Setanta Sports cancellation fiasco

kirstiejo

[FONT=Lucida Handwriting, Cursive]Sent to Setanta tonight. Anyone think I'll get a reply.......?[/FONT]

[FONT=Lucida Handwriting, Cursive]Still no response to the email below yet you still have time to phone me at 8.30pm tonight to find out why my Direct Debit has been cancelled. As I explained to the lady I spoke to, my Direct Debit has been cancelled due to the unfairness of the situation with regards to waiving connection fees for some people but not others and because you did not have the courtesy to reply to my email dated 3 weeks ago!! I no longer wish to do business with a company who has very poor customer service and as I explained to the lady on the telephone I no longer require your channel. It will be interesting to see whether or not you find time to reply to this email, but I am almost positive you will find time to chase up a £5 payment from me. From my experience of your company (which is less than a months worth), you are very good at taking money from people, chasing up money, oh and of course devising clever sounding (and in some ways deceptive) advertising campaigns, but not so good at keeping your customers happy. Don't forget, the best form of advertising is word of mouth and I will ensure I tell as many people as possible what they can expect if they subscribe to your service. I have a feeling Watchdog may be interested in this also as I know from searching many Internet forums there are many others out their who feel the same as myself who also might want to express their opinions and points of view to a programme that could highlight to millions of viewers how poor your service actually is.[/FONT]

To confirm: I WISH TO CANCEL MY SUBSCRIPTION WITH EFFECT FROM 6TH NOVEMBER WHEN I FIRST SUBMITTED AN EMAIL TO YOU FOR WHICH I AM STILL AWAITING A RESPONSE. HAD YOU THE COURTESY OF REPLYING TO MY QUERY WITHIN THE 5 WORKING DAYS YOU SPECIFIED IN YOUR GENERIC RESPONSE EMAIL I WOULD HAVE RESPONDED TO YOU SUBMITTING MY CANCELLATION.

Thanks.

To: [EMAIL="customerservices@setanta.com"]customerservices@setanta.com[/EMAIL]

Subject: Connection Fee

Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2007 18:13:55 +0000

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I set up a subscription to your service on Wednesday 31st October 2007. I set up on-line under the offer of 3 months for £5 a month. I have now been informed that I also have to pay a connection fee of £10 which will be taken from my account with my first months payment.

A friend of mine also set up an account with you but did so via your call centre. They were told at the time that they would be charged a £10 connection fee at which they stated in that case they did not wish to subscribe as they were under the impression that the total cost to subscribe under this offer was £5 per month (as was I!) The call centre operator then asked them if there was no connection charge would they still subscribe to which my friend replied yes and therefore the call centre operator informed them that they would waive the £10 connection fee.

I would have set up my subscription via the call centre had it not been for the recorded message telling me that I was 'in a queue as we are extremely busy' and told that it was possible to subscribe on-line, which I decided to do after being on hold for 10 minutes...... Imagine my disgust to now find out that as I subscribed on-line I have missed out on this apparently very secret offer of waiving the £10 connection fee. I would like your views on this matter and whether you think this is fair both to me and the thousands of other people who have missed out on this top secret offer...... I would also like you to inform me whether or not you will be waiving my connection fee as I now know about this top secret offer. If I am still charged the connection fee, that will be the last £10 you ever get out of me and I will be sure to inform everybody I know of the way in which you do business - unfairly and unjust. This confirms that old saying - 'things aren't always as they seem'. I suggest you change the wording of your advert to "SPECIAL OFFER - HALF PRICE FOR 3 MONTHS (plus the top secret waiving of the top secret £10 connection fee - but only if you subscribe via the call centre). Doesn't quite have the same ring to it does it??

I look forward to hearing from you as soon as possible.

marcus321

:j
To:
Setanta Sports
Customer services

From:
Marcus *****, ******************************
Account Number *******

30th November 2007

Dear Sir / Madam

I hear by give my 30 days notice as required for cancellation of my Setanta Sports subscription with effect from December 3rd 2007. This is to coincide with the minimum 30 day period before notice can be given as just described to me by one of your unhelpful customer service representatives. I was advised when I subscribed to your service for which I only wanted to see the Joe calzaghe vs Kessler fight on the 3rd of November 2007, that I could call the next day and give 30 days notice. I have subsequently tried several times since this date to call to unsubscribe only to be told by an answer phone message that all your representatives are busy. This message ends with me being cut off. I finally decided to call your subscription line to which I immediately got through to be advised of the minimum 30 days BEFORE I can give 30 days notice.

Please escalate this message to the relevant managerial department so that they are aware of this situation as I have been very dissatisfied with my first experience with Setanta and would hesitate before subscribing again.

I will be keeping a copy of this email and forwarding a copy in the post to ensure my subscription is cancelled.

Your sincerely

Marcus ********

marcus321

Heres My email to setanta. Nice to know I'm not the only one
:j
To:
Setanta Sports
Customer services

From:
Marcus *****, ******************************
Account Number *******

30th November 2007

Dear Sir / Madam

I hear by give my 30 days notice as required for cancellation of my Setanta Sports subscription with effect from December 3rd 2007. This is to coincide with the minimum 30 day period before notice can be given as just described to me by one of your unhelpful customer service representatives. I was advised when I subscribed to your service for which I only wanted to see the Joe calzaghe vs Kessler fight on the 3rd of November 2007, that I could call the next day and give 30 days notice. I have subsequently tried several times since this date to call to unsubscribe only to be told by an answer phone message that all your representatives are busy. This message ends with me being cut off. I finally decided to call your subscription line to which I immediately got through to be advised of the minimum 30 days BEFORE I can give 30 days notice.

Please escalate this message to the relevant managerial department so that they are aware of this situation as I have been very dissatisfied with my first experience with Setanta and would hesitate before subscribing again.

I will be keeping a copy of this email and forwarding a copy in the post to ensure my subscription is cancelled.

Your sincerely

Marcus ********

marcus321

I'm obviously crap at this posting malarky!

mulldoonuk

Just spent 25mins on the phone trying to speak to somebody about canceling this cowboy outfit!!...

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=528751&page=5.........
post 97

....just the usual "we are experiencing high call volumes" rubbish....in the end gave up.
So just went into my bank account and canceled my DD...that should get their attention!:D

Steve2

I've been trying to cancel my subscription with Setanta since September! I've just spent 40 minutes waiting for someone to answer my telephone call but still no response. I've written and emailed repeatedly but nobody replies. From a customer's point of view, Setanta must be one of worst companies to get involved with. I wonder if they are in financial difficulties as why else would would they make it so difficult to cancel a subscription?

ice_queen_36

After taking up the special offer of £5 per month I tried ringing today to cancel my subscription to be told by a very nice customer services representative (do you feel the sarcasm in that??!!) that I would have to phone the cancellation dept and she gave me the number and told me they are the only authorised people to cancel my subscription and she also told me that you have to give 30 days notice to give your 30 days notice of cancellation.............after several attempts over the last 24 hours to get through to this dept as all I keep getting is an automated message saying the dept is busy and to call back later, I have cancelled my direct debit at the bank.......who told me to watch my account as Setanta are well known for re -setting up the direct debit without informing you but there is nothing in place at the banks that can prevent them doing this.....and i have also e mailed a complaint to the TV programme Watchdog!!!! so please e mail Watchdog(www.bbc.co.uk/watchdog) and lets get something done about this money grabbing company!!!!!! The number for the cancellations dept is........08712 00 33 22..................Good Luck in getting through!!!Just rung the 0207 766 8484 number(Setanta Production office) they then gave me the following number to ring 0870 050 6950 just told them couldn't get through to the 08712 00 33 22 number and she just said no you wouldn't be able to....... no explanation why!!!! she just transferred me through to an agent in another dept........given a automated message saying that they aim to answer the call in under 5 mins................10 mins later I'm still waiting!!!!!........................then I get some (jobsworth) trying to tell me that im still going to have to pay another months payment even though my payment for dec-jan has been taken today!!!!!! and therefore would cover the cancellation period!!!!

piperlene

After great difficulty and thanks to the above post I did manage to cancel. I was trying the normal number for five days, probably about 70 or 80 times and ALWAYS when you chose 'existing customers' option it stated there weren't enough operators and cut you off. I tried the 'subscribe now' option a few times and funnily enough got through straight away every time! Even just before the Man U v Fulham Game, when apparently they were really busy - that was the excuse every time I spoke to someone on the subscriptions line for why I was not able to get through on the existing customers line!
I did eventually get through after several days at about 11pm only to be told that you can only cancel between 9am and 9pm!!:mad:

That was when I came across this thread and decided to try the number mentioned above - 0870 050 6950 - it seemed to work - at least I did end up in a queue rather than being cut off and whilst it did take 10 mins I finally got to speak to someone.
** TIP ** I decided to say to the operator that I was recording this conversation for Watchdog.
I was put on hold for another few minutes and then someone came on and it was very straightforward and easy, I don't know whether what I said made a difference or not but a minute later I had unsubscribed, so I'm definitely going to use that trick again in future dealings with call centres!

Potsdamerplatz

Setanta are completely useless. Let this be a lesson to everyone NEVER to sign up with them.

They have the contract to show the Scottish Premier League games and not a day goes by when there is some kind of horror story about Setanta in the daily newspapers.

Their customer service department has to be one of the worst ever and they have ripped off many customers by signing them up to *super deals* with no minimum contract but then continue taking money from bank accounts once the customer changes their mind and cancels.

A really bad company who are complete amateurs. :mad:

Mandip

I'm shocked that so many people have experienced problems with a company which I thought was trustworthy.......We signed up with Setanta back in September, with the intention of watching one Premiership match and cancelling the subscription thereafter. However, the match had a fuzzy picture throughout, and then when I tried to cancel, using the 0871 2003322 number, all I got was the automated message saying that they were busy!

I've written two letters, neither of which have received a response. I've tried cancelling what I thought was the Direct Debit, only to find that my sister had actually set up a standing order, which my bank says it cannot cancel. Now, having spoken to Ofom and the Office of Fair Trading I have been told that I should write another letter, sent by recorded delivery, stating that I am giving them 14 days to respond to my letter and that I am entitled to damages as they are not meeting the requirements of the Supply of Goods & Services Act, as they have not used care and skill in providing a service.

I hope that this letter will bring about more success, but I really am furious that these idiots (I shan't use the adjective/s I'm really thinking) can get away with such unethical behaviour.

I hope these scammers get exposed and are forced to change their ways or shut down!!