My wife and I are in our late 60s and retired, and have been loyal Sky customers for years. We are on the basic TV package as we only watch terrestrial channels, paying only because the Sky box gives us a technically easy way to record programmes. A year ago we were paying around £8 a month. In June it went up to £9.50, and then to £21 in October. As a result I decided to cancel the service in December.
However, a very helpful Sky chap agreed to put it back down to £9.62. All went well and January’s payment was nothing, as agreed. February’s bill was £78 and in March it was £38.
I assumed Sky’s weird accounting had billed us for the entire year, but this was not the case. Another long call revealed that someone, at 9.40pm on Boxing Day, had accessed our Sky account via our box, inputted all our details and upgraded us to a full family package at £38 a month.
Sky says it cannot renew the deal I was on, nor will it refund anything. The only thing it is prepared to do is set the payment to £13 for 18 months.
It is adamant that myself, my wife or the baby we were looking after that evening must have accessed the account, but we didn’t.
DH, Oxford
My first point would be to ask why are you paying Sky to watch/record terrestrial channels when a decent recordable Freeview box can be bought for £140? The second would be to say what an unusual case. You’re adamant you didn’t upgrade (why would you?), and Sky refuses to accept any other version of events. Have any other readers experienced this, or something similar?
In the past Sky has moved pretty quickly to correct these sorts of errors, but not in this case. It still claims you went through a five-step process to upgrade, and that the charges stand. It has refunded £50 as a goodwill gesture, which means you are, in effect, back to paying around £9 a month – but still, shamefully, almost £100 out of pocket.
I’d wait for the next above-inflation price increase – which surely won’t be far off – and use your right to terminate the contract as per the Ofcom rules. Then buy a Humax Freeview recordable box and kiss Sky goodbye.
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