Sky Direct Debit Guarantee 14 October 2017 at 1:18PM in TV MoneySaving 4 replies 2.2K views

Fostersteele

Hi,

Looking for views on the following please.

17th September statement date with a bill amount of say £150, payment date 1st Oct.
24th September the 17th bill is cancelled by sky and reissued with a new amount of £200 but same payment date.

dierct debit guarantee states if the amount changes you need 10 working days notice which in my opinion is the 6th October not 1st.
reversed the direct debit as didn’t agree with what sky had done.

sky have since been in touch with my complaint and stated they did nothing wrong and the amount can be varied and the customer doesn’t need to be informed of the actual amount that’s being taken.

Thanks

Neil_Jones

So why was the first bill cancelled by Sky? What are you paying £150/£200 for?

Fostersteele

Neil_Jones wrote: »

So why was the first bill cancelled by Sky? What are you paying £150/£200 for?

The £150 was Sky TV subscription along with Sky Store purchases.
The extra £50 was apparently for adding Sky talk and broadband despite the letter stating the charges would be added to the next months bill.

Basically the system has cancelled the first bill and week later generated a new bill with the extra charges but keeping the same payment date without notice of the change of amount and not sticking to the 10 working days of any changes.

brewerdave

As far as I'm aware, the DD guarantee doesn't lay down a ten day advance notice window of changes -it merely allows you to reclaim the charge via your bank IF the charge is incorrect or is taken on the wrong date.
Each company is allowed to set their own timescales -for example, Plusnet only give 5 days notice - which is proven to be too short to allow the payment to be challenged but Plusnet have consistently refused to extend the notice period, merely pointing to their own ts & cs:(:(

Fostersteele

Thanks for the reply.

This is where it gets interesting and in my opinion is clear that in my case they broke the guarantee,
Sky’s own website states the following

The Direct Debit Guarantee is offered by all Banks and Building Societies that accept instructions to pay Direct Debits.

If there are any changes to the amount, date or frequency of your Direct Debit, SSSL (Sky Subscribers Services Limited) will notify you 10 working days in advance of your account being debited or as otherwise agreed. If you request SSSL to collect a payment, confirmation of the amount and date will be given to you at the time of the request.

If an error is made in the payment of your Direct Debit, by SSSL or your Bank or Building Society, you are entitled to a full and immediate refund of the amount paid from your Bank or Building Society

If you receive a refund you are not entitled to, you must pay it back when SSSL asks you to.

You can cancel a Direct Debit at any time by simply contacting your Bank or Building Society. Written confirmation may be required.

So to me that means if the amount is changed then you must be told with 10 working days before payment taken. To be fair every other bill has been fine, statement date 14 days before payment taken.

Agree with you regarding plusnet, 5 days is far too short to challenge anything