Sky offering £200 to settle my complaint

pyrrhus80

I signed up to Sky Broadband and Talk during Black Friday. I requested to keep my old number (of over 30 years) but they assigned me a different one.

Their customer support was diabolical; hours wasted, getting nowhere. Ultimately, they insisted that I never requested to keep my number during the sign up process (this is categorically untrue) and that there is nothing more they can do. They provided a deadlock letter indicating that they would not be taking my complaint any further.

I took it to their regulator, who accepted my complaint and gave Sky ten working days to respond (which has turned out to be well over two weeks due to Christmas.) Sky have effectively waited until the final day in which they can respond to offer me £200 as a settlement. They have once again claimed that I did not request to keep my old number (and while I know this to be untrue, I have no way to prove it.) I now have two choices:

I can accept the £200 and lose my old phone number.

or

I can reject their offer and let the regulator decide on the outcome.

The regulator may force Sky to reinstate my original number. They may also force Sky to pay me compensation. However, there is no guarantee of either.

Does anyone have any advice on what I should do?

MattMattMattUK

pyrrhus80 said:

I signed up to Sky Broadband and Talk during Black Friday. I requested to keep my old number (of over 30 years) but they assigned me a different one.

Their customer support was diabolical; hours wasted, getting nowhere. Ultimately, they insisted that I never requested to keep my number during the sign up process (this is categorically untrue) and that there is nothing more they can do. They provided a deadlock letter indicating that they would not be taking my complaint any further.

I took it to their regulator, who accepted my complaint and gave Sky ten working days to respond (which has turned out to be well over two weeks due to Christmas.) Sky have effectively waited until the final day in which they can respond to offer me £200 as a settlement. They have once again claimed that I did not request to keep my old number (and while I know this to be untrue, I have no way to prove it.) I now have two choices:

I can accept the £200 and lose my old phone number.

or

I can reject their offer and let the regulator decide on the outcome.

The regulator may force Sky to reinstate my original number. They may also force Sky to pay me compensation. However, there is no guarantee of either.

Does anyone have any advice on what I should do?

The regulator has no power to force Sky to reinstate the number. 

The process costs Sky both time and money, they have effectively offered you some money to "shut up and go away", commonly referred to as "a gesture of good will", thus costing them more than you will likely be offered in compensation if you are offered anything as you have not been able to evidence your claim, but saving them time and money of going through the whole process. 

The choice is do you want £200, or gamble for more but likely get nothing?

Woodstok2000

How much do you want/need to keep the old number?

Peter999_2

"The choice is do you want £200, or gamble for more but likely get nothing?"

It's like Bullseye.      

Seriously though, it depends on how you feel about your old number.   For people like me, I couldn't give a monkeys about landline numbers, I'm only bothered about keeping my mobile number (I did have the same landline for over 20 years).    However, my parents would be devastated if they lost their number even though they've only had it 15 years.

If you are like me, you will take the £200 and end the whole sorry saga, but if you are like my parents then you would probably keep going with the complaint.    However, as others have said, it is unlikely to get you anywhere further and will probably get you more and more frustrated.

Boohoo

Peter999_2 said:

"The choice is do you want £200, or gamble for more but likely get nothing?"

It's like Bullseye.      

Seriously though, it depends on how you feel about your old number.   For people like me, I couldn't give a monkeys about landline numbers, I'm only bothered about keeping my mobile number (I did have the same landline for over 20 years).    However, my parents would be devastated if they lost their number even though they've only had it 15 years.

If you are like me, you will take the £200 and end the whole sorry saga, but if you are like my parents then you would probably keep going with the complaint.    However, as others have said, it is unlikely to get you anywhere further and will probably get you more and more frustrated.

Nothing to do with Sky but would the OP be able to regain the old number if they went with a VOIP provider like Andrew's and a or Vonage?

It maybe to late as I think the old provider has to retain the landline number for 30 days before regurgitating it or something like that.

littleboo

If it's more than 30 days since the failed port, then your number will have been un-quarantined and there is little chance of Sky recovering it, even if they wanted to. Presumably it was originally a BT number so would have been returned to them. 

pyrrhus80

MattMattMattUK said:

The regulator has no power to force Sky to reinstate the number. 

The process costs Sky both time and money, they have effectively offered you some money to "shut up and go away", commonly referred to as "a gesture of good will", thus costing them more than you will likely be offered in compensation if you are offered anything as you have not been able to evidence your claim, but saving them time and money of going through the whole process. 

The choice is do you want £200, or gamble for more but likely get nothing? 

I'm not trying to get more.

All I have ever asked for is to have my old number reinstated, or for a satisfatory explanation for why this is not possible. I have experienced problems porting this number the previous two times I have switched provider. For whatever reason, it has never been straight-forward to port. However, where other providers made the effort to find what was causing the problem and resolve it, Sky have washed their hands of it at the first hurdle and tried to put the blame onto me.

It's the principle of it more than anything else. Even more so than actually getting the number back.

While the regulator may not be able to "force" Sky to reinstate the number, I don't believe there is anything truly preventing the port if only Sky would bother to investigate. Sky are far more likely to tdo this if the regulator recommends it. 

Nevertheless, £200 is a decent amount of money. And I'm thinking of accepting it and then using the money to subscribe to a VoIP provider if they are able to retrieve the number.

pyrrhus80

littleboo said:

If it's more than 30 days since the failed port, then your number will have been un-quarantined and there is little chance of Sky recovering it, even if they wanted to. Presumably it was originally a BT number so would have been returned to them. 

It is almost 30 days but not quite.
It was originally an NTL number. However my most recent previous provider was Vodafone. I can't find it now but I remember reading that they kept numbers quarantined for significantly longer than 30 days.

pyrrhus80

Boohoo said:

Nothing to do with Sky but would the OP be able to regain the old number if they went with a VOIP provider like Andrew's and a or Vonage?

It maybe to late as I think the old provider has to retain the landline number for 30 days before regurgitating it or something like that.

Yes, that's exactly what I was thinking myself.
The £200 would easily cover the setup fees, and it'd make switching to another broadband provider (that doesn't provide landline services) more straight-forward when the time comes.

littleboo

I would give A&A a call and see what they say about the chances of recovering it.

Boohoo

littleboo said:

I would give A&A a call and see what they say about the chances of recovering it.

I would call as you can speak to human being and then they should give you advice on wether it's possible to get the number back.

If they have a mobile app or a way of getting the landline number onto your mobile then at least you can then if it's all working ok get the gear that's needed to connect to the Sky router and go from there.

Only issue I can see is if Sky are trying to get the number for you will that hamper the VOIP company from getting your old number as you are in dispute?

I think I replied to a the OP'S thread last year about this issue and you mentioned NTL as a potential reason for porting your landline in the past.