So frustrated with sky!

flo2009

My old sky box broke and I bought another one for €5 (discounted as I told them I wouldn't pay full €100 for call out charge), this was installed in janurary 2011, I agreed to new box on the basis I did NOT want sky HD subscription.
Feb I received a letter stating I was going to have to pay €146.77 as I cancelled my sky HD, I rang sky straight away and was told that- that was a standard letter not to worry, money would not be taken from my account.
9th Of march money was taken from my account totaling €146.77, I received a letter the next morning (10th) stating money would be taken from my account (already been taken) I rang them straight away and sky after about an hour on the phone, they agreed to to give back my money to my account it would take 5 days.
No money to date, Rang them on the 21st allowing for st patricks day, and giving a little leway, told on the 21st no money was to be given back to me, after another hour on the phone and told a supervisor would ring me back(which they didn't) that they would give my money back it would take up to 4 days!!
rang again today the 28th of march 2011, and told that my bill had been taken from the money and the other €92 would be put on my account that it would take 10 days, I asked to just cancel my account as I cannot understand how a company can take someone's money without any authorisation from the account holder, I am 100% unhappy and this is not the service I have signed up for, I followed all the steps, rang and complained, then sent an email which i got an automated response from and I haven't heard anything since

sorry for the long winded post, just had to vent! Is it legal for them to take money without you agreeing??

wmpdd3

flo2009 wrote: »

My old sky box broke and I bought another one for €5 (discounted as I told them I wouldn't pay full €100 for call out charge), this was installed in janurary 2011, I agreed to new box on the basis I did NOT want sky HD subscription.
Feb I received a letter stating I was going to have to pay €146.77 as I cancelled my sky HD,

I take it you had signed up to HD previously and they let you out before the 12 months was up?

I rang sky straight away and was told that- that was a standard letter not to worry, money would not be taken from my account.
9th Of march money was taken from my account totaling €146.77, I received a letter the next morning (10th) stating money would be taken from my account (already been taken) I rang them straight away and sky after about an hour on the phone, they agreed to to give back my money to my account it would take 5 days.
No money to date, Rang them on the 21st allowing for st patricks day, and giving a little leway, told on the 21st no money was to be given back to me,


Agree, anything out of the ordinary and the guys on the phone do not compute!

after another hour on the phone and told a supervisor would ring me back(which they didn't) that they would give my money back it would take up to 4 days!!

rang again today the 28th of march 2011, and told that my bill had been taken from the money and the other €92
(is this a credit?)

would be put on my account that it would take 10 days, I asked to just cancel my account as I cannot understand how a company can take someone's money without any authorisation from the account holder, I am 100% unhappy and this is not the service I have signed up for, I followed all the steps, rang and complained, then sent an email which i got an automated response from and I haven't heard anything since

sorry for the long winded post, just had to vent! Is it legal for them to take money without you agreeing??

Yes you signed up to DD (though they do not send any sort of bill)

I had a few run ins with them similar to that, but I cancelled twice and within 3 months each time I got a letter offering my favorably terms if I re-joined. Which I did. The only problem is if you go with someone else you will be in a 12 month contract with them.

flo2009

Thanks for reply

The frustrating part of it is
No I never had or never will have sky HD, I never entered into a hd subscription with them at all!! Waste of money as it's not even full hd!

They just shoved it on, an I no mistakes can be made I understand that I work in sales myself, but I have never dealt with such an incompetent bunch of eejits!!

foggy_lad

Ring them one last time and just ask to be put through to cancellations department and relay the story to them and ask them cancel your subscription and waive any cancellation fees because of their incompetence, then cancel any direct debit with your bank.

sandin

write to them, cancel the service request a refund and switch over to UPC.

jor el

Since he money was taken without proper notification and without your consent, then you should write to your bank and request them to reverse the payment. Don't take any guff from the bank about them not being able to do this, they can and must assist you in your claim.
http://www.ipso.ie/section/DirectDebitScheme

# If it is established that an unauthorised direct debit was charged to your account, you are guaranteed a prompt refund by your Bank of the amount so charged where you notify your Bank without undue delay on becoming aware of the unauthorised direct debit, and in any event no later than 13 months after the date of debiting of such direct debit to your account
# You are entitled to request a refund of any variable direct debit which exceeded the amount which you could reasonably have expected, subject to you so requesting your Bank within a period of 8 weeks from the date of debiting such direct debit to your account
# You can instruct your bank to refuse a direct debit payment by writing in good time to your Bank
# You can cancel the Direct Debit Instruction by writing in good time to your Bank

Cancel all future direct debits to Sky as well.

Full direct debit rules can be found here. If your bank refuses to help, print this off and tell them to learn how to do their job. Also, contact the Financial Regulator about their inability to follow simple rules.

flo2009

Rang back again to give it one more go, an I can't end cause I got a new sky box in jan so in contract with them.. I asked to go through to cancellations department and supposedly they don't have one!! Got onto a supervisor and he was worse than the lot of them put together, the funny thing is I sell sky where I work but I can guarantee I will never sell another package for them !!
Thanks for all the responses

hdowney

they are an absolute joke. they tie you into another 12mth contract for the simplest of things - and don't necessarily bother telling you they have done so. they are generally most unhelpful where money is involved. trying to get money back off of them that they have taken wrongly is like pulling teeth. and then it is always 'credit' to your next months bill. it's like wtf you took it wrongly from my ac, put it back there. i didn't have that money for to pay off next mths bill already ffs.

i swear i am almost shot of the shower and i cannot wait.

JB81

write to them, cancel the service request a refund and switch over to UPC.

Your case sounds bad all right, but i had a worse experience with UPC/Chorus or whatever they call themselves.
In short it took 3 months for them to send me a replacement remote control as the other one got smashed. I was paying for it and all ( had the option of returning the old one and getting a free new one but decided to just pay as i thought it would be 'quicker' ).
So three months, and the best thing is their boxes did not have the facility to change channels on the box itself, so no channels for 3 months and they then tried to refuse when i asked for 3 months credit on my paymnets ( which i finally got after twice as many minutes on the phone as you have said ).

Jb

hdowney

tbh i think all companies are quite quick at taking are money and slower than snails at giving it back. it's the way the world works.

i guess the big thing is how the likes of customer services people etc treat you when you are trying to sort out various issues. and i have found sky nothing but trouble. there are some nice customer service people working for sky, don't get me wrong. i don't want to tar everyone who works for them with the same brush. but the majority are incompetent rude fools and i can't stand when i get one of them on the phone.

daheff

JB81 wrote: »

write to them, cancel the service request a refund and switch over to UPC.

Your case sounds bad all right, but i had a worse experience with UPC/Chorus or whatever they call themselves.
In short it took 3 months for them to send me a replacement remote control as the other one got smashed. I was paying for it and all ( had the option of returning the old one and getting a free new one but decided to just pay as i thought it would be 'quicker' ).
So three months, and the best thing is their boxes did not have the facility to change channels on the box itself, so no channels for 3 months and they then tried to refuse when i asked for 3 months credit on my paymnets ( which i finally got after twice as many minutes on the phone as you have said ).

Jb

UPC are a disgrace

signed up last july - and even though i was told there would be no connection /set up charges they proceeded to add a number of charges to my bill totalling 500Eur!! I nearly died when i got the first bill with that on it.
Lucky for them they didnt action a DD looking for that amount...i'd have sued the pants off them if they had

hdowney

daheff wrote: »

UPC are a disgrace

signed up last july - and even though i was told there would be no connection /set up charges they proceeded to add a number of charges to my bill totalling 500Eur!! I nearly died when i got the first bill with that on it.
Lucky for them they didnt action a DD looking for that amount...i'd have sued the pants off them if they had

gah :eek: where did they get them figures from? i am a little peeved with upc at the mo (but not half as much as with sky) cos on their website they go on about the fact that if you order such and such product and install it yourself you don't gotta pay the install charges etc. but then you ring them and they tell you you CAN'T install yourself cos there is no sort of connection pre-existing at your house - which is cos the dopey twats didn't come and put one in when the houses were built eleven yrs ago! - and therefore you HAVE to have the installers out!

kbell

cos on their website they go on about the fact that if you order such and such product and install it yourself you don't gotta pay the install charges etc. but then you ring them and they tell you you CAN'T install yourself cos there is no sort of connection pre-existing at your house - which is cos the dopey twats didn't come and put one in when the houses were built eleven yrs ago! - and therefore you HAVE to have the installers out!

Whats wrong with that? if the connection is pre-existing and live, you just connect yourself.
If no infrastructure is in place then they'll need to send out their installers to facilitate you with a connection and they may charge for it.

Upc dont just arrive on a site like little cable fairies, install their equipment and cabling and off they go. it's down to what ever company if any, the developer dealt with to provide the television service, be it Upc, Sky, Magnet etc..and in your case none..

hdowney

ah no i understand all that. i guess my peeve was they kept on saying to me - even when i rang to deal with it all over d phone, that i could get it free install by doing it myself, when it was blatantly obvious that since there was no infrastructure in place (thanks chorus!) that i would have to have an installer come out. then at the last minute they were like ooops yes you will have to pay cos yes an installer will have to come out. it was like DUH!!! why did you keep telling me otherwise so? doesn't it say on one of your computers which areas are already cabled and which aren't???

tis no biggie tho

prettygurrly

have to say, apart from UPC not having the "pause rewind record live tv" option or the option of having a bundle with phone and broadband availalbe in DROGHEDA i've found them really efficient and up front.

However I did get burned a few years ago living somewhere else when UPC told me they'd switch an account over to someone else in a house I used to live in. They allowed him to add sky sports and playboy even though the account was still in my name. Then didn't contact me when he stopped paying the bill when he moved out of the house so left it to build up to 500 euro. Then finally rang me after 8 months of me leaving the house, and 5 months after he left the house to tell me that i owed them 500 euro.

I was one of the customers who got retribution from the Gerry Ryan show and my bad credit got wiped off thank god as I'm applying for a mortgage and the last thing you need is a bad utility.

On another note, I joined sky today as I'm moving house. Really hope I dont have any trouble with them. My parents had a bit of hooha a while ago. Accusing my parents that the sky box wasn't connected to the landline (when it was) and tried charging them 800 euro for something. got sorted in the end but not without causing my elderly dad trouble. not on.

however the pause rewind and record live tv is very attractive altho it's not cheaper than UPC.

UPC cost me 100 euro to cancel the account sadly. But I knew it would.

flo2009

Ohhh I'm even more frustrated now, sky was ment to credit my account with the 147.77 and take bills from that till credit was fully used( like any half decent company) now I look at my bank acc and they have taken a further 56e out of my acc(my bill for April) but also taken it off the credit so effectively paid my bill twice and somehow my credit is now down to 50e!!!! I just am at my wits end with th spent a further 69.13 mins tryin to explain it to the dim wit on the other end of the phone but he reckons all is right an the credit on my acc is correct FFS;( where now!!:(:mad::mad:
Sorry for the long rant

foggy_lad

flo2009 wrote: »

Ohhh I'm even more frustrated now, sky was ment to credit my account with the 147.77 and take bills from that till credit was fully used( like any half decent company) now I look at my bank acc and they have taken a further 56e out of my acc(my bill for April) but also taken it off the credit so effectively paid my bill twice and somehow my credit is now down to 50e!!!! I just am at my wits end with th spent a further 69.13 mins tryin to explain it to the dim wit on the other end of the phone but he reckons all is right an the credit on my acc is correct FFS;( where now!!:(:mad::mad:
Sorry for the long rant

Get your bank to refund the €56 ASAP and cancel the direct debit immediately.

daheff

hdowney wrote: »

gah :eek: where did they get them figures from?

I was charged set up fees for 2 * digital+ boxes, internet and phone
:mad: