Warning - SKY £75 Pay Once Watch Forever problems

lorna01

the contact is for 12months with the option to opt out after 4 or 6 months you also need to have it connected to a tel line ,if sky do not hear from you to cancel then they will continue charging you for your subscription for the remainder of the 12months

Hippychick

I have just rung SKY on the number quoted above by the SKY team, had no problems whatsoever cancelling the package and they know all about it,

HOWEVER the chap did say they needed 30 days notice, not anytime before the expiry date.

So if you have this deal give at least 30 days notice before the expiration date to cancel.

pimeson

Sky_Team wrote: »

Hello MoneySavers...

Our Pay Once, Watch Forever products are designed for people who want to try Sky TV for a limited period while enjoying on-going access to free-to-air channels.

We have noticed from comments on the forum that some customers on the 4 Mix for Four Months product have received automated responses wrongly stating that they are on 12 month contracts, and we wish to apologise for this.

We have rebriefed our contact centre and simplified our processes. If you are in the minority of customers who decide they do not want to stay with us, all you need to do is phone us anytime before the end of the four month period to let us know.

As outlined in the terms and conditions of this offer, please make sure you contact us directly rather than simply cancel your direct debit with your bank.

If you would like to discuss any aspect of your account, please don't hesitate to email us through our Sky.com site or call us on 08442 41 41 41.

Best regards

Sky Team

Not happening in practice.

I was on a 4 month pay once package,cancelled it within the required time,Sky stopped on the 11th...........and I got a threatening letter from Sky saying they were going to dock my card to the tune of £128 for breach of contract dated the 12th.

Total jokers.

P

harz99

Well, I am glad to say that, judging by the lack of activity on this thread our problems seem to be over-or does anybody know differently?

jo_rob

I'm afraid I'm still having trouble. I've just received another threat letter saying that £87.67 has been charged to my account and that legal action may be brought against me.

I was bullied into paying for a month's viewing after the 6 months was up (which I regret doing) and after having the phone put down on me twice whilst trying to cancel, I sent a letter of complaint. I am still awaiting a reply to this letter sent on 18th May so have just emailed them (thanks for the sample email Max!).

Will let you know what happens...

NonGeographicalMan

jo_rob wrote: »

I'm afraid I'm still having trouble. I've just received another threat letter saying that £87.67 has been charged to my account and that legal action may be brought against me.

I was bullied into paying for a month's viewing after the 6 months was up (which I regret doing) and after having the phone put down on me twice whilst trying to cancel, I sent a letter of complaint. I am still awaiting a reply to this letter sent on 18th May so have just emailed them (thanks for the sample email Max!).

Will let you know what happens...

Send an email addressed to all three of the following with your details and Sky viewing card number etc explaining that the product box said "No Contract" etc and your problems will soon be resolved:-

jeremy.darroch@bskyb.com
AllCustomerCareEscalation@bskyb.com
CRsupport@bskyb.com

jo_rob

I received an email today from [EMAIL="CRsupport@bskyb.com"]CRsupport@bskyb.com[/EMAIL] apologising for the problems and confirming that that account is cancelled, all outstanding debts written off, and a cheque for £17 in the post (to cover the payment that I was bullied into making!).

I shall be glad to see the back the problem! Anyone else still getting no-where, e-mailing them is the solution. Don't waste money on phonecalls.

NonGeographicalMan

jo_rob wrote: »

I received an email today from [EMAIL="CRsupport@bskyb.com"]CRsupport@bskyb.com[/EMAIL] apologising for the problems and confirming that that account is cancelled, all outstanding debts written off, and a cheque for £17 in the post (to cover the payment that I was bullied into making!).

Its good to hear that emailing the addresses suggested did the trick.

So far as I can tell Sky's regular policy is to con its customers in to staying with it, even when they want to leave, by a variety of cajoling, misleading, deceiving and plain old fashioned dishonesty but if customers then escalate their inability to leave to a high level at Sky they make out that it has all been some terrible mistake and that of course they never really intended to rip you off.....;):eek:

I shall be glad to see the back the problem! Anyone else still getting no-where, e-mailing them is the solution. Don't waste money on phonecalls.

If anyone does need to phone Sky they would be best off using one of the geographic (non 0844) numbers listed on the https://www.saynoto0870.com website that are counted as part of inclusive call packages to numbers starting 01 or 02.

If https://www.freesat.co.uk could sort out their problems with no Five, Fiver US or FIVER on their boxes then I suspect it might be worth paying the extra to get an HD Freesat tv signal and avoid the pain of ever having to deal with Sky in any shape or form.

SkyProblems

I hope this letter will help others not to experience the problems I have had with Sky's 'Pay Once, View Forever' offer...

15th July 2008

Denise Allan
Head of Operational Finance
Customer Relations Department
Sky Subscribers Ltd.
PO Box 43
LIVINGSTON
West Lothian EH54 7DD


Ref: Account number ************

Dear Ms Allan

I have just received a circular letter from you dated 9th July telling me that you have charged my credit card for £128, that I was in breach of a 12-month contract and that if I did not reply within 14 days you would refer the matter to a debt collection agency.

The Consumer Direct department of the Office of Fair Trading has advised me today that they have logged this case and that I should write you this letter and refer the matter back to them if your response is unsatisfactory or if you do not reply within 10 days. I contacted the Office of Fair Trading because I discovered from the Web that a host of customers of Sky have had money charged to their accounts on the same basis.

I have never had a 12-month contract with you. I took up a 4-month one-off payment offer for £75 advertised in Curry's ****** branch on 2nd February 2008. The terms and conditions of the offer stated explicitly that provided I cancelled my subscription before the expiry of the 4 months that no further charges would be made and I would continue to receive Freeview/Freesat channels. I took up this offer purely because we have a very poor TV aerial signal in the area in which we live and made it clear at each contact with Sky that I had no intention of extending the subscription beyond these four months.

I noted the advice that cancellations were advised to be one month before the expiry, but to make certain, I phoned at least 6 weeks before the expiry and then twice more, being told that it was only necessary to cancel by 6th May, which I made sure to do. It was confirmed by phone that the subscription had been cancelled. However, I then received a circular letter (again from you) on 6th June which informed me that no payments had been received for a 12-month contract and noting your intent to levy a charge of £128 on my credit card (details of which you should not have kept after the cancellation of my subscription). I phoned Sky yet again on 10th June, immediately after receipt of this letter (ref. *************) and was assured that a mistake had been made, that my subscription had been cancelled, that no further payments were due and that no further letters of this kind would be sent to me.

However, as noted above, you wrote yet again informing me that you had made a 'clawback' charge of £128 to my credit card and were threatening to pass the matter on to a debt collection agency. The response to my phone call this evening to Sky explaining what had happened was exactly as it had been before - that an error had been made. I was not put in direct phone contact with a supervisor, still less to you. This inspired no confidence whatsoever that the matter was resolved. I am horrified that Sky is behaving in this way.

I have been advised by the OFT to inform you of the events leading up to this letter, to draw to your attention that I have never been on a 12-month contract but only on the 4-month special one-off payment offer and that I have not been and have not wished to have been receiving the original Sky channels since the expiry of the offer on 6th June. I have been told to inform you that you have ten days to confirm in writing that:

" there is no contract between us
" to refund any monies charged to my credit card
" to withdraw your threat of handing the matter to a debt collection agency
" to assure me that my credit rating has not been adversely affected
" to provide a full and detailed explanation of exactly why this chain of events has occurred (not a circular letter but a letter addressing directly the specific details outlined here)


On the advice of Consumer Direct I am sending this by Recorded Delivery.

In the light of this sequence of events and of its appalling mishandling, together with the clear evidence that this has happened to many other customers with nothing having been done about it by Sky, I will be telling all the people I know not to take up any offers from Sky. I will also provide details of this matter to the online outlets where complaints have been published in the hope that others do not experience this kind of disaster. If I do receive a letter from a debt collection agency you may be sure that I will take this matter up with my legal representatives and with the press, citing you by name.

Yours sincerely

cc. Consumer Direct
c/o Office of Fair Trading
Fleetbank House
2-6 Salisbury Square
LONDON EC4Y 8JX


Plus... Local County Council
Trading Standards Section

NonGeographicalMan

Dear SkyProblems,

You have written a commendably forceful letter but unfortunately it will probably be completely lost on the conscienceless money grabbing idiots in Sky's accounting department.

I am not at all confident that your letter is addressed to the correct person at Sky in order to achieve a successful outcome (for instance why was your letter not sent to Jeremy Darroch at Sky's London headquarters) and I note that it has also cost you an unnecessary £1+ in 1st Class and Signed For mail charges.

At the risk of repeating myself the most likely successful outcome will be achieved by sending an email to all three of the following addresses, probably addressed to Jeremy Darroch with CC to the other two (the ones who actually put things right):-

[EMAIL="jeremy.darroch@bskyb.com"]jeremy.darroch@bskyb.com[/EMAIL]
[EMAIL="AllCustomerCareEscalation@bskyb.com"]AllCustomerCareEscalation@bskyb.com[/EMAIL]
[EMAIL="CRsupport@bskyb.com"]CRsupport@bskyb.com[/EMAIL]

If you are so inclined then copying in the following additional email addresses would also not be a bad idea:-

furtherhelp@moneysavingexpert.com
watchdog@bbc.co.uk
youandyours@bbc.co.uk
working.lunch@bbc.co.uk