Trying to cancel Setanta?!

pen1

Due to their expansion of subscriber base in the last year, I think this will have been the first football close-season in which Setanta will have had to deal with cancellations on such a mass scale.

It may only be when they need to win those customers back, and are met with resistance, that they'll appreciate that it's in their interests to process cancellations fairly and retain the trust of those customers.

I've had an offer to return (after it took 10 weeks for a cancellation letter to be processed), but am ignoring it, because the "BEST EVER OFFER" of half-price for 3 months falls short of the £7.50 for 6 months, that has apparently been routinely offered to customers who tried cancelling by phone.

I'm not in the mood to ring Setanta at approximately 10p per minute to negotiate (I know that there are other telephone numbers floating!) and am prepared to start the new football season without Setanta unless they contact me with an offer that at least matches what they've routinely been offering on the telephone.

I daresay that some customers will take the attitude not to rejoin Setanta, irrespective of offers.

musogeek

i for one will never go back - i have never in my life had to resort to such measures to get a simple thing done!

jellofund

musogeek wrote: »

:j
here is what i did

i sent an email to [EMAIL="customerservices@setanta.com"]customerservices@setanta.com[/EMAIL]

the email contained my setanta account number and other details

i told them to escalate it to a manager

I told them i had also sent the email to the CEO and other top dogs

I told them if it wasn't actioned i would contact all the consumer programs and newspapers etc, and trading standards, ofcom, and that i would seek legal advice

I explained fully my efforts so far to try to cancel (that took a while!)

I told them the reference of the recorded letter of cancellation i sent, the address i sent it to, and the date it was signed for.

I gave them this forum's address

I told them how i felt, and how everyone else feels on this forum

I reminded them that this has taken hours of my time and them cancelling my account would take minutes

I requested conformation of action.

I now have no setanta:T

I requested that i get my refund without having to write in, but this wasn't mentioned in the email reply, so i will reply to the email i got from the senior team manager to see if they still expect me to chase this up even though they shouldn't have taken it.

i set the email high priority and titled it 'why won't you cancel setanta despite emails phonecalls and letters?'

I got an automated response straight away saying it will be processed within 5 working days, but 40 minutes later i got an email and an apology from a member of the customer services, and was told it has been cancelled, and 2 hours later a senior team leader followed it up with confirmation it had been cancelled and i am no longer getting setanta - horray!!!

good result so far though, and i hope that if you try my method, you get the same results.

good luck everyone!

Well done!

I have just tried this route so will report back on how it goes. Either way I've just cancelled my DD and they will not be seeing another penny now or in the future!

If they fail to respond I think my next step will probably be the Small Claims Court to get my money back / end the contract. It's a fairly small amount but it's a matter of principal now. It'll also cause them a bit of a headache which will make a nice change! :rotfl:

jellofund

I would urge you all to take the 'musogeek approach' for contacting them!

Within minutes of my e-mail to Customer Services I received the following response:

Dear XX XX

Thank you for your e-mail. I can confirm your account is scheduled to be cancelled on th 26th July 2008.
If you feel you are entitled to a refund, please send a written request outlining your eligibility for refund and including a bank statement highlighting the charges you wish refunded to

Setanta Sports
PO BOX 182
The Quays, Newry
Co. Down
BT35 5AT


I can confirm that your payment details have been found in a third party account. If you have not authorised the use of these details by anyone else please contact the police and report this matter. Your credit card company should be able to assist you with claiming this refund.



Yours sincerely

XX XX
Customer Services

Hopefully that's the cancellation done and dusted. Now just need to contact Newry for the refund.....the beginning of the end or just the beginning? Vote now!!

I've asked them to clarify the slightly alarming comment about my payment details being found in a 3rd party account.

Only one sub is being collected each month so I'm guessing the other account is simply my old account (cancelled by Setanta back in May when they attempted to resolve a billing error)....if it's not then s**t will really hit the fan if they've managed to compromise the security of my personal data (complaint to the Information Commissioner's Office for a breach of the Data Protection Act 1988 for starters) :mad:

Update:

The rep that e-mailed me got back to me to advise that the paragraph re. my personal details should not have been in the reply - the dangers of 'cut & paste' responses!

I then received a call from a very helpful lady @ Setanta this morning (I assume one of the Execs received my e-mail too) to apologise for all the hassle I've had. She confirmed the cancellation details, that I do not owe them any more money and am entitled to a refund for all the overpayments taken.

I do not need to provide any supporting evidence to Newry and the lady is personally ensuring the refund is processed. I could only chuckle when she said she hoped that my recent experience hadn't put me off Setanta too much!

It is good to see that they can be capable of good customer service.....it's just a pity that you have to kick up stink to get it.

I guess it's now just a case of waiting to see if they deliver on their promises.

Good luck to the rest of you! Remember if at 1st you don't succeed........give 'em hell!

vickyjayne

Hi i am new to this so i dont know if i am posting in the right place
I dont know how to go about cancelling setanta but to make it cheaper to get hold of them try www.saynoto0870.co.uk and tyoe in the number or business and they will give you the geographical phone number to save you some £££ (it might be .com cant remeber lol)

barryarmstrong

shirlthegirlx wrote: »

hi there,
yes it is VERY difficult, if not impoosible, to get a refund from Setanta.
We cancelled in January and they took payments in Feb and March and have ignored every form of contact we've made with them. that is why ive contacted watchdog and so far, a couple of newspapers. If we all do the same thing then someone has to listen to us

it's impossible to cancel. I phoned to cancel and was told I had to write to an address in Doncaster to cancel. I did this and they started sending me texts saying to phone them urgently, problem was the number they gave each time was unobtainable so it phoned on there 0870 number got passed around and waited for ages so gave up and sent an e-mail. No responce, so I phoned 0870 again and insisted I spoke to a supervisor who confirmed that I had i fact cancelled and need not worry any more. The next day I get a phone call threatening me with legal action for none payment as they said it had taken them six weeks to get my letter and that they now have a sixty day cancellation policy not the 30 days I had originally been told. I have reluctantly paid and they now say that my service will stop. Let's see if this is the end.

kalojac

I really don't think that Setanta have any control over anything, they really are impossible to deal with. A month or so ago, my husband sat down to watch his fav team play and no Setanta! He was furious, he went straight onto the phone and was holding and getting put through to various different people etc and he was told that there was already someone with the same name as his (his dad) registered in our town and there couldn't possibly be two of them so they'd cancelled his signal! He asked them to just cancel the whole lot, they said not to be so hasty and to call back in the morning (so he missed the game). He called back in the morning and they said they would fix it, Setanta temporarily came back on, but guess what - his dad's went off! So his dad phoned and got his back on then ours went off. Eventually after about 10 phone calls both went back on and they were both told not to cancel and they would give us 3 months at £5 a month.

Guess what happened this week! They both went off, it looks as though it has been sorted again, but what are they playing at! Their service is just unbelieveable, it really is attrocious.

Their system does not seem to log phone calls, conversations, deals that you've been promised, who have talked to, and nobody seems to be able to know what the previous person has promised, I truly symphathise with your situation and wish you luck in getting everything sorted out.

gardner1

i had letter today offering 3 months @ £5.50 + december free if i took a free trial out with lovefilm and some other discount which i cant remember as letter is now in bin

i will never go back to them

pen1

I've had a similar letter today.

The offer expires tomorrow according to mine, so if Setanta have given others such little time to respond, then I think that they are unlikely to receive high take-up.

The offer is 3 months for £6.50 per month, "saving £19.47".

Setanta claim a further saving of £20 due to "no connection charge", although the connection fee is currently £14.99 on satellite and £10 for Digital terrestrial/ "Freeview" customers.

Is this a sign that the connection charge is about to increase?:question:

Setanta offer a further "saving" of £12.99 ("Setanta free in December") which is dependent on remaining an active Setanta subscriber until end of November 2008 and taking a free LOVEFilm trial, which they value as "saving £18.99".

Total saving is claimed to be "up to £71.45".

It's worth noting, that there are comparable offers for LOVEFilm trials, that are not dependent on a Setanta subscription. For example, Quidco offers a 2 week trial (as opposed to one month with the Setanta offer) and £15.50 cashback (as opposed to free Setanta in December, worth £12.99 on satellite).

The "come back" offer is less attractive, in my view, than the £7.50 for 6 months, that Setanta have been offering to those who tried to cancel by telephone; so after experiencing 11 weeks of cancellation issues through poor service, I don't intend to accept the offer.

jellofund

Since my e-mail and phone call from Customer Services the other day I've now received an e-mail from their Escalations team saying that my complaint has been escalated to their Senior Management team and will be investigated.

It's like the old buses analogy.......you wait months and then 3 come along at the one time.

Clearly they don't have any kind of system to show that someone has already been allocated and dealt with my query..

I'm keeping mum though as I'm all for their management getting a flavour of exactly what their customers have to put up with. Hopefully if they receive enough complaints the penny will finally drop that they need to sort things out sharpish or pretty soon they won't have a customer base.

My theory is that they've shot their load financially buying Premiership / international football & boxing rights and haven't invested sufficiently in the underlying business.