Sky broadband early termination charges

spo2

Just a warning to others that may find themselves in this situation:

When my Sky superfast broadband came to the end of my minimum term I took out a new 24 month contract, which included an upgrade to Ultrafast FTTP (previously I had superfast via phone line). This was agreed on the online chat on 06/09/2024. I've been with Sky for years and never had an issue until now.

Router arrived on 17/09/2024 and engineer did the cabling work on 20/09/2024. It soon became obvious that the router was poor and the wifi would only stretch to about half the rooms in the house (not a big massive house) which had not been the case previously. After spending time chatting to Sky, the only option they could give was a booster for an extra monthly payment, which made them considerably more expensive than their competitors for a similar service.

I read up on the terms and conditions and was content that I had 31 days to cancel penalty free and this could be done by signing up with another provider, no need to tell Sky themselves (although I did inform them as well on the 24/09/2024),

I went with another provider, and this was switched over from Sky on 09/10/2024 and is working perfectly with no coverage problems.  

I recently received an email from Sky stating that I owe them early termination charges for the duration of the 24 month contract that I originally signed up to. If this was not paid, it would be sent on to debt collectors.

I emailed them to query this they replied within 12 hours, to tell me that as I "recontracted" on 06/09/2024 and didn't switch until 09/10/2024, that this was outside their "14 days cooling off period".

I replied to them pointing them to their own terms and conditions which state that they
"offer UK customers an enhanced cooling off period of 31 days, instead of the 14 days that's legally required."

and this is
"from the later of: (i) delivery of your Wireless Router; (ii) activation; or (iii) receipt of the relevant terms and conditions for that product/service."

the latest of which would have been activation on the 20/09/2024, which would have given me until 21/10/2024, so my date of 09/10/2024 was well within that range.
(https://www.sky.com/help/articles/charges-for-ending-your-sky-contract-early )

I never received any reply to this query. I went on the online chat and got through right away to a customer rep who reiterated what I had been told on email (06/09/2024 - 09/10/2024 being outside of 14 days), and again I pointed out the T&Cs on their website.

She went away to look into this and came back to tell me that I was in fact correct, and that I had cancelled well within my cooling off and therefore the fees would be waived.

Although I'm obviously content with the eventual outcome, it annoys me that if I had not contacted them repeatedly they would have passed this on to debt collection (as stated in the original email), so I just want this to be a warning to others who may be in the same situation, check your dates, as if I hadn't done so, I would have been hundreds of pounds down for a payment that they were not entitled to.