Trying to cancel Setanta?!

NeilB

Well this is what our Industry Services dept advised. Basically there should be no need to cancel or report your card as lost/stolen.

Speaking to an ex manager of Operations @ HSBC, they actually had (and presumably still have) a process for dealing with this type of dispute and ongoing charges where the merchant is failing to cancel recurring transactions.

What you need to do is call your Credit Card issuer, advise them that you have cancelled the subscription on xxx date but they continue to debit your account. If you have a reasonable card issuer they should simply chargeback and then monitor your account for further charges processed and if received, simply continue to charge back each one until Setanta sort their lives out and stop billing you. A letter to your issuer will also do this.

Card issuers have a 'duty' in providing you good customer service and satisfaction, if you have no joy on the phone with them, ask to speak to their manager and keep going higher until they sort it out. You are effectively disputing these transactions which they have to act upon.

And as a complete last resort, you can take Setanta to the small claims court to recoup cost, but you really shouldnt need to get that far.

PS Watchdog are interested in this as people on here were contacted by them - as for whether anything comes of it, we shall have to wait and see.

ollyc

For anyone given a reduced rate of £7.50 for 6 months - make sure you check your bank statements.

I was given the same offer but seen that they've taken out the full £12.99 this week. Called them and they have no record of my conversation :mad:

They've put me back on the reduced price for 6 months but makes me wonder how many other people this has happened to - presumably hoping they wouldn't notice.

shirlthegirlx

NeilB wrote: »

Well this is what our Industry Services dept advised. Basically there should be no need to cancel or report your card as lost/stolen.

Speaking to an ex manager of Operations @ HSBC, they actually had (and presumably still have) a process for dealing with this type of dispute and ongoing charges where the merchant is failing to cancel recurring transactions.

What you need to do is call your Credit Card issuer, advise them that you have cancelled the subscription on xxx date but they continue to debit your account. If you have a reasonable card issuer they should simply chargeback and then monitor your account for further charges processed and if received, simply continue to charge back each one until Setanta sort their lives out and stop billing you. A letter to your issuer will also do this.

Card issuers have a 'duty' in providing you good customer service and satisfaction, if you have no joy on the phone with them, ask to speak to their manager and keep going higher until they sort it out. You are effectively disputing these transactions which they have to act upon.

And as a complete last resort, you can take Setanta to the small claims court to recoup cost, but you really shouldnt need to get that far.

PS Watchdog are interested in this as people on here were contacted by them - as for whether anything comes of it, we shall have to wait and see.

I'm pleased Watchdog are interested, as I too have contacted them regarding Setanta.
Setanta did phone us on Monday regarding our complaint with them, and they stated that they would have to listen to the recording of our origianal phone call to them regardin cancellation, and that they would phone us back BY friday at the latest...............HAHAHAHAHA GUESS WHAT?? they havent rang!!

nibb_2

Well I must be one of the lucky ones.

I rang to cancel, to avoid all of the hard sell I told the operator that I would be out of the UK from mid-July so would like to cancel (slight porkie).

She stated fine, I would have to put it in writing but a note had been made on my account...this was 13th June, I send a letter by recorded delivery same day.

They took one more payment during the 30 day period on 19th June, which I expected, 19th July arrived and guess what my subscription was stopped, and no further payments have been taken.

Guess I am just lucky!

**woody123**

Well i was going to subscribe to setanta but after reading all the negative comments about them all over the internet not just here i am not going to now.

I do hope they get an airing on watchdog they deserve it.

Its a real shame that setanta have been given rights to show such good matches and give such a shocking service, surely whoever accepted their bid for the rights would not be happy.

tafer2uk

Believe it or not I was thinking of going back to Setanta:huh: Doh!

I didn't quite have such a bad experience as some, they actually cancelled my account in May at the first request and by phone, I said I would be out of the country for the summer, offered all sorts of deals but held firm.

However I still had all the threatening phone calls/texts from the third party call centre, just gave them some attitude back.:p

Reading this thread has made my mind up not to, thanks for sharing all your poor experiences.:beer:

derek@hatton.org

I have given up on Setanta - I suppose they make a fair bit of money that way! They say that emails are answered in five days - I sent two - one answered in 13 days asking for the details I sent in the first one and the second one with the requested details ignored completely. I telephoned four times and had the usual wait 'all operators are currently busy' and no one could sort the issue, finally sending a Recorded Delivery letter to Customer Services manager in Sunderland (30 May 2008) - Track & Trace has never shown it delivered and no response so I give up. It was my intention to re-subscribe for the football season but now I will go to the pub or watch on the internet, Setanta will never get another bean from me.
If you do not wish to pay for their 0871 numbers you may ring 02077 668484 between 0900 and 1700 and they will put you through to the department you need.

I get letters every few days from Setanta offering ever improving deals, I just put them into an envelope and repost them - minus stamp so that they pay to get them back!! :rotfl:

GEMGIRL67

robertr wrote: »

SORTED!!!!

Following my post a couple above, after a bit of googling Setanta Chief Executives I sent multiple emails last night to the following Setanta email addresses, and to the ones above:-

[EMAIL="leonard.ryan@setanta.com"]leonard.ryan@setanta.com[/EMAIL]
[EMAIL="Michael.ORourke@setanta.com"]Michael.ORourke@setanta.com[/EMAIL]
[EMAIL="michael.bucks@setanta.com"]michael.bucks@setanta.com[/EMAIL]
[EMAIL="roger.hall@setanta.com"]roger.hall@setanta.com[/EMAIL]
[EMAIL="matthew.kemp@setanta.com"]matthew.kemp@setanta.com[/EMAIL]

I also filled out the online 'contact us' form again.

This morning just had a phonecall from Kirsty at Setanta saying that they had got my email and apologised and has now cancelled, refunded this months subscription and added £10 goodwill.

So, not sure which email address did the trick but good luck!!!!

I tried ringing up Setanta a few times at the beginning of June, to cancel my subscription but was told it had to be done in writing.

I sent a letter off on June 16th and requested that they confirm my cancellation request within 2 weeks. When I checked the tracking system on royal mails website it said the letter had been received at the Sunderland sorting office but then no electronic receipt was available for proof of delivery.

So this afternoon I emailed all the email addresses that Robertr quoted and attached a copy of the letter I had sent out. I explained how it was my brother who had wanted setanta but I set up the direct debit on my credit card and he paid me the money. As my brother is no longer at home much I didnt see why I had to pay for something I didnt want and if my subscription could not be cancelled I would take setanta to a small claims court.

I also stressed that this matter was making me feel so stressed out and that hundreds more people on moneysavingexpert.com are all going through a similar thing and that Watchdog are now considering looking into setanta because of all the complaints they are receiving off unhappy customers who just want to cancel.

Not long after a lovely girl called Sharon rang me up from Setanta to say my email had been passed onto her and that no more money would be taken off my credit card and that I will cease to get setanta from August 8th. Fingers crossed!

So everyone, try emailing those addresses and hopefully your subscriptions will be cancelled.

Angela x

DavePerry1972

I too sent emails to the directors etc listed in the above post together with customer services and a letter to the Sunderland address. I didn't receive any response other than the standard auto response from customer services advising me they would contact me within 7 days which of course didn't happen.

After the initial fun and games them telling me I must write, then denying receipt of my letter, and many hours on hold using premium rate numbers I rang 0191 501 3482 which was answered immediately and finally found someone helpful called Owen.

I was told finally that they had received my request and it would be cancelled on 30th July. To my surprise I have checked today and my viewing has in fact been switched off. The next reccurring payment from my credit card (something which I shall never ever do again and strongly advise others the same) is due in the next few days so I'll need to check this isn't taken but it would appear so far that I am finally free of these people.

Good luck to the rest of you with the same/similar problems and I'll keep you all informed should anything change

Dave:j

jellofund

I though my dealings with Setanta had finally come to an end when I had my complaint escalated to their senior management team.

I received an e-mail & a call from Customer Services at the beginning of this month confirming my account would be cancelled & viewing stopped on 26th July and that a refund for overpayments taken from my account would follow within 28 days.

This was then followed up by a 'formal' apology initially by e-mail & subequently in writing from Escalations Dept. a couple of weeks back.

So they had effectively confirmed cancellation to me 4 times.

The good news:
the refund came through today (am I the first person to ever receive one?)


The bad news:
I can still view the channels 5 days after the date viewing has stopped. I went back to Escalations on the 28th to query this and they re-iterated the account has definitely been cancelled.

Today.....
Lo & behold a call from Setanta in Sunderland. I assumed it would be a 'come back to us' offer but it was a 'we need to talk to you about payment issues with your account'. The girl I spoke to was very apologetic when I explained the situation and acknowledged I had more than paid enough....it seems someone forgot to 'uncheck' a box for a follow up call after I cancelled the DD.

The girl has 'unchecked' the box now so hopefully I shouldn't receive further calls about this.

However, I'm still in a state of limbo not knowing if the acccount is cancelled or not. Have e-mailed Escalations Dept. again highglighting these issues & asking for them to investigate......in their favour I would add that they have been good at getting back to me so far.


Initially I was pretty gobsmacked at how difficult it seems to do something so straightforward & routine. However, I think a lot of the problems stem from the fact that nobody actually seems to work for Setanta and all their admin is outsourced....not only that but it is outsourced to more than one company :rolleyes:

From what I can gather the work done in Newry is handled by Teleperformance whereas anything going to Sunderland is dealt with by 2Touch.

Edit:

Received an e-mail back from Escalations Dept. within literally 10 minutes of sending.

My account has definitely, definitely, definitely been cancelled. Viewing may continue for another few days but this is not something to be concerned about.

It seems that Escalations Officers have authority to process immediate cancellations on the system without needing to wait 60 days (the new notice period). Unfortunately, the Officer simply forgot to uncheck the relevant box and this generated the call today.

Hopefully that is the matter done & dusted for good now. In the meantime I will enjoy some sports courtesy of Setanta....call it compensation if you will.

Best of luck to everyone!