MSE News: Warning to Sky TV customers - it won't notify you when your contract's up

MSE_Chris

Sky customers should check now if they are overpaying for their TV package, after the firm admitted it hasn’t been sending out end-of-contract notifications....

Read the full story:

'Warning to Sky TV customers - it won't notify you when your contract's up, so check now if you can switch and save'

If you haven’t already, join the forum to reply.

Neil_Jones

So what else is new?  Monitor the online account and when the "future payments" thing goes up, you're out of contract.

tempus_fugit

MSE should know better. It’s not “end of contract” it’s “end of minimum term”. It would seem to me to always be aware of when these things are due to expire and keep track of monthly payments, but I know a lot of people are too lazy to do so.

LesleyHarris

I was looking for a letter in my file box last year and by some form of a miracle I found my Sky contract which went out of contract that day. I rang and said I wanted to cancel and the bill for the same package went down from 62 pounds a month to 36. If I'd been looking for the contract I probably wouldn't have found it. Over the moon to save that much per month. Result 

Yorkshireman53

Go to My Sky TV packages it will show you when you are out of contract(OOC).  Go to bills section and then click on future payments, if you are OOC within 3/4 months it will show an increase in monthly payment for the month prior to OOC date.  So for OOC in Sep it will show increase in payment from August. Seriously looking at BT TV but their website is not crystal clear so will speak to BT rep first for best deal before going back to Sky. 

diggingahole

But people have busy lives with better things to do then continue to check when contracted offer prices finish, that why companies are being forced to notify customers.

Sky know customers continue to pay inflated full contract prices because they do not send out a reminder, why do you think they are arguing their interpretation of the new rules.

I have been caught out many times with this practice and think it's underhand way for any company to operate, Ofcom have obviously come to the same conclusion.

Neil_Jones

diggingahole said:

But people have busy lives with better things to do then continue to check when contracted offer prices finish, that why companies are being forced to notify customers.

Sky know customers continue to pay inflated full contract prices because they do not send out a reminder, why do you think they are arguing their interpretation of the new rules.

I have been caught out many times with this practice and think it's underhand way for any company to operate, Ofcom have obviously come to the same conclusion.

The whole point of retentions/discounts is to decrease the churn rate, in the knowledge that a large chunk of these will conveniently forget or not notice that their bills will go up in 18 months time.

All very well putting the onus on companies to remind people that their deals are ending, but if the customer doesn't want to do anything about it, doesn't change the status quo.  But they then should have no right to pee and moan about what they're being charged when that ends.

It always used to be the case that the customer has a responsibility to themselves to monitor their own deals and outgoings and whatever else and if they don't notice a special deal has ended, then diddums.  But these days its always somebody else's fault, "Dalek TV didn't tell me my contract is ending, I didn't notice for <some ridiculous amount of time>, can I get compensation [because I was too lazy]?" is a relatively common thing these days unfortunately.

littleboo

diggingahole said:

But people have busy lives with better things to do then continue to check when contracted offer prices finish, that why companies are being forced to notify customers.

Sky know customers continue to pay inflated full contract prices because they do not send out a reminder, why do you think they are arguing their interpretation of the new rules.

I have been caught out many times with this practice and think it's underhand way for any company to operate, Ofcom have obviously come to the same conclusion.

People have always been busy, its nothing new. What is new (relatively) is the means to manage these things yourself more easily - through the online account, by checking on-line banking, by setting up reminders etc.