sky TV age discrimination?

Stokieblokie

Hi all
My Mum is 85 and partially sighted, but other than that she is fit and well, and fully capable of managing her own affairs.  
Sky charge her £1.75 a month to have paper bill and recently when her monthly charge was bumped up by £12 a month, when she phoned them to discuss this they said she cannot have any offers they may have as she does not have an email address.
Surely this is ageist?  It may be beyond belief to many companies out there but some people do not have email?  She is not computer literate, nor uses a smart phone, but why should she not be able to manage her bills without these, as people have been able to do for generations?  Surely to not offer her the same offers as someone else can have because of it is discrimination?
Her package with them is phone, tv and broadband (broadband of course she does not use at all, but is told she has to have it for the other things to work).
Have any of you come up against this?  Does a provider exist from whom she could get her phone and the usual TV channels without having to have internet that she does not use, nor an email address when she cannot do email?  Or is this no longer a thing?
All help really appreciated

Penguin_

Companies often charge more when you have a paper bill sent to you - lot more of a process than sending via email.  

Nothing in your post suggests any form of age discrimination from Sky. 

Couldn't you simply set an extra email up & then print out bills for her?

born_again

Stokieblokie said:

Hi all
My Mum is 85 and partially sighted, but other than that she is fit and well, and fully capable of managing her own affairs.  
Sky charge her £1.75 a month to have paper bill and recently when her monthly charge was bumped up by £12 a month, when she phoned them to discuss this they said she cannot have any offers they may have as she does not have an email address.
Surely this is ageist?  It may be beyond belief to many companies out there but some people do not have email?  She is not computer literate, nor uses a smart phone, but why should she not be able to manage her bills without these, as people have been able to do for generations?  Surely to not offer her the same offers as someone else can have because of it is discrimination?
Her package with them is phone, tv and broadband (broadband of course she does not use at all, but is told she has to have it for the other things to work).
Have any of you come up against this?  Does a provider exist from whom she could get her phone and the usual TV channels without having to have internet that she does not use, nor an email address when she cannot do email?  Or is this no longer a thing?
All help really appreciated

Why, just because your mother is 85 & does not have a email address, just like many younger people make it ageist?

Best option would be to get her a free Gmail account that you look after.

ccluedo

I have a family member in same situation. I just set up an email for him and everything comes to me. I then let him know and he decides what, if anything, he wants to do. 
Although he doesn't use email etc he does need the broadband for streaming non terrestrial stuff on the TV. 

Stokieblokie

So basically, email, be it your own or someone else's, is something without which you cannot run your life now?
Surprised
And that it is fair enough to withhold offers and make you pay more for the same service unless they can communicate with you in that particular way?
Very surprised
Still not buying that it isn't mostly elderly people who are in this position

MattMattMattUK

Stokieblokie said:

So basically, email, be it your own or someone else's, is something without which you cannot run your life now?
Surprised

I do not understand how you can be surprised by this.

Stokieblokie said:

And that it is fair enough to withhold offers and make you pay more for the same service unless they can communicate with you in that particular way?
Very surprised

Yes, because those without emails are not managing their accounts in the same way, they require additional customer service staff, more processes and systems etc. so it is not the same service, it is a more complicated and expensive system to operate. Again, I cannot understand how you are surprised by that.

Stokieblokie said:

Still not buying that it isn't mostly elderly people who are in this position

It will be technophobes of all ages. All my older relatives, well into their seventies, eighties and nineties all use email apart from the ones with dementia who cannot manage their own affairs regardless of method. There may be a slightly higher rate amongst older people but email has been part of daily life for thirty years or more.

Albermarle

 Does a provider exist from whom she could get her phone and the usual TV channels without having to have internet that she does not use, nor an email address when she cannot do email?  Or is this no longer a thing?

Yes it is a thing, it is called Freeview and is totally free and no need to register for it.

Brie

If you want to claim discrimination I think you'd get much further discussing mom's sight rather than her age.  There are many challenges for those with sight issues using IT.  There are also solutions but many are expensive.  I would challenge Sky stating that mom has to have paper bills as otherwise she cannot see what is on them.  For them to not provide a suitable alternative free of charge would, in my opinion, be discriminatory.

pmduk

Brie said:

If you want to claim discrimination I think you'd get much further discussing mom's sight rather than her age.  There are many challenges for those with sight issues using IT.  There are also solutions but many are expensive.  I would challenge Sky stating that mom has to have paper bills as otherwise she cannot see what is on them.  For them to not provide a suitable alternative free of charge would, in my opinion, be discriminatory.

However, I'm certain there will be many alternative means of reading the bills, eg Braille, large print etc.

DullGreyGuy

It's not direct discrimination because they treat everyone without an email address the same not just those that are 85. 

Paper statements will incur additional costs and therefore potentially isnt any form of discrimination as long as the fees are proportional to the costs incurred (which is beyond just the piece of paper and postage)

There is the potential argument that its indirectly discriminatory because there is a much higher propensity of people of a certain age to not have email but these types of arguments are much more tenuous, though didnt stop the FCA when they said price creep hit elderly customers worse because they dont use aggregator sites etc. 

These sorts of complaints are long and tedious to make, hence normally done by regulators or consumer champion organisations like CAB. Why not just take a practical solution of you adding an email address for her? She doesnt need to use it daily etc. 

Plus its not all old people, my aunt who is turning 100 this year regularly emails, uses WhatsApp, and has bought every generation of iPhone on release day (though she no longer queues up for them)