:mad: I was a SKY customer and had an account in my name, due to my partner being made redundant we had to go on to benefits. I couldnt afford the SKY and stoped paying it. It was passed on to a debit aggency.

All sky corrispondance stopped. Then on new years day they took £67.40

and £109.20 from a family members debit card . They had allowed me to set up the SKY instillation using their debit card as i didnt have enough money in my account at the time as I signed up with a sales person in a suppermarket. They say that its in the contract that they can take the money from the method used to set up the instilation. It does say this and it also says they must give clear notice.

# 1. I or my family where not told this at the time they paid the money using the card.

# 2. How can they keep someones bank/ debit card details that do not have a SKY account.:-|:?

#2.2 They didnt give anyone any notice of this money coming out!

#3. RBS took the payment out when they had no money in their account- making them overdrawn and giving them a bank charge.

#4. They took the payment from their child tax credit benefit.

what can we do to get the money back? please help

I'm in the same boat. Sky took three payments totalling £250 from my 78 year old mother in laws card a week before christmas. She has reported them to the bank (Natwest) who say each transaction was manually keyed using existing authorisation codes therefore not for the bank to chase the money as they were 'authorised' transactions.

I'm challenging the terms in the Sky agreement for the following reasons.

The one time we paid on MIL's card it was agreed before usage that this payment was a one off and her details were not to be stored and the card was not to ever be used again without further authorisation. The sky adviser agreed to this but they haven't listened to the phone conversation yet.

Sky are relying on a contractual agreement signed by myself awarding them the rights to retain 3rd party card details. I am not in a position to award them these rights since I have no title to the card and cannot lawfully authorise any payment on this card.

Sky are in breach of the verbal agreement that these 3rd party card details were to be destroyed after one time usage.

Sky T&C's contain an unfair term and should be amended to incorporate the phrase "held by the sky account holder" after "any card" since I like nearly all account holders am not lawfully able to assign any rights in a 3rd parties CC to sky and the contract is not signed by the cc holder.

The Sky contract potentially breaches the fundamental principle of "nemo dat quod non habet" and in every instance where a charge is applied to a third parties card without express authorisation from the cardholder Sky are guilty of breaching this legal fundamental.

The letter of notice stating they were going to approach the card did not arrive, the payment was taken on the 17th Dec and funnily the letter arrived this morning with "ReISSUE" stamped in the top corner. They would have been told not to and MIL would have been advised to alert the bank had this letter arrived.

By taking three payments Sky managed to circumnavigate the account security flag which would have been triggered had a single payment of £250 been requested. Three manual payments within minutes tends to suggest that Sky were aware a trigger for authorisation might have been set.

The card was removed from the system as agreed but was subsequently manually re-entered on the system and no authorisation was given for this.

I have found Sky to be dreadfully evasive in their dealings over this. Sadly MIL uses NatWest so no surprises with their attitude but what shocks me is that Sky apparently re-used authorisation codes according to Natwest yet only one payment was ever made on that card so where did the authorisation codes (plural) spring from? I suspect but can only guess that Sky do some sort of pre-authorisation setup whenever they get a new card and obtain authorisation codes for future payments.

Some useful contact details for escalating the dispute away from the terribly polite but wholly unhelpful call centre team I've just gleaned are:

[email protected]

fax- 01506 484334

And if you don't have a Sky phone to use free for hour after hour I think the following works as a non chargable call from other networks.

01506 831 780 press 3 then 3 again then 2

BTW although the Sky offices are in Livingstone West Lothian be careful if taking it further because the registered office for Sky Subscriptions Services LTD is in London. Legal letters sent to Scottish office aren't deemed properly served.

I'm on to TS through Consumer Direct tomorrow to see if theres mileage in this being an unfair term as it invokes a right under contract which does not exist under law in cases like this where the card does not belong to the sky account holder. Sky have awarded themselves the right in perpetuity to approach third parties cards and deduct money, I'm not very convinced this is legal.

Definitely sounds like a job for Trading Standards, you can also approach your TS directly through this site which will give you details if you enter in your postcode.

Trading Standards Institute - Home page

Spoke with consumer direct today about this issue.

They agree that in instances where the cardholder is not the account holder then the term 'probably' equates to an unfair term in a contract. They knew exactly where I was coming from and without saying as much I felt that they 'already knew a lot about this particular practice'.

Straight away she advised me to contact ICO with a complaint about the retention of the card details against the wish of the card holder and after having agreed prior to usage that the details would be wiped. Local TS were automatically notified and will be in touch in 5 days time.

Details of my allegations that the sky T&C's contain a term which can in all circumstances where the card is not owned by the signatory to the contract be deemed unfair by virtue of them assigning to sky something which cannot be thus assigned in law have been passed on to the OFT. Again I felt I was by no means the first.

It looks like when the solitary payment was made a year ago on the card Sky also approached the card with three other amounts totalling £250 and gained authorisation codes but did not deduct the money.

These auth codes were apparently manually keyed in at the later date hence natwest stating that each payment was authorised.

Sky have possibly been more than a little naughty here and as a result they are now facing action from several directions.

I'm interested to know if there has been anything further on this as I'm embroiled in a similar situation - wondering if there have been any further developments?

Natwest were as per usual quite useless insisting that the payments were authorised and that therefore there was nothing they could do.

Still a little surprised to have learned that it's common industry practice when somebody is making a "one off" payment to snatch and store several authorisation codes completely without authorisation from the cardholder.

Sky themselves refunded all monies deducted from the MIL but only after weeks of arguing and "waiting for the manager to call back". It took the threat of court action by my MIL to help them finally see the light.

Thanks for the update Jasper.

They haven't actually taken the money yet - just told me that they have the right to do so. I asked the 'supervisor' for details of the law which confirmed that they had this right and she replied that she didn't have to do that because it's 'in their terms and conditions.' I said I didn't think it was unreasonable to ask for some form of proof that what she was saying was correct. We went round in circles!

Forgetting about it for tonight - will get back on it tomorrow. Glad your MIL got her monies back.

mw