Setanta Sports - Writing a complaint help please

rggrgg

Hi all - useful thread, wish I'd found it a few weeks ago. Below is my complaint letter to Setanta, despatched today, which shows my experience with these 'people':

Dear Sir/Madam

On the 12th of August this year, I reluctantly decided to subscribe to your service (reluctantly as I already give Sky enough of my money to watch Premier League football), and attempted to do so via your website. I entered various details and went through various stages of the process on your website, before the website gave an error (something along the lines of your ‘CMS system’ not being contactable, and being unable to finish the process), and informed me to telephone your customer services people to deal with this. I was sufficiently irritated by this stage that I decided I did not need your service, and did not proceed any further (assuming that this error meant what it said and that the process had not completed).

Yesterday (September 3rd), I received a ‘Welcome Brochure’ with a letter dated 28th August welcoming me as a ‘subscriber’ – I then checked on my satellite box to find that the Setanta signal was enabled (which I did not know about before). I immediately rang your Customer Service number, and was told that I needed to talk to your cancellations department who were not open at the time (6pm). I have therefore rung again today, to find out that according to you there is no way I can cancel this ‘subscription’ due to your terms and conditions, until the 12th of September, by which time the total cost to me would be ~£30. The representative I spoke to was Tom xxxx., at about 1:30pm today, September 4th.

I explained the circumstances above, i.e. that I had not completed the subscription process due to the failure of your website, and received no notification that I was a subscriber until the letter yesterday, and was therefore not in a position to do anything about it until today. Under ‘Distance Selling’ regulations, I have a cooling off period of seven days from the start of my arrangement with you, which began yesterday when I received your letter (since up until that point I was not aware that I had an arrangement with you), and I therefore require you to cancel my subscription immediately and refund any charges made to me.

The following are a few points from my discussion with Mr xxxx:
- According to him (after consultation with a ‘supervisor’), the subscription process did complete, and therefore I am stuck with it (although I received no notification email or any other notification until yesterday).
- I cannot cancel this agreement until the 12th of September even if I inform him today. I therefore have to ring back ‘On the 12th of September’ preferably, or at least between the 12th and the 20th (I don’t understand the significance of this other than it makes it more difficult for me to avoid you charging me further, since I might forget to ring on the day. My repeated demands to cancel now, effective whenever he could make it effective, since I was not prepared to telephone again
- I was told I have no rights under distance selling regulations as I have accepted your Terms and Conditions (this is of course, untrue, as the whole point of Distance Selling regulations is to avoid organizations such as yours behaving this way).
- I asked to speak to his supervisor and was told that I could not, as he was my ‘Account Manager’
- I then asked for his name, and was told it was ‘Tom’. I requested his surname and was told that he was ‘unwilling to give me his surname’. I said I required his surname since he was my self-proclaimed “Account Manager” and only then did he give it to me.
- Incidentally, the ‘Customer Service’ number on your welcome letter, 08712 00 33 00 was not contactable (just a long, out-of-order type tone) either today or yesterday.

Once again, I require you to cancel this subscription (which I didn’t know I’d entered into until yesterday) immediately, under the relevant Distance Selling regulations, and refund me any charges to my credit card. Failing this, I will be taking action against you to recover my costs (with additional legal costs which I will seek to recover from you), publicizing this situation to the maximum of my ability, as well as taking up the issue of your misleading advertising (the line which I recall most clearly is ‘£9.99 a month, no Contract’ which is obviously not the case).

sima3069

just a update, got letter of setanta saying I cancelled direct debit & to set it up again. & outstanding balance will remain on your account and viewing cannot be reactivated untill the account is settled. so sent them a email

on the 23rd july 2007 I rang setanta to cancel, giving one months notice to cancel on the 23rd august. on the 23rd of august you rang me asking not to cancel & sign up at £9.99 to which I declined , to which you went ahead and took £15 from my bank acount with out my say so, to which I cancelled direct debit & have now passed all this information onto bbc's watchdog as contacting you by phone is a complete waste of time as you don't cancel over phone and I suspect this email will not get answered & see watchdog/small claims court as my only hope.

got a email back "3 hours later" might have been the mention of watchdog.

Thank you for your e-mail. I can confirm that I cannot accept cancellations via e-mail

and the normal phone number & address, sent them email back saying I had cancelled on 23rd of july over the phone.

I need to go the doc's as I suffer from se-scam-a rage

piggeh

It would be interesting to know whether an email is legally accepted as a reasonable way to give notice. If so, then maybe it's easier to send an email, and then cancel the DD in line with notice period. It would stop any additional charges or your subscription being cut short I guess.

I am an existing (and satisfied) customer but slightly concerned with the no of complaints floating around for Cancellations!

Moneymaker

piggeh wrote: »

It would be interesting to know whether an email is legally accepted as a reasonable way to give notice.

I don't know for sure; but many Internet mail-order companies insist that email is the best way to contact them for any reason. And many of them (in my experience) handle orders, cancellations, enquiries extremely quickly and efficiently in this way.

sima3069

Moneymaker wrote: »

I don't know for sure; but many Internet mail-order companies insist that email is the best way to contact them for any reason. And many of them (in my experience) handle orders, cancellations, enquiries extremely quickly and efficiently in this way.

its a waste of time contacting them by email, sent email saying I had canceled via phone on 23rd july. and they just said they don't cancel via email. and this Thank you for your e-mail. I can confirm that as you are currently within a 12 month contract with Setanta Sports, you are unable to supply your 30 days notice of cancellation until the 13th of August 2007. I signed upto the hattan fight not a 12 month contract. what a scam there running. had to laugh at this, next year i doubt anyone will stand by them Its far from perfect I agree but I would ask you to support us - If you believe we are getting better and doing that relatively quickly then stand by us RegardsMatthew - Setanta Sports http://norfolkblogger.blogspot.com/2007/08/number-one-hit-on-this-blog-today.html

Kenozz_2

Kenozz wrote: »

Just to balance your view I to am a new customer only in my first month and already having problems they have simply overcharged me on my first DD by £19.99 this after only 10 days my attempts to recover this money have proved unsucsessful with operators telling me they have no authority to refund and fobbing me off with a mail adress to write to needless to say my letters have been ignored and I still await the refund, I found the operators at best to be disinterested giving me the impression they are listening to the same complaints from customers over and over again then playing their get out of jail card by telling customers to write in so you have been fortunate the rest of us have not cheers

Just a follow up from my original post I have now cancelled my subscription and really this is a shame because the coverage was good, I say WAS because for no apparent reason I have lost my signal ( mid match last night 10-09-07) spent £2.50 on the phone last night they could not tell my why it had been shut off but thought there was a theci problem !!!! so told me to wait till this morning:rolleyes:

So today 11-09-07 and after another £3.70 (37 mins) on the phone and still no reason why I had no signal, I was put through to cancellations, and in fairness was treated well the operator was very effiecient, I got my cancellation sorted, although I still have no signal and no one seems to have a clue why not, my service is to be terminated on the 11-10-07 and no further payments will be taken, I will cancel my DD just to be sure, well this has been a very expensive experience as detailed below

Argos Setanta Package inc CAM, set up charge and first month £49.99
Setanta on activation inc extra month, another set up charge £29.98
Phone calls at 10p per min 6 calls in total £12.70
Total £92 .67:eek:

All this got me was 32 days viewing mainly 4 Prem Games
This works out at £23.17 per game so I am very fed up but decieded to cut my losses before I loose any more money,

footie fans need a strong Setanta to rival Sky and there are no shortage of suppoters willing to join, but I would urge any one thinking of giving Setanta a try to wait till they get soted out, they cannot cope with the demand and the Theci stuff on Freeview is still work in progress (very flacky) so by my calculation I am owed £19.98 overcharge (they say they have not recieved my letter) and the email system is 3 weeks backlog I will write this off to experience

And to rub salt in my wound I still have no signal and all the Support folk tell me is to keep switching my telly off and on and keep rubbing the card on my jumper, you really just couldnt make this up could you !!!!!!!!!!

Hope you lot have a better experienc than me ( keep the faith)
Ken :mad:

sima3069

1

Kenozz wrote: »

Just a follow up from my original post I have now cancelled my subscription and really this is a shame because the coverage was good,

yep the service is good its just canceling setanta, anyway setanta rang during the england game about me canceling the direct debit, they must have been reading me emails or something. anyway he said I couldn't cancel on the 23rd of july (which is false advertising & was about to launch into a tirade) but he said I could cancel at the 22nd sept (and I've not had to give 30 days notice) and thats when I'm paid up till, so no more monies.
I took that and enjoyed the 3-0, hopefully thats the END of it (fingers & toes crossed) what I think there doing is trying to get a extra month or 2 money out of everyone before they cancel.

anyway I wish you all the best with this farce of a company, and may the force/farce be with you.

I'm going to keep my usenet signature warning people of this company, as the more people that know about its scam the better. :A

WilliamWatt

I've had terrible trouble cancelling with Setanta by e-mail (which I did giving 30 days notice). They say they dont accept e-mail cancellations (which they told me 3 weeks after my original e-mail!) but their t&c's does not say this. I'm refusing to pay and have cancelled my DD.

I have snooped around and they are in breach of :
The Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977 and The Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999
These laws allow you to challenge terms that may be unfair or unreasonable to you as a consumer. The standard terms and conditions used by the retailer should be written in clear language. It is illegal to have a contract term that attempts to restrict a consumer's rights. In some cases, your local Trading Standards Service may be able to take action to prevent a company from using unfair terms in their contracts.

And quoting their own cancellation T&C's which mention nothing about cancellation format:(a) You may end this Contract at any time by giving us one month's notice if we reduce or vary significantly the total amount of programmes available on the Channels within, or the level of service of, your chosen Option. Unless otherwise agreed in your Option, you may end the Contract after the Minimum Term for any reason by giving us one month's notice.

WilliamWatt

see my previous post

CROOKED1

We can all only comment from personal experience, and for me, Setanta are an absolute joke, a real bunch of cowboys.

They firstly sent me out a freeview terrestrial card for my freeview satellite box even though I clearly stated and reconfirmed my setup. Then they told me I needed to register a new account for satellite and they they would cancel my freeview (terrestrial account) and advised I wouldn't get charged for both.

I was not only charged for both, but actually charged for 2 months in advance on both accounts as well as the activation charge. On the phone (prior to registering) I was advised only of a £10 activation fee and £9.99 for the first month. This seems to be something they do to everyone.

Mistakes happen, I accept that, but I sent their complaints department a letter requesting a refund on 01/08/07 and again last week and have yet to receive a reply or any acknowledgment.

When I emailed this lot asking for info before subscribing, I received a response within 24 hours on both occassions. I have now sent 3 emails over the last 6 weeks chasing this complaint and, just as with the whitemail, no response at all....

If I do not receive a response by the end of next week, I'll be driving up to Scotland myself and sort things out.