HEADACHES TRYING TO ORGANISE AND IN AN EXTREMELY BUSY LIFE ALWAYS GETS FORGOTTEN UNTIL NOW!!!)
The strange thing is that sometimes one month all of a sudden we get charged the normal amount - at last has it all been sorted - no the next month it is back up!!! How do they figure that one out!!!

SO on talking and moaning to friends about it I was told that a similar thing happened to one particular friend but when they contacted them were advised that as long as you are out of YOUR 1ST YEAR OF CONTRACT you do not need to have a telephone line connected and you will not be charged any extra!!!!

So I called to be told... " um...er.... but you have a SKY+ box and your old normal one is upstairs so this does not apply"...!!!!!!!

But I also have other friends (I can name over 10 now) that have SKY + and or SKY normal boxes - DO NOT have their phones lines connected and have never been contacted or overcharged!!!

So how do they explain this one - am just finishing off a letter which not only complains to the highest level - I want to know why we have been penalised and no-one else has (or have they) and I want my money back.....

ARE THEY CHARGING OTHER PEOPLE AND JUST GETTING AWAY WITH IT????

And to top it all I CANCELLED THE DIRECT DEBIT TO GET TO THE BOTTOM OF THIS ONCE AND FOR ALL!!! Within 2 days of the d/d due date - I have a letter from SKY advising that they have added an extra £30+ to the account (I cancelled the d/d - it did not bounce - what if I was changing bank accounts!!) They also said that I had 14 days to PAY or my subscription would be suspended!!!!! WITHIN ANOTHER 4 DAYS - THEY SUSPENDED MY SERVICE....

AM I HITTING MY HEAD AGAINST THE WALL OR AM I ONTO SOMETHING HERE AND CAN I GET OTHER PEOPLE TO GET ON THIS AND START A SKY REVOLUTION TO GET OUR MONEY BACK!!!!!

OR AM I THE ONLY ONE....

ADVISE PLEASE - I AM FUMING!!!!!!!

the_big_fact_hunt

i would send a carefully worded letter to their customer services and a copy of it to their head office both by registered post, explaining the situation and giving them 21 days to sort the problems out and refund the money, or you will instruct the local small claims court to bring action against them, BUT, before you do it you must make very sure that you have your facts right because sky are a very big company and they will try and get you to pay their costs if you lose, so you must be 110% sure you are correct. Taking them to the small claims court is quite cheap and you should be abl to get every penny back IF you are right..... good luck
:wall:

A_Nice_Englishman

I think the key to this is that you have two Sky boxes and presumably a Multiroom subscription. Multiroom allows you to watch all the channels you subscribe to on both boxes and costs £10 a month extra.

A condition of Multiroom is that you have both boxes connected to the same telephone line so that the boxes can phone Sky and Sky can check that the boxes are in the same house. If they didn't do this you could give the second box to someone else and Sky would lose revenue.

If Sky don't receive calls from both boxes from the same telephone number they assume that they are not in the same house and charge you the full price for two subscriptions.

You are supposed to keep a new box connected to the telephone line for the first twelve months but Sky don't seem to worry about this if you only have one box.

I can't help with the technical problem with the telephone connectoions I'm afraid.

riando

That “Nice Englishman” is right. Sky will only nag you about the boxes being connected to the telephone line if you have a multi-room subscription.

They say in the T&C's that all boxes must be connected to the telephone line at all times to ensure they are being used at the same address.

As long as each of your boxes calls back sky at least once a month they will be happy and as far as they are concerned you will not be in violation.

If any of your boxes miss a callback on that month they will usually start by sending you letters informing you about this.

After the third letter where the wording as become a bit more serious and they are telling you that they will charge you, they will start charging you.

The charges are the difference between the £10 per month you pay for the multi-room subscription and the package you have.

E.g. if you have the sky world package currently at £43.50 per month the charges will be £33.50 and you will still pay the £10 multi-room subscription so you will be paying the full £43.50 !

As soon as a callback is received from the box in violation the charges will stop (if this callback is received before the third letter there should be no charges made).

The months that sky were receiving callbacks... they were charging you the correct amount... the months they weren't they were charging you a 2nd subscription.

As for the technical problems..... you haven't given a very good description of them.

If the BT line goes down... then perhaps there was a fault with one of you boxes "stuck on call back mode" and the line was busy. You would know this by picking up the phone and hearing the noise from a dial up modem. Or you could be sure it was the Sky box by disconnecting it from the line and trying to see if the problem was resolved.

Obviously if they problem was still there - the BT line was "down" then the issue was nothing to do with the sky box.

If the issue was resolved.... then it is the Sky box at fault. Since you have 2 boxes further testing in this way would determine which one.

Well this is a lot longer than I intended but I hope it covers everything.

:P

Big_Bird_4

Tell SKY you want to cancel your whole subscription. Say you've decided to move to Virgin or something. Then wait. Before your subscription ends SKY will contact you to try to keep your custom. The person that contacts you will be from a customer retention department and will be on a mission not to lose your custom -- you've been paying them a fortune every month for fifteen years so you are one of their most valuable customers. They REALLY won't want to lose you and will be much more helpful than the people you usually speak to at SKY. They'll bend over backwards infact. You might have to bluff them by turning down their first offers. But as the deadline for your subscription ending approaches they will call back. Aim to get them to replace your sky boxes and refund all the charges. You might not get all of this, but you might get close.