Setanta Sports - Writing a complaint help please

amritajay

red45 wrote: »

hi im also having trouble with setanta i signed up in july as pay as u go and have just checked my bank statement and they have already taken out 4 payments for 4 different amounts 1 for £9.99, 24.99, 14.99 and 18.99 ive received no contract or paper work from them and as i am disabled and ill most of the time im not sure what to do for the best . ive read the previous post and will try to ring or e-mail as i am unable to write to them but thank you 4 ure suggestions . ill let u know how i get on

cancel ur dd first thing

setanta_are_crooks

Setanta are a nightmare, and I will never engage directly with them again.

After ignoring my first cancellation letter, I sent another one by recorded delivery, threatening legal action. The tv channel was cut off fairly promptly and they stopped stealing my money. About 3 months later, I received a refund.

Lets hope that Setanta do not reach their subscription targets and go out of business. We can all help here by following up our complaints - use as much of their admin time as possible and make their reputation even worse.

sarah1980

We signed up to Setanta 2 weeks ago for the sole reason that we wanted to watch the England qualifiers. Switched on TV at 6.30pm last night, the picture kept freezing up and around 10 mins after kick-off we got the "No Satellite Signal is being received" error message. Rang Setanta, went through various menus and was eventually greeted by the recorded message "Due to exceptional demand, all our customer service advisers are busy taking other calls. Please call back later." Finally managed to get through around 10 mins before final whistle and the dimwit at Setanta said he'd reset the signal and we should expect it to be up and running in 30-60 mins.

Great... Muppets.

Thing is, when we initially signed up it was on the "first 3 months half price" special offer that they had been flogging to death all over the press. I had an email that morning with the offer, when I rang up they told me the promotion had ended (!). I explained I had an email sent that morning (and could forward it to them if required). They asked what the offer code to quote was, I said there wasn't one (and believe me, I have good eyesight). They said in that case they couldn't give me the half price offer, at which point I said fair enough, I won't subscribe.

Cue hasty backtracking and murmurs of how they thought they "might be able to sort something out"...

Muppets...

nico11

Sorry this is a bit long but bear with me.....

I reluctantly decided to subscribe to Setanta on Saturday afternoon so that I could watch the England qualifiers so I called the number on-screen to register.

The opening voice message tells you that for a quicker and easier process, to subscribe on-line which I did.

Switched on Setanta at about 6:00pm (an hour after registering) for a 6:50pm kick off and I got the broadcast, assuming my subscription had gone through. At 6:30pm, i got a message telling me I needed to subscribe if I wanted to watch the channel so I gave them a call. Went through to the customer services option and selected 'not existing subscriber' as I wasnt sure wat the status of my internet subscription was, this put me through to the sales department.

I spoke to a lady and she told me that my subscription had gone through but she couldnt help with the transmission and only Customer services could help. I then asked to be put through to customer service and was told that Customer services were shut at weekends and to call back Monday. I then asked for my subscription to be cancelled as the main reason for subscribing was to watch the England game and if I didnt have a transmission, I wasnt getting what was promised. I was then told to write to Customer Services to cancel as she couldnt do it.....I promptly hung the phone up as I was quite annoyed by this.

10 minutes later, the transmission of the pre-match came on....result!!

10 minutes into the game, it went off again telling me I needed to subscribe to watch the game (the pre-match build up was constantly advertising that to watch 'this' game and others, to subscribe giving the impression that by subscribing now, I wouldnt miss any of the England game (which I was now missing)).

I callled Customer Services and got the message that all of the the operators were busy with a high influx of calls and to call back later (no call queuing system??) which was a bit weird seeing as I was told earlier that they were shut, so I went through to the sales department again.

A guy answered and I started with "If I subscribe to Setanta now, on the phone, would I be able to watch the (currently in progress) England game?" to which the reply was "it will take from 5 minutes to 1 hour from registration".

I then asked why if I had subscribed over 2 hours ago, I still couldnt watch the game! He then told me I needed to speak to Customer Services and so I asked how I could do that if it was shut?!? I was then put through to a supervisior.

Went through the same thing with the supervisor, explained how I thought it was wrong that viewers were being told that if they subscribed now, they would be able to watch the game which obviously wasnt the case and how I keep getting palmed off with the "call customer services" crap which conveniently, has a non-queuing answerphone system that tells you to call back later and I suspect, doesnt get answered until Monday.

I was then informed that it can take up to 24 hours to enable the viewing of Setanta Sports in extreme cases so, I again pointed out that they were giving the impression that viewers could watch the game immediately if the subscribed now and that I find it quite surprising that I was an extreme case and that it all seemed very wrong and a bit fishy.

He told me to try a different Customer Services number (which I had already tried including another 3 that I got from the internet) at which point I informed him that they all lead back to the same number advertised with the same "call back later" message and that in fact, this message was a fob off and that Customer Services was really closed until Monday.

At all times, he refused to admit that Customer Services was in fact shut but he did tell me not to bother calling them as they had an unusually high number of calls and to wait until things quietened down on Monday?!?


In conclusion, I finally got the last 10 minutes of the game after much frustration and lack of any support fron the Sales line. If customer Service is shut at weekends (which I suspect it is) I find that very poor from a subscription based service who are more than happy to take your money but not support you in providing the service. I also dont like how misleading they were with every issue I brought to their attention including having to constantly redial a number for support which may or may not exist and the complication in cancelling the subscription which hadnt actually kicked in.

sarah1980

Nico, it seems we had a similar problem. Our coverage was also intermittent on Saturday and we signed up 2 weeks in advance! I'm sure that's why CS was so busy, cos loads of us were having problems viewing the match.

I have written a complaint to CS requesting a refund of what I've paid so far and threatening to cancel - which I will if they refuse. May as well go down the pub and watch it.

BTW are you a Sky customer? Setanta is free on BT Vision but we can't get it where we are :-(

nico11

Hi, yeah I am a SKY customer.

Thought about the BT Vision route but havent been that happy with BT services in the past so didnt go that way.

With regards to Customer Services, I was told by one of the operators in sales that they are shut at weekends; no-one else told me the same thing but no-one would confirm that it was open either.

It is a bit suspect that during the weekend, I couldnt get hold of customer services at all and that you arent put in a queuing system but instead told to hang up and try later......a convenient loop in my opinion!

VfM4meplse

setanta_are_crooks wrote: »

Setanta are a nightmare, and I will never engage directly with them again.

Only because you watch it at mine! (is this indirect engagement?). OFCOM btw are completely impotent. They have a remit but no teeth.

whu

libra10 wrote: »

Saynoto0870 gives a geographical phone number for this firm -

020 79308926

Might be cheaper when phoning

Just to let everyone know that this number no longer seems to be working as I have just tried it

whu

libra10 wrote: »

Saynoto0870 gives a geographical phone number for this firm -

020 79308926

Might be cheaper when phoning

Hi - this number no longer works - do you know the premium rate number for them as I can't find a number for hem!!

tyegarth

uktim29 wrote: »

Is this the worlds biggest paragraph?

I too think Setanta are the pits, not only do they operate an appalling service but their coverage (especially golf) is nothing to write home about. For the most part they are in breach of contract under the Supply of Goods and Services Act and I would strongly suggest that anybody who is banging their head against a brick wall to try and resolve their problems to write to them giving 7 days notice to resolve issue and then if no satisfactory resolution at end of notice period yoiu will need to flag up mater to OTELO.