Sky Subscriber Services

[davefirewalker]

Sky are most definetly on my list.....

see my thread

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk...nst-world.html

they have ignored tha last two letters..... so I'm getting the big guns out



Dave

[buzby]

Thanks for that info about credit info sharing, that must be the first time anything Sky told me actually stacked up! As to the second story, I bet that's the first time BACS (the Bankers Automated Clearing Service) has become a 'watchdog'! Sheesh! Still their handling of the subscribers case echoes mine, they do nothing and then settle before court without admission.

[pugsley]

I tried to close my sky account but they refused to do this as I owe 65pounds which is really 25 and one month ahead at 40. They said I had to pay it first and then cancel. grrrr

[buzby]

The secret is to give notice of account closure FIRST. You do this one month in advance of when you want to cease services. This prevents the erroneous future month becoming part of your balance, and you are only left to pay the 'final' bill for services to the date the services stop. That saves the 'we won't close the account till you have a clear balance.'

[BigNobby]

I have been having a similar ding-dong with sky.

In a recent salvo they sent me a letter stating that my problems were "ALL SORTED" in fact I got 2 copies! 5 days later they suspended my service.

Apparently they had sent me 3 letters saying that I owed them money cause a DDM had 'bounced'.

I had responded to the 1st letter than then generated the ALL SORTED letters. never received the 2nd or 3rd.

However they claim that I had made a promise to pay after the 2nd letter. Which I did not. So I wrote to them and after the 2nd letter got a responce that said something of interest as I had requested a copy or transcript of the call where I had allegedly made the promise to pay.

The response was that they were unable to provide this as calls are only recorded for training purposes.

So after that long pre-amble if I was to make a formal S.A.R under the Data Protection Act would they have to provided me with the information?

Do all companies that record calls have to provide transcripts/recordings under the act even if it is just for training purposes?

[buzby]

Your S.A.R - (Subject Access Request) request will provide you with many (many many) sheets of A4 giving screen grabs of all the 'pages' on your account. You will not get transcripts or recordings, BUT the screen notes will summarise what was said at that date and time. In my case these were pretty accurate, but there were times calls were NOT logged. (But I make my own recordings).

Even if the recordings weren't for training purposes, they could argue your call wasn't recorded and you couldn't do anything about it. Look for the notes, it should tell you all you need to know.

[nator]

[message deleted]

[davefirewalker]

Just found this on another thread here.....its about bt but the principal must be the same

Millions could reclaim in BT bill backlash | This is Money

And just found this on a legal site that may be of help, it was regarding BT's fee for non dd payment
-------------------------------

I think I have them banged to rights here (having finished the contract part of my degree)

Yes they are perfectly within their rights to change their terms of service if they so wish at any time and charge more for say line rental or any other services they provide to me. Subject to my agrement and consent of course. However this charge is not a service provided by them but by a third party to the contract to whom I have no obligations. Evidenced by the fact they they do not charge VAT on the £4.50 and they are obliged to charge VAT on all the services they provide.

So I think I will just pay the bill less the £4.50 and I will not be in breach of contract because I will have paid only for the services they provide. I will put a note in with the bill to forward my representations to their legal department as to what grounds they attempt to justify the charge.

Should be an interesting one I'll keep you posted.

cheers

------------------------------------

rgds

Dave

[IdaInFife]

Originally Posted by nator

Hi all, I've been following this thread for a while. I'm going through Sky hell as well, and am at a complete loss as to what I can do. There seems to be some knowledge here, so I thought I would bounce this off you lot.

I moved into a new flat at the end of October. This has a communal satellite dish on the roof, so I decided to sign up for Sky+ with SkyHD service. I bought the package off one of sky's sellers in a shopping centre, with a special offer for the first month (Sky world for £31). This was not from a third party but from sky itself. I parted with over £300 for the SkyHD box and installation, paying by credit card. I signed and handed over the contract and set up a direct debit (I know I know..) on 3 November. My bank confirms that the DDM was set up on 6 November and has been active since.

The engineers came by a week later and set it all up. So far so good. Then the letters started coming: "Ooops, you have forgotten something! We have not received your contract! Please sign another one and send it to us to avoid any interruptions to your service". And so on and so on. I called the seller, who assured me the contract had been sent on.

Cue a long series of completely pointless phone calls (and ££s). I stated that I did not want to sign another contract as we already had one, but was happy to send a copy.

In early December I was cut off. I called again, and my service was reactivated, but the letters continued to come. Still in early December, I managed to get a fax number for customer services, and faxed them a copy of the contract. I received no reply and continued to get their letters. This time, I wrote a recorded letter to the signee of the letters, a Mr. Mark Anderson, Customer Marketing Director at their Livingston offices, enclosing another copy of my contract. This was received by them the next day, but again I got no reply whatsoever.

On 20 December I was cut off for another 9 days. Another phone call, and the lady at the other end confirmed that they did have a copy of the contract, and that they did have the direct debit details, and that my account was now 'active'. My service was restored.

Of course, on 10 January I received yet another letter, dated 4 January, and today, 11 January, my service was cut off again. I am at a complete loss as to what I can do here. Phoning resolves nothing at all and only costs a lot of money.

Every time I call I speak to somebody completely new, who has no knowledge of the problem at all.

They do not respond to my letters of faxes.

They have discontinued their email support service, so that's not an option.

I cannot use they're new 'my Sky' internet service because they have failed to activate my account.

Now, if they do not want my custom, that's fine by me. However, I have spent in excess of £300 for their decoder box which is absolutely no good to me other than viewing freeview channels (I can't even record on it without the service). I have paid for installation and have spent heaps of money on telephone calls and correspondence.

The only thing I can think of is doing them for breach of contract, and asking for a full refund. Paragraph 11(c) of the contract states:

"Except where you break the Conditions of we will not end this Contract during the Minimum Term. (...)"

This really is the only option I can see at the moment. I would loathe to do this because I take no pleasure in this kind of thing, nor do I really have the time for it.

If anybody else has a better idea, please let me know. Any other thoughts on the matter are also very welcome.

Many thanks.

Sky themselves do not deal with communial installs so you have had an independant install which means your equipment will be maintained by the company that installed it and they should have forwarded the contract to Sky.

If you are still having problems PM me.


Idax

[pugsley]

sending an S.A.R - (Subject Access Request) as I can longer access my old email account and have no proof I sent preliminary and LBA to Sky, Sky account still in dispute.

glad to see this thread is still active

[buzby]

Your LBA HAS to be just that, it is not an 'email before action'. Not only that, if you send it by Recorded Delivery you have proof that is acceptable to the court you gave them every opportunity to resolve the issue prior to litigation. If you've only emailed them, you'll need to do a formal LBA asap.