Sky rip off pensioner of almost €700

Clanagael

My mother (pensioner) had sky at her rented house years ago. She moved address to her new home and notified sky of the move. 2.5 years later, she noticed on her bank statement that 2 sky subscriptions were being taken from her account each month.
On ringing sky, they said that she didn't cancel the previous address (which I personally did for her) and I wrote a letter of complaint as Sky took an additional 700euro from her account on top of her current subscription each month over the past 30 months.

On making many complaints, hours of phone calls, they said they disconnected the previous address. She is still getting billed for the previous address and also, got a one sentence letter saying that she will not be getting her money back as she 'apparently didn't' cancel her account. I know this is a lie as I made the call.

It took 3 phonecalls over 3 weeks to get the agents to 'actually cancel' the other account.. they kept reassuring it was cancelled and it was not.

So basically, they ripped off an old pensioner. She cancelled both direct debits as they kept taking the money each month and now, they want her to pay €5.08 a month extra to pay it in the post office because they are not able to tell their systems to stop taking the 2 accounts.

On refusing, they have now disconnected her and she has nothing now to watch until she organises an alternative... DISGRACEFUL.. like the ad on the tv.. sky care me ar*e.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEfnCEJ7FvM

munstergirl

2.5 years hope your mum learnt her lesson check bank statements! This could have been resolved 2.4 years ago if she did. This is as much her fault as sky.

On saying that hope she gets her money back + television.

dudara

You shouldn't have been able to cancel the account - technically, only the named person can cancel the account.

Write a registered letter of complaint to the head of customer services.

Run_to_da_hills

My old man had the same problem with Imagine, after having broadband disconnected from his account for almost a year he was still being charged for it. Only after discovering it on a bill it would have carried on indefinitally as he was still using other Imagine services and would not have noticed it on his DD account. It took several exhaustive phone calls to sort the matter out and get refunded.

Clanagael

dudara wrote: »

You shouldn't have been able to cancel the account - technically, only the named person can cancel the account.

Write a registered letter of complaint to the head of customer services.

Well, no I do all her phone calls as she is no good on the phone (she of course confirms her details before handing me on)

Her account has very low activity going on in it so she felt no need to keep monitoring statements. True she should have...

But considering it was cancelled they shouldn't have been charging her.. Also, on recently cancelling it too, they continued to charger her and leave it active until it took 3 agents to finally get it cancelled. Even after finally cancelling it, she still got charged again for the two times... so she had to cancel all dd's...

They don't give a crap at the end of the day once money is 'going in' to them and not ever 'going out'

jor el

Clanagael wrote: »

She is still getting billed for the previous address and also, got a one sentence letter saying that she will not be getting her money back as she 'apparently didn't' cancel her account. I know this is a lie as I made the call.

Unless the account is also in your name, or you have power of attorney over your mother's estate, you couldn't cancel her subscription, so it's not a lie, she didn't cancel her old account.

Clanagael wrote: »

So basically, they ripped off an old pensioner.

I don't think that's actually the case. There is an onus on every consumer to check their own finances, as mistakes often happen (even though in this case I think the blame lies with you both for not cancelling properly). What is clear is that Sky are not the only ones at fault here. They should have told you that you couldn't cancel the service when you tried.

Clanagael wrote: »

She cancelled both direct debits as they kept taking the money each month and now, they want her to pay €5.08 a month extra to pay it in the post office because they are not able to tell their systems to stop taking the 2 accounts.

Cancelling the DD on the first account should have been sufficient, and really should have been done 2 years ago.

Clanagael wrote: »

On refusing, they have now disconnected her and she has nothing now to watch until she organises an alternative... DISGRACEFUL..

If she refuses to pay anything, then they will certainly cancel. Nothing to watch is also not true, is it? There are hundreds of free to air channels on the Astra 2D satellite, including all of the UK terrestrial channels, so there is plenty to watch.

A written letter of complaint to Sky, from your mother and not you, would be the next port of call. Phone calls are a waste of time.


Edit; if she did confirm you were authorised to talk to them, then it should have been cancelled at the time. Did you get any confirmation from Sky in the form of a written letter? Without that, you will find it impossible to prove it was cancelled. A written letter of complaint to Sky would now be her best option.

foggy_lad

+1 on the free to air channels.


just pop the sky viewing card into the slot and turn on sky news, then press the red button and when the page loads turn off the box and plug it out for a few minutes and remove the viewing card, then turn back on and you will see a whole different channel line up including all the free to air channels. you will need an indoor ariel for rte 1+2 and tv3 and tg4

craoltoir

Contact George Hook.

dudara

Rather than telling the OP to run straight to the media, please try to post actual advice that they can follow. We are not here to provide a conduit to Joe Duffy/George Hook/Ray D'Arcy etc.

dudara

Sue Rocks

people seem to be forgetting that this is an elderly woman we are talking about here and all this "she should have done this" and "written letters that" is irrelevant.

Fact of the matter is that all these big companies make it extremely difficult to close an account with them so that for many elderly people they just can't handle all the rigmaroll.

Op I think you should write an official letter of complaint about how this whole case has been handled by sky in terms of them making it exteremly difficult for an elderly woman to close her account. Technically they didnt do anything wrong as account wasnt cancelled propoerly etc. but Im sure they will want to avoid the Joe Duffy discussion about this so they will probably sort it out if you say that you are going to go to the press with this etc.

Cabaal

Sue Rocks wrote: »

people seem to be forgetting that this is an elderly woman we are talking about here and all this "she should have done this" and "written letters that" is irrelevant..

Thats not entirely accurate though,
regardless if the women is 19 or 99 the Data Protection Act still applys so unless she gave power of attorney to the other person or the other person is a named account holder then they can do feck all to her account incl canceling it.

Its not about making things hard its about having a process setup which customers should follow and this process is within the law, if a customer won't follow it thats not the "big bad companys" fault
:rolleyes:

Fact of the matter is that all these big companies make it extremely difficult to close an account with them so that for many elderly people they just can't handle all the rigmaroll.

So giving formal notification of cancelation via the correct manner is hard?

Op I think you should write an official letter of complaint about how this whole case has been handled by sky in terms of them making it exteremly difficult for an elderly woman to close her account.

The OP can write until the cows come home, again unless he/she has power of attorney or is named on her Sky account Sky don't have to discuss anything with the OP and rightly so.

Matt Bauer

While I sympathise with your mother and think the right thing to do for Sky would have been to add the "overbilled" amount to her current account at her current address as a credit, this does demonstrate the importance of checking your bank account statements/credit card statements every month. It only takes a minute.

upandcumming

Sue Rocks wrote: »

people seem to be forgetting that this is an elderly woman we are talking about here and all this "she should have done this" and "written letters that" is irrelevant.

Clanagael wrote: »

My mother (pensioner) had sky...

So basically, they ripped off an old pensioner.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEfnCEJ7FvM

I love this!
They ripped off and old penisoner, with no money, a bad hip and a cataract.
Do you think that once people hit 65 they become useless?
Do you think they can't make a phonecall? They can still pick up a pen or call Customer Service!
You'd swear Sky maliciously went out to rob this 'defenceless' OAP!

Cabaal

upandcumming wrote: »

I love this!
They ripped off and old penisoner, with no money, a bad hip and a cataract.

Funny alright, if your borke you'd think there's better things you could spend 22e a month on then Sky.

Matt Bauer

When you cancel a subscription service, it is always a good idea to make sure they've stopped billing you. It's a very common occurrence that you cancel something, but it isn't actually cancelled.

DrumSteve

dudara wrote: »

Rather than telling the OP to run straight to the media, please try to post actual advice that they can follow. We are not here to provide a conduit to Joe Duffy/George Hook/Ray D'Arcy etc.

dudara

I think craoltoir was taking the piss outta off them sky ad's george hook did.

dudara

DrumSteve wrote: »

I think craoltoir was taking the piss outta off them sky ad's george hook did.

Makes sense.