consumer court for case against SKY?

bittihuduga

Hi
I have a dispute with SKY.
Does anyone if we can resolve this with consumers court in ireland or should we go to European court.

I had a free sky mix offer for 1 year valid till dec 2009.
few days back i asked them to add one premium channel for one month
they added it but never mentioned to me that i will lose my free sky mix package.

after 3 days, i received a letter stating i have lost of package and i have to pay full sky mix price.

i tried to contact SKY and cancel the premium channel but they did not do it
and now they offer 20% discount and say they cant apply free sky offer.
they accepted that the operator did not mention that to me

i have been trying to call many times but no update from them.

is there a consumer court who can take up my problem?

Dazzler88

bittihuduga wrote: »

I had a free sky mix offer for 1 year valid till dec 2009.
few days back i asked them to add one premium channel for one month
they added it but never mentioned to me that i will lose my free sky mix package.

you could bring it to the Irish consumer association but i cant see you getting anywhere with this issue.When they offered you the free Sky mix for a year that couldnt be altered without signing you up,so when you added the premium channel you changed from the free package to the package with the premium channel.I dont think you would get far with this,Sorry.

kbell

Exactly, Check whatever paperwork you have from when you signed up, I'm sure Sky are well covered on this, in the t+c of the offer you had.

Sit it out until Dec, cancel then sell the box, or use it for fta.

dlambirl

kbell wrote: »

Exactly, Check whatever paperwork you have from when you signed up, I'm sure Sky are well covered on this, in the t+c of the offer you had.

Sit it out until Dec, cancel then sell the box, or use it for fta.

+1 I'm sure Sky are well covered too..

bk

You could bring it to the small claims court.

Even though it is probably covered in the T&C's the small claims court often sides with the consumer on these sort of issues if the consumer had a reasonable expectation of it working one way and if it is buried in the T&C's and if it looks a little too much like bait and switch.

Plus companies often don't bother challenging it in small claims court and therefore you win by default.

bittihuduga

i was told that Irish small courts do not cover SKY as they are not based in ireland.
they asked me to goto european small court
any help here?

Nehaxak

Could you not take them to the small claims court here, doesn't it only cost like a fiver or some similar small amount of money ?
Sky sell directly to Irish consumers and even target us with our own service different to the UK (with RTE et all included) so I would think they will be liable and that you would be able to take them through the courts here.

watty

They sell from UK. We pay UK vat.
Only the install, install price & VAT is Irish.

bittihuduga

watty wrote: »

They sell from UK. We pay UK vat.
Only the install, install price & VAT is Irish.

do you say i have to goto European small court?

Our man in Havana

Nehaxak wrote: »

Could you not take them to the small claims court here, doesn't it only cost like a fiver or some similar small amount of money ?
Sky sell directly to Irish consumers and even target us with our own service different to the UK (with RTE et all included) so I would think they will be liable and that you would be able to take them through the courts here.

All well and good in theory. The problem is they have no Irish address and you cannot serve them at an address outside the state.

Our man in Havana

bittihuduga wrote: »

do you say i have to goto European small court?

http://www.courts.ie/Courts.ie/library3.nsf/pagecurrent/BE71CDF8FCA10C8C80257559005F5C59?opendocument
http://europa.eu/legislation_summaries/consumers/protection_of_consumers/l16028_en.htm

zagmund

This is something that has been bugging me for a while too. Surely Sky can't be exempt from any sort of sanction here just because they're based in the UK ? It's not like they're operating from somewhere like Jersey, Lichtenstein, St Nevis & Kitts or one of those other 'slightly alternative legislative basis' areas. OK, so it's not exempt, but in practice if you have to 'go to Europe' to seek sanction then it provides a fair buffer for them.

When I signed up for my package I thought I had it all worked out and had the best deal possible . . . then when the first bill came I found that they were charging me more than expected. I got on to them and they said I had waived one of the offers when signing up. I said I did no such thing - why on earth would I ? Eventually they said they would reduce it for subsequent months but they "couldn't" refund me the extra for the first month and I would be starting a new 12 month contract from that day. I checked all the paper work and I couldn't find a detailed breakdown of the amounts payable until after the service had been started. In practice it wasn't enough to take them to court over, but I did think it was sharp practice on their part.

Then I had to get on to them again about a Friends and Family payment that I never received. Apparently I had also waived this at signup . . . again I did not waive it, I did discuss it during the signup call, I was not told I was waiving it by taking another offer, etc . . . sharp practice again. They just stuck to the line that I had waived it, the system said so and it must be true.

Anyhoo . . . the long and the short of it is that I was considering going after them for some sort of remuneration as much to give them bad press as anything but I never made any progress with it.

z

mullingar

watty wrote: »

They sell from UK. We pay UK vat.
Only the install, install price & VAT is Irish.

Sorry to hi-jack a little, did sky also drop their monthly prices by 2.5% for Irish customers when the UK VAT rate dropped?

Our man in Havana

They did.