Warning - SKY £75 Pay Once Watch Forever problems

NonGeographicalMan

Joe65 wrote: »

NGM has a long and distinguished background in such matters, and his advice should not be ignored lightly.

Thanks for your kind words Joe, although in Sky's case it is clearly a double scam both in them using ripoff 0844 phone numbers and then in trying to make customers in to customers for life against their will.

With the latest news that Sky will not even allow their own Sky Talk customers to call them without paying ripoff charges on their 0844 phone number in the weekday daytime things look set to only go from bad to worse.:eek::mad:

KD450

Hi guys,
I brough this package from Tesco for £79 4 months ago.
Really good offer.
When I registered with Sky to get it all set up, they asked for my bank account number and sort code and said if I dont cancel within 4 months then I will be charged for the mixes. I said ok.


The day before the 4 months come up, I phone up someone in Asia,sorry Sky, and am told that I cannot cancel as I have signed a 12 month contract. She said that I cannot complain about this and if she could not give me the details of Customer Service to complain as it is Confidential.
Thankfully the calls are recorded, so there is evidence that I attempted to cancel as per the original agreement I made on the phone at the start of the 4 months.


Since then Sky have been taking money out of my DEBIT card from my account not my BANK with account. Funny that, I did not have that particular debit card when I first registered and the debit card is with a completly diffrent bank to the bank details I gave them


I have reported the 2 withdrawals on my debit card as unauthorised to my bank and when I told Sky all of this I got this email back from them 3 WEEKS later!
"Firstly please let me apologise for the delay in my response and for any inconvenience caused.
Upon checking your account I can confirm that the offer that was applied to your account when you had your Sky installed on 18/10/08 was for your subscription of 4 mix free for 4 months. There is no information on your account with regards to Sky's pay once watch forever offer.
I can also advise that you were issued a correspondence letter on 20/10/08 to confirm and advise of your offer, therefore I can advise that you are still within your 12 month contract"


That Debit card has now been stopped by my bank and I stated to them to class it as Stolen not Lost.


Can Sky take me to court over this?
Have I got anything to worry about in the long run?
I think it is good that I have evidence that I phoned them on time to cancel before I should have been charged?

NonGeographicalMan

KD450 wrote: »

The day before the 4 months come up, I phone up someone in Asia,sorry Sky, and am told that I cannot cancel as I have signed a 12 month contract. She said that I cannot complain about this and if she could not give me the details of Customer Service to complain as it is Confidential.

Thankfully the calls are recorded, so there is evidence that I attempted to cancel as per the original agreement I made on the phone at the start of the 4 months.

Unfortunately you seem to have a rather naive faith in calls recorded in an Indian call centre far outside the reach of UK law. Given Sky's obscene repeat record of persistent and apparently quite deliberate confidence trickery over the sale of this product (Sky Pay Once Wacth Forever) do you really think someone in their Indian call centre is going to find a recording that is in your favour and not theirs? Perhaps in a UK call centre for Sky you might have a prayer but in the Indian call centre they are just going to press the delete button or deny having ever received that call from you.

Cutting off the direct debit or debit card and ignoring Sky is not actually a sensible option. All that will happen is that a huge corporate debt collection steamroller will automatically kick off against you and rack up larger and larger charges and collection fees.

However Sky are quite outrageously and obscenely in the wrong here, especially given the very public and long running nature of this thread and also apparently documenting in a letter to you a deliberate lie, namely that they sell four month contracts that compell you to carry on for 12 months with no right of cancellation at four months.

Two ways to play this here:-

1. For quick resolution send an email as follows:-

To:- [EMAIL="andrew.griffith@bskyb.com"]andrew.griffith@bskyb.com[/EMAIL]
cc:- [EMAIL="jeremy.darroch@bskyb.com"]jeremy.darroch@bskyb.com[/EMAIL]
cc:- [EMAIL="mark.anderson@bskyb.com"]mark.anderson@bskyb.com[/EMAIL]
cc: [EMAIL="crsupport@bskyb.com"]crsupport@bskyb.com[/EMAIL]
cc: [EMAIL="john.fingleton@oft.gsi.gov.uk"]john.fingleton@oft.gsi.gov.uk[/EMAIL]
cc: [EMAIL="colette.bowe@ofcom.org.uk"]colette.bowe@ofcom.org.uk[/EMAIL]
cc:- [EMAIL="ed.richards@ofcom.org.uk"]ed.richards@ofcom.org.uk[/EMAIL]
cc:- [EMAIL="stewart.purvis@ofcom.org.uk"]stewart.purvis@ofcom.org.uk[/EMAIL]
cc:- [EMAIL="stuart.mcintosh@ofcom.org.uk"]stuart.mcintosh@ofcom.org.uk[/EMAIL]

Mr Griffith is Sky 's Chief Financial Officer and is one of only two executive board directors at Sky (along with Mr Darroch) and you need to write to Mr Griffith making clear that he is presiding over and doing nothing at all to stop a regime of persistent fraud and misselling by his customer service staff in which they fail to honour the terms of the original deal on Sky Pay Once Watch Forever and also fail to provide or honour a straightforward failsafe method that ensures that customers who want to cancel before four months are up can do so.

You want to refer in your email specifically to this thread and provide a link to it and also bcc your email to the following.

[EMAIL="moneybox@bbc.co.uk"]moneybox@bbc.co.uk[/EMAIL]
[EMAIL="watchdog@bbc.co.uk"]watchdog@bbc.co.uk[/EMAIL]
[EMAIL="furtherhelp@moneysavingexpert.com"]furtherhelp@moneysavingexpert.com[/EMAIL]

2. Alternatively if you really want to you could let Sky start sending you more threatening letters and then launch a counter claim in the Small Claims Court for breach of contract by Sky in not letting you unsubscribe as promised and and demanding damages for distress and suffering and time lost caused by quite unjustifiably being hounded by their debt collectors. In any evidence submitted in your case to the court I would include a full printout of this thread and the other longer Moneysavingexpert thread about this product as overwhelming proof of Sky's longstanding abuse of contract law and apparently quite deliberate and systematic mistraining of its staff to try and lock people in to long term contracts that are not the contract they signed up for.

The letter Sky have sent you maintaining you did not have the right to cease the service after four months is actually quite astounding (it doesn't seem to have happened before) and the evidence you most want to focus on. Your call to India won't really help you unless you have a recording of it as I am sure Sky will deny their staff ever having made any such claims or having any such recording.

Sky is an utterly ruthless and seemingly either fundamentally dishonest or fundamentally incompetent (it could even be both those things at once) company that at least on the face of it appears to make a lot of its money through training its call centre staff to mislead less intelligent customers who do not know their rights only to then back off and claim it was all some one off terrible mistake if you write to the Chief Executive about the lies his call centres have been telling his customers. But I am personally convinced that these tactics are being deployed by Sky with the full knowledge and tacit unoffical support of Mr Jeremy Darroch, Mr Andrew Griffith and Mr Mark Anderson (Sky's "Director of Customer Marketing", although not a main Board director).

But don't just chuck the letters from Sky in the bin whatever you do. You will have to countersue in the County Court (as a small claim) if you want to make Sky realise its error at a fairly high up corporate level. Alternatively you can opt for the easy life by just emailing the email addresses shown above and having Sky write to you and tell you it was all a terrible mistake. I would try and demand £50 compensation from them for the time and hassle you have been caused by them though if you go down the much simpler and less time consuming email the Chief Executive of Sky route. But do also email Moneybox and Watchdog about this as they do like running features about cases where customer abuse is not just a one off but carries on time and again in spite of previous complaints to the senior management of the company by customers.

NonGeographicalMan

I have also just come across a rather interesting thread on digitalspy at https://www.digitalspy.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?p=31612482#post31612482 about the imminent issue by Sky of new white viewing cards to replace the current blue viewing card with a yellow house on it. This then led to me wonder whether all of us here who have successfully unsubscribed from Sky Pay Once Watch Forever would get a replacement viewing card without charge (you need one to watch Sky Three, Five, Five US, FIVER and Setanta Sport News on a Sky Digibox). This led me to the Sky Pay Once Wacth Forever Terms and Conditions to be found at https://www.freesatfromsky.co.uk/terms-pay-once.aspx

Equipment: You can receive a free standard Sky box without subscribing to Sky digital or taking up this pack. Sky selects your equipment. Free Sky box must be connected to a telephone line for 12 months. Warranty is against faults arising in first 12 months and does not affect your statutory rights. Charges may apply after end of warranty period. If we re-issue viewing cards within 5 years, replacements supplied free of charge, otherwise charges may apply.

So good news here but the other main point of interest is how very short the Sky Pay Once Watch Forever terms and conditions are compared to those found for Freesat From Sky found at https://www.freesatfromsky.co.uk/terms-freesat.aspx The Sky Pay Once Watch Forever terms and conditions make no mention at all of cancellation or the terms or conditions for doing so or any other continuing subscription obligation so in my view they are not Fit For Purpose. Why on earth does the much more complicated Sky Pay Once Watch Forever deal (which does not even include a requirement to keep a phone line connected for a year unlike Sky Pay Once Watch Forever) not have longer Terms and Conditions than FreesatFromSky proper? In reality Sky seems to try to get Sky Pay Once Watch Forever customers to also sign the much longer contract signed by normal 12 month contract Sky customers and this is where all the additional confusion and lack of certainty appears to come in.

One wonders who is Sky's current head of legal matters because whoever they are they don't seem to be doing their job in properly sorting out and resolving this now very long running issue.:eek::mad:

easilyamused

This thread makes me very nervous....

We've cancelled by email and phone and both times had confirmation that we won't be billed and we will lose our extras. To be sure they don't snaffle any of our money we also cancelled the direct debit (and like others have then had a letter warning us about it)...

Our 4 months is up on Sunday 5th April so we shall see what happens.... mentally preparing selves for doing battle though

NonGeographicalMan

easilyamused wrote: »

Our 4 months is up on Sunday 5th April so we shall see what happens.... mentally preparing selves for doing battle though

Send an email to jeremy.darroch@bskyb.com with cc to andrew.griffith@bskyb.com, mark.anderson@bskyb.com and crsupport@bskyb.com giving them your account number and smart card number and address and pointing out that you have already cancelled properly but despite this when you cancelled your direct debit you received the threatening letter.

Demand that they confirm your account is completely closed and refer them to the Sky Pay Once Watch Forever terms at https://www.freesatfromsky.co.uk/terms-pay-once.aspx, which actually make it clear that a Direct Debit is not required to obtain the install or the four free months of viewing and indicating that you believe Sky's staff are in breach of their own terms and conditions in asking customers for such a direct debit to be set up before they will go ahead with carrying out the install.

Ask for say £50 compensation for the inconvenience you have been put to in correcting this and in Sky's staff not honouring the Terms and Conditions of this product and in them sending you threatening debt collector letters.

easilyamused

Thanks for the advice NGM. Just wanted to update though and say that .. touch wood ... so far so good. At least, the extra channels all disappeared over the weekend and what we're left with is just the bog standard freesat channels.

So am assuming (hoping!) they're not going to be chasing for payment for channels we no longer receive...

NonGeographicalMan

easilyamused wrote: »

So am assuming (hoping!) they're not going to be chasing for payment for channels we no longer receive...

I would judge it by whether or not you get any more chasing debt collectors letters. If you do then you need to send that email to Jeremy Darroch and co ASAP.

The_One_2

Has anyone tried asking ConsumerDirect to take up this battle with Sky Pay Once Watch Forever ?
http://www.consumerdirect.gov.uk/after_you_buy/making-complaint/how-to-complain/

Which other regulatory bodies can you get involved in this ongoing problem, which Sky clearly dont care about ?

NonGeographicalMan

The_One wrote: »

Which other regulatory bodies can you get involved in this ongoing problem, which Sky clearly dont care about ?

In theory any of the other following bodies might also have an interest in the matter.

Advertising Standards Authority - https://www.asa.org,uk

As the original marketing material for Sky Pay Once Watch Forever and Terms & Conditions associated with it are clearly not representative of how Sky actually run the product in practice. Specifically the marketing says "No Contract" but then Sky force you to sign a contract before they agree to install the product and you then have to break this before it reaches 4 or 6 months to avoid incurring further fees.

Office Of Communications - Ofcom - https://www.ofcom.org.uk

Ofcom regulate Sky as a broadcaster and would have some responsibility to investigate examples of Sky distorting the FTA digital tv marketplace by selling their product anti-competitively against https://www.freeview.co. or https://www.freesat.co.uk alternatives.

Office of Fair Trading - https://www.gov.uk

Sky is clearly not trading fairly in the way they market this deal. The OFT has the ability to start investigating and issue a report if they want to. Persuading them that they need to do so is another matter

Competition Commission - https://www.competition-commission.org.uk

Sky seems to be trying to lure in people to becoming pay tv subscribers when they actually wanted an FTA satellite product in many cases and then by confidence trickery is trying to prevent people unsubscribing. This is anti competitive in terms of Sky's relationship with FTA television products like Freeview and Freesat and Sky's relationship with Virgin Media (who are not able to offer an equivalent product as their equipment does not become the property of the subscriber). They ought to have an interest in investigating the matter but unless they want to they probably won't bother.

The Police - Consumer Protection Act 1987

Sky seeem to be in breach of the Consumer Protection Act 1987 by making "misleading price indications" about this product on a repeat basis by suggesting it is FTA when it in fact involves a contractual commitment (not specified in the marketing) or they won't install it for you. This amounts to a deliberately Misleading Price Indication under the Consumer Protection Act 1987, although I think enforcement powers do perhaps fall to Trading Standards initially but they they can institute a prosecution under the act.

Of course the problem is getting any of the above bodies to act as they all seem to be afraid of Sky and its powerfuly army of lawers.:eek::mad: