Long running spat with Sky. Some general advice needed.

JBL2000

Hello Everyone!

In the hope of keeping this short and factual, here goes...

In April my wife had a series of inbound calls she couldn't afford to miss. She spoke to Sky and Sky said "for just £2.50 a month" she can have all calls diverted from the SKY landline to her SKY mobile. There was no mention on the call of additional charges.

Fast forward a month/6 weeks and we end  up with a low three figure phone bill for approximately 19 calls. It transpires that there are in-fact additional charges. The rather rude guy on the phone even called us stupid with "Who do you think pays for the calls" and accused us of trying to defraud SKY. Truth is, it's probably zero rated because it stays within the SKY network.

Anyhow I complained about both the way we where spoken to and also there was no mention of additional charges on the call. The"Only £2.50" was even repeated by the staff when we rang up to complain.

The problem is that despite having rung and spoken to about eight different people, they have still not even listened to the original phone call, let alone dealt with our complaint about the staff member. Every time I ring up (and get the genuine complaints team, not offshore general etc) they promise the earth, promise call backs.... not once has this happened.

At the end of the day they just need to listen to the call but seem incapable of doing so. I am just pondering next steps. I think the first is a GDPR request for any and all data. They legally have to do this so they cant just try and run the clock out like they seem to be trying with this complaint.  However Sky are just doing what they need to be doing and I have no idea how to make them do what they need to do. It should also be mentioned that I would like to be compensated for my stress and hours of phone calls. Every phone call takes at least thirty means to get through and explain the story.

All ideas welcome.

ETA.... I am thinking of going down the MCOL route because they have failed by every metric, even their own and I think a judge would look dimly upon such schenanigans

Olinda99

Have you raised a formal complaint with Sky?
 
Also they are members of Communications and Internet Services Adjudication Scheme (CISAS) so you could try there for help

JBL2000

Olinda99 said:

Have you raised a formal complaint with Sky?
 
Also they are members of Communications and Internet Services Adjudication Scheme (CISAS) so you could try there for help

Hi, Thanks for replying. So I think that may be a good idea and I was aware of it but (and sorry for sounding dumb) but what can it do?

As for formal complaints, I have a complaint that is ongoing but I think a letter to directors may be in order, but as I say I am unsure on next steps.

eskbanker

JBL2000 said:

In April my wife had a series of inbound calls she couldn't afford to miss. She spoke to Sky and Sky said "for just £2.50 a month" she can have all calls diverted from the SKY landline to her SKY mobile. There was no mention on the call of additional charges.

Fast forward a month/6 weeks and we end  up with a low three figure phone bill for approximately 19 calls. It transpires that there are in-fact additional charges. The rather rude guy on the phone even called us stupid with "Who do you think pays for the calls" and accused us of trying to defraud SKY. Truth is, it's probably zero rated because it stays within the SKY network.

That seems unlikely as Sky don't really have a self-contained network as such, and in many cases will piggyback on other companies' infrastructure and services.

https://www.sky.com/help/articles/sky-talk-call-features is quite clear about the costs:

Call Diversion (2)
Divert calls to another landline or mobile, so you never miss a call
£2.50 per month

[...]

(2) The diverted part of the call is charged to the Sky Talk customer at the standard Sky Talk rate depending on the type of phone the call is diverted to, e.g. mobile. The person calling is charged for a standard UK landline call and will be charged as normal by their calls provider.

I can understand why they'd (accurately) advise that the cost for the provision of the call diversion service itself is £2.50 per month, but if they went as far as to say that there were definitely no additional call charges then that would be inappropriate, so I can see why the recording would help, and obviously there's no excuse for rudeness....

longjohnjohnson

eskbanker said:

JBL2000 said:

In April my wife had a series of inbound calls she couldn't afford to miss. She spoke to Sky and Sky said "for just £2.50 a month" she can have all calls diverted from the SKY landline to her SKY mobile. There was no mention on the call of additional charges.

Fast forward a month/6 weeks and we end  up with a low three figure phone bill for approximately 19 calls. It transpires that there are in-fact additional charges. The rather rude guy on the phone even called us stupid with "Who do you think pays for the calls" and accused us of trying to defraud SKY. Truth is, it's probably zero rated because it stays within the SKY network.

That seems unlikely as Sky don't really have a self-contained network as such, and in many cases will piggyback on other companies' infrastructure and services.

https://www.sky.com/help/articles/sky-talk-call-features is quite clear about the costs:

Call Diversion (2)
Divert calls to another landline or mobile, so you never miss a call
£2.50 per month

[...]

(2) The diverted part of the call is charged to the Sky Talk customer at the standard Sky Talk rate depending on the type of phone the call is diverted to, e.g. mobile. The person calling is charged for a standard UK landline call and will be charged as normal by their calls provider.

I can understand why they'd (accurately) advise that the cost for the provision of the call diversion service itself is £2.50 per month, but if they went as far as to say that there were definitely no additional call charges then that would be inappropriate, so I can see why the recording would help, and obviously there's no excuse for rudeness....

The OP says there was no mention of additional call charges so they were not misled.

Although I must admit, anyone knowing that you can redirect a landline call to a mobile isn't a complete idiot, they must at least be savvy enough to know it is possible, and it isn't close to being free.