Sky TV taking money without consent

Romanylegends5

I have had a Sky box with the free channels for some years now.  Recently, I couldn't get a picture on my TV and so I phoned Sky in the hope they could send someone out to investigate the problem. They explained that the problem was my Sky box, as it was old and had stopped working.  They explained that I would need a new Sky box which would cost me £49 up front. I asked if there would be any other charges incurred, as I didn't want any pay channels, just the Sky box. I was assured there would be no further payments and my viewing would continue as before, but with a new Sky box.  They came and fitted a Sky Q box, which is lovely, but then out of the blue they took £27.10 from my bank account which left me overdrawn. When the box was fitted, I again checked with the engineer that there would be no further charges, and he said it would continue as before.  He took away my old Sky box and remote control.  I have tried to contact Sky, and after holding on the phone for 45 minutes managed to speak to someone who couldn't understand what I meant, and just kept saying you have to pay it and then it's £15.50 a month.  I cancelled the direct debit with my bank, which I didn't set up, and then a few days later received an email from Sky telling me that there would be a further £10 added to the bill for late payment.  It's impossible to get through to Sky using the usual channels, and so I sent a complaint to them by an online form but have still heard nothing.  It's worrying me to death.  I have now paid the £27.10 as I didn't want further charges to be added, and just don't know what to do.   I would never have agreed to any payments by direct debit as I'm struggling to pay the ones I have already.  I'm in my 70s and on a basic state pension and pension credit, but I feel robbed by Sky TV.  All I wanted was a Sky box that worked, and I thought that's what I had got for my £49.  I really don't need all this stress at my age, and with my health.  Can anyone suggest what I can do to stop these unauthorised payments?  Thank you.

Neil_Jones

Romanylegends5 said:

I have had a Sky box with the free channels for some years now.  Recently, I couldn't get a picture on my TV and so I phoned Sky in the hope they could send someone out to investigate the problem. They explained that the problem was my Sky box, as it was old and had stopped working.  They explained that I would need a new Sky box which would cost me £49 up front. I asked if there would be any other charges incurred, as I didn't want any pay channels, just the Sky box. I was assured there would be no further payments and my viewing would continue as before, but with a new Sky box.  They came and fitted a Sky Q box, which is lovely, but then out of the blue they took £27.10 from my bank account which left me overdrawn. When the box was fitted, I again checked with the engineer that there would be no further charges, and he said it would continue as before.  He took away my old Sky box and remote control.  I have tried to contact Sky, and after holding on the phone for 45 minutes managed to speak to someone who couldn't understand what I meant, and just kept saying you have to pay it and then it's £15.50 a month.  I cancelled the direct debit with my bank, which I didn't set up, and then a few days later received an email from Sky telling me that there would be a further £10 added to the bill for late payment.  It's impossible to get through to Sky using the usual channels, and so I sent a complaint to them by an online form but have still heard nothing.  It's worrying me to death.  I have now paid the £27.10 as I didn't want further charges to be added, and just don't know what to do.   I would never have agreed to any payments by direct debit as I'm struggling to pay the ones I have already.  I'm in my 70s and on a basic state pension and pension credit, but I feel robbed by Sky TV.  All I wanted was a Sky box that worked, and I thought that's what I had got for my £49.  I really don't need all this stress at my age, and with my health.  Can anyone suggest what I can do to stop these unauthorised payments?  Thank you.

What unauthorised payments?

You take out Sky Q and you agree to 18 month contract when you do it.  The clue should have been when there was £49 set up fee, that usually implies ongoing costs.

And you would have had to give details to set up a direct debit, they don't just phone up Barclays and say I've set up Sky Q at 17 Cherry Tree Lane can we take £15.50 a month from it until further notice.  No you have to give those details out to set them up/

Your mistake here was contacting Sky in the first place, because it sounds like you were out of contract or had a legacy Sky box which are yours when a  previous contract ended.  You have not been robbed, but In hindsight what you needed was a replacement Freesat box which is a one-off Sky type box but without the ongoing subscription.  Or a switch to Freeview.  Which would have probably cost nothing.

Your age doesn't come into it.  If you didn't read the T&Cs properly then unfortunately with all due respect that's your own fault.

Romanylegends5

Thank you for your comments.  The reason they had my bank details was to take the £49 for the new Sky box.   I had no idea I could get a replacement Freesat box, as I've never heard of it. All I knew was that I needed my TV channels back as I'm housebound, and watching TV is my only bit of enjoyment.   My own fault as you say.  I should have known.

cheerfulcat

When did you agree to have the Sky box replaced? There is a 14 day “cooling off“ period within which you can cancel the service without penalties.

Marvel1

Neil_Jones said:

Romanylegends5 said:

 I asked if there would be any other charges incurred, as I didn't want any pay channels, just the Sky box. I was assured there would be no further payments and my viewing would continue as before, but with a new Sky box. 

What unauthorised payments?

You take out Sky Q and you agree to 18 month contract when you do it.  The clue should have been when there was £49 set up fee, that usually implies ongoing costs.

And you would have had to give details to set up a direct debit, they don't just phone up Barclays and say I've set up Sky Q at 17 Cherry Tree Lane can we take £15.50 a month from it until further notice.  No you have to give those details out to set them up/

Your mistake here was contacting Sky in the first place, because it sounds like you were out of contract or had a legacy Sky box which are yours when a  previous contract ended.  You have not been robbed, but In hindsight what you needed was a replacement Freesat box which is a one-off Sky type box but without the ongoing subscription.  Or a switch to Freeview.  Which would have probably cost nothing.

Your age doesn't come into it.  If you didn't read the T&Cs properly then unfortunately with all due respect that's your own fault.

What about the agent saying no further payments?

Neil_Jones

What the agent says it consists of and what the service actually consists of are two entirely different things.  OP may want to request they listen to the original call if in doubt.  These sort of "issues" based on previous forum posts here are usually because they just said yes to everything on the phone without paying any attention to what was being said, or they've forgotten that they actually agreed to something on the initial call..

The OP seems to have taken (if what they say is correct) at total face value that their old box was defunct.  This is fairly unlikely assuming we're talking about the Sky+/Sky+HD boxes, millions of which are still in service and even the old SD boxes are probably still six figure usage base.  While 99% will still be in full working order, all these boxes are effectively discontinued by Sky so any call to them that involves one of these systems will usually be a case of "its old and knackered, have a shiny new Sky Q box/install instead".

I think its far more likely that the LNB had packed up on the OP's dish.  This usually manifests itself in half the channels stop working (polarisation) although not uncommon to totally pack up and none of the channels work.  But as that would have had to been swapped for Q anyway (hopefully for a hybrid and not a Q wideband one) we'll never know.

MalMonroe

Hi,

You really do need to try to get through to Sky to discuss what happens next.  

You can tell them you want to cancel - Sky allow you a 31 day cooling off period, rather than the usual 14 days. As per this link -

https://www.sky.com/help/articles/cancel-sky-tv#contact-leave

It does say not to cancel your direct debit but if you can manage to speak to someone, then you can explain your situation properly. 
 
I'm not sure if it will help you now but Sky do have a Vulnerable Customer Policy - many companies also have similar policies - and the information is in this link -

https://www.sky.com/help/articles/supporting-vulnerable-customers-policy#:~:text=We've a range of,registration article for more details.

When you click on the part under 'accessibility services', it takes you to another page with more info.

What Neil_Jones says above is correct - if a bit blunt. ("what you needed was a replacement Freesat box which is a one-off Sky type box but without the ongoing subscription.  Or a switch to Freeview.  Which would have probably cost nothing.")

If your TV was made after 2010 it should have freeview installed - or so they say.

If you try contacting Sky online and then try contacting them by phone, they say that you will have more chance of speaking to someone - so you could do that. But you do need to speak to them at some point soon.

Romanylegends5

Thank you for your very helpful comments.  I will try to talk to Sky again and explain.

Olinda99

Sorry to hear you have got into a mess - just to let you know:

1. Sky no longer manufacture or supply your old box. Even if they did, they would not sell you a replacement - they are a subscription service and if you get a box from them it will be part of a 18 month or 2 year monthly subscription. You pay the £15.50 to be able to watch Sky channels as well as the free ones.

2. the free channels on the Sky box you were using are only BBC etc so why do you even need the box - why not simply plug the aerial into the TV and watch from there? You gain nothing from using your Sky box (apart from a larger electricity bill)

3. by getting them to supply a new modern box (which costs significantly more that £49 by the way I would say £250-£300 maybe more) you agreed to an 18 month subscription as in (1) above. Hopefully you can cancel this. If not, you are locked into the subscription unless you can prove you were misled by the agent when you called up. You can complain to Sky and if you are not happy with their response then the have a ADR mechanism

https://www.sky.com/help/articles/alternative-dispute-resolution

jon81uk

Olinda99 said:

2. the free channels on the Sky box you were using are only BBC etc so why do you even need the box - why not simply plug the aerial into the TV and watch from there? You gain nothing from using your Sky box (apart from a larger electricity bill)

If the OP is using Sky they may not have an aerial, therefore unless the TV has built in FreeSat this won't work.

Romanylegends5

Thanks everyone for your helpful comments.  I have now contacted Sky, and they were very understanding and explained everything to me.  I had no idea how Sky worked, but I do now.