Sky trying to make it impossible to cancel

FreddyJW

TLDR; Okay, because I'm boring, I've spent over two hours scouring skys website trying to cancel my account. The whole thing seems shady and illegal. 

As above, I wanted to cancel my account. My first hurdle, finding out whether I'm still in contract (I've lost the original email and paperwork, sue me.) I've clicked every link going through my accounts, billing etc and nothing tells me when my term ends.
Coincidentally when trying to cancel, they directed me to the following page, showing me how to check if I'm in contract.
If I follow this link, it takes me to a page showing me how cheap their other add ones are, but doesn't tell me if I'm in contract or not...it seems super shady and possibly illegal? Or it should be.

Problem two: When trying cancel, for the life of me I can not find a button, which is super annoying as they want me to ring up so they can try sell me on renewing. If I want to renew I would ask, I'm a big boy. 
How wrong was I! Because there isn't a number to ring, every link I click in relation to cancelling eventually takes me to the page in the photo, where it very clearly explains the charges for cancelling early, and telling me I have to give a months notice, but doesn't give me any sort of contact to get in touch with them. Surely this is just extremely dodgy and against some kind of rules...

Any suggestions or input?

(Yes I have got a number, when I went through links for buying sky broadband they were happy to shine a big light on their sales number, which I will call and ask to cancel with each human they put me through to.)
 

MeteredOut

Sky don’t let you cancel online. Phone up (it’s easy to find a number on their site or via google). Prepare to be frustrated by wait times, getting passed about etc. All part of the game.

Your My Sky / Your Products page tells you which products are still in contract, but you can also get that info on the phone.

FreddyJW

I honestly cant find that anywhere, here's what I get when I go to 'your products' I get this page, below is just more advertisements for products.

The_Unready

I cancelled last month easily enough. There's a number to call (I had to follow a 'contact us' link of some kind if I remember correctly), I said 'cancel' in response to the automated answer system and I was put through to an advisor after a few minutes. 

I told him I wanted to cancel, he offered me a lower renewal price,  I said no thanks and we subsequently ended the call.

I got an email almost immediately confirming the cancellation and it will be switched off in 2 weeks time. 

All relatively simple.

MeteredOut

FreddyJW said:

I honestly cant find that anywhere, here's what I get when I go to 'your products' I get this page, below is just more advertisements for products.

Ours has "Offer ending 07/06/2024" instead of "Already yours" so it looks like you're out of contract. You should also be able to tell from your bills, which will likely have gone up once your contract expired.

I'm sure that page used to tell you that you were out of contract - another sneaky move from Sky. 

But don't expect to be able to cancel online.

IW74

It's been nearly 2 years since I cancelled but I managed to do it via Live Chat at the time.
From memory the Live Chat option only appeared on certain pages on my account. It also took several hours to actually connect me to someone; I just left it open whilst doing other stuff. Once I was connected I politely refused any offers of a better deal and the cancellation was processed.

MeteredOut

IW74 said:

It's been nearly 2 years since I cancelled but I managed to do it via Live Chat at the time.
From memory the Live Chat option only appeared on certain pages on my account. It also took several hours to actually connect me to someone; I just left it open whilst doing other stuff. Once I was connected I politely refused any offers of a better deal and the cancellation was processed.

Good point. By "online" i was referring to the My Sky web pages, but online chat might work too. 

mark_cycling00

There are hundreds of people in a sky call centre in Middlesbrough (i think) dealing with cancellation calls and offering them different deals. So I'd say it is possible and happens thousands of times a day. 

JSmithy45AD

On the App the end date is under 'change my package', online it's under 'your package' so it's nonsense to suggest it's not there. 

If you're a 'big boy' why not just phone them like everybody else?

iniltous

Although it’s maybe 10 years since I was a Sky TV customer,  I  had to jump through hoops to get them to cancel my service , the first line customer reps are obviously told to try and convince you to stay ,by whatever means ,  even by trying a to make you feel guilty or selfish, with nonsense like ‘ well you may not watch much on Sky , but what about your family, they may miss it ‘ , once you get past that ( 20-30 mins )  , they tell you that they ‘ can’t process your request to quit’ so put you through to what turns out to be customer retentions and another 20-30 minutes while they go over the same ground as the original representative and possibly offer some inducement to stay ,but if you stay resolved, have an hour to kill , you can cancel , but they certainly don’t make it easy .
Back then it was the case that the only way you could cancel was by speaking to them , an online button wasn’t available, as that doesn’t give them the opportunity to persuade you to change your mind , it’s probably still the same now 
As a final comment, I was paying £33 a month ( basic package, no sport or movies ) and about the only thing I now miss is  ‘The Simpsons’ , if it is 10 years since I quit  , that £3960 ‘saved’ .

FreddyJW

JSmithy45AD said:

On the App the end date is under 'change my package', online it's under 'your package' so it's nonsense to suggest it's not there. 

If you're a 'big boy' why not just phone them like everybody else?

I did ring them, as I said I would, why are you getting offended/miserable that I said it didn't seem right, especially for a lot of people who may not be able to work round the issues.

The lady on the phone i got (yes that part was easy once i got a number, as stated I just rang a sales number) was helpful, she even asked me to raise a complaint about the issue, as, like i said, it wasn't there for me. She even waived my early cancellation fee as i had a month and a half to go apparently.

So get some manners.