SKY Charging me more for not switching on the Sky box

[00765]

Sky sent me a letter yesterday saying that they are now charging me an extra 35 pounds per month for not switching on my Sky box. Their argument is that if my box is not on, they do not receive a call back from the box to confirm that I am not using the box at another address.

My argument is that, when I am not in the house then surely I have a right, to conserve my electricity bill by switching off gadgets or whatever equipment I am not using. Why should I be needlessly paying more in my electric bill just so Sky can keep an eye on the Sky box?

Can Sky make such a demand?

Many thanks in advance

[BankFodder]

Sounds amzing. What does it say in their T&Cs?

[Crocdoc]

They will have great difficulty with this one if there is no such term within the contract and even if such a term exists it may well be challengeable. Perhaps if you posted the letter it would assist in looking at this one.

[IdaInFife]

when you take out multiroom you agree to have the box connected at all times to a telephone line to enable the box to make callbacks reguarly.

 

 

on the online t and c's it doesn't actally say that the box must have power to the box to do this but it does have to have it to do a callback and i think that's why they send you the letters to warn about the charges and then when you call they have to advise that the box must have power to it to honour the callbacks.

 

I am not sure what's in the full t and c's that are sent but will hceck this out for you

 

ida x

[00765]

Thanks, I haven't actually read the T & C, i just find it outrageous in these times when everyone is urging conserve energy etc, that a large company like Sky, can demand that you keep equipment switched on at a cost to the customer, to serve their own purposes. I just don't see how that is legal.

 

Cable TV needs to have competition. Sky have essentially aside from Virgin, got the cable TV market to themselves & therefore seem to be getting away with imposing ridiculous T & C's on customers who really only have two choices; accept the terms or don't have cable even if you waned cable.

 

Sorry, having a bit of a rant! I ask Sky to send me the T & C's & will read the small print.

[00765]

Hello all,

 

Sky are still taking an extra 40 pounds out of my account.

 

Idainfife did you by any chance get to check Sky's t & C?

[IdaInFife]

It doesnt actually say on the online terms about being connetected to a power source but it does give the full details on the multiroom terms when they send the terms with the viewing card.

 

I have also moved your thread to the digital forums

 

ida x

[buzby]

Sky don't mention you having to keep the Reciever plugged in - and there is no requirement to do so. (Only the telephone connection for your call back during the first year).

 

HOWEVER, as others have pointed out (but you didn't mention) is that if you have TWO Sky subscriptions, you MUST have both boxes calling in to confirm they are making calls from the same phone line. This IS in their terms and conditions, so the fee is correct - but you don;t say if you have more than obe box. If not, the fees are unjustified. If you do - then cancell the second box/card and you'll be OK.

[pompeyfaith]

I have had Sky multiroom now for 5 yrs, over a year ago I moved the rooms around and because the phone lines no longer reached the sockets i left them disconnected as i thought i dont use the interactive services anyway whats the point.

 

Never had any problems with sky over this in fact the engineer came out 6 mths ago to change the sky+ box and even he did not mention it or plug it in.

 

PF

[natalie]

I've never had either of my sky boxes plugged into the phone line and Sky have never mentioned it.

[Lula]

Sky told me that they dont really need to be connected to phone lines.

[00765]

I have x3 Sky boxes as ther a number of us in the household & i've subscribed to Sky for years.

 

Is there a template letter i can send to them as i can't continue to have Sky just taking an extra 40 pounds from my account at will?

 

Thanks

[natalie]

This is one occasion when I would advise you to ring them, tell them that you are going to cancel your subscription.

 

The reason I say ring is that I do this regularly (threaten to leave) and get HUGE discounts on my package because of it. At the moment I am paying half price (sky plus multiroom 2 packages plus movies for £24 a month). They have these offers by phone only, so if you ring then you might get rid of the £40 charge, and get a deal as well.

[andydd]

personally id phone up and (threaten to) cancel my contract, are you in a cabled area ?

[buzby]

The phone line is NOT required if you don;t plan to use interactive services. It IS a must if you have a multiple subscription - if all the boxes do not call in, you WILL be charged the individual subscription. This requirement is explicit in the agreement for Multiroom.

 

They will NOT waive this - and as it constitutes a Terms breach, the increased fee will apply. If you live in a cabled area, then Virgin provides an alternative, but apart from this, there is no alternative - a phone line remains a MUST to get the discount.

[andydd]

I'm assuming a box connected to a phone line but not turned on will not work ?

 

I wonder what would happen if you had it connected to one of those intelligent mult-plug extenders, that turn off all the connected equipment if no power drain is connected ?

 

Andy

[buzby]

The T&Cs are quite specific, the box needs to be 'connected to a working analogue phone line'. VOIP, ISDN, Extenders, incompatible PABXs are all recipes for disaster, and the customer loses the discount.

 

I dropped Sky's service because I used BT's ISDN 2, and their box couldn;t plug into it. (Their issue) but it meant I would not get the discount. I went to Virgin instead.

[IdaInFife]

I'm assuming a box connected to a phone line but not turned on will not work ?

 

I wonder what would happen if you had it connected to one of those intelligent mult-plug extenders, that turn off all the connected equipment if no power drain is connected ?

 

Andy

 

There is a plug on them for sky boxes etc

[Kai121]

@00765;

 

Yes it is a required part of the contract to have the box powered on so it can callback. The reason for this is that people used to give boxes to their neighbours who could then end up getting the full sky package for say £15 a month (the neighbour supplying pays £10 and makes a £5 profit).

 

You do not however have to have it on ALL the timel. The advice I used to give customers in this case was to contact customer services and have them give you the date that the box rings back, then turn the box on the day before and off again the day after.

 

When the box doesnt callback the system automatically requests a secondary callback after a pre-determined amount of time (I cant remember this, ask cust. services) so you do get a second chance each month. And if you write in to the head office they can sometimes refund the first 1 or 2 full charges if it was a genuine mistake (customer services used to be able to do it their and then but head office wasnt too happy with this).

 

Hope I have helped

Kai121

 

(P.S. In regards to ringing up and threatening to cancel: Be friendly to the agent and your likely to get a decent response and dont do it more than once a year as they cant issue you more than one main offer a year, plus they keep track of this with notes and if they think your just offer riding as we called it, theyll give you the 30 days notice and wave bye in a heartbeat - thats coming from someone who has dealt with all of sky's cancellation depts.)

Edited November 8, 2009 by Kai121

[natalie]

They have always told me to ring for another offer about 6 weeks after the last one finishes, I dont think I have paid full price for more than 3 months at a time in about 5 years.

 

I have always found sky tv customer service staff to be very helpful and friendly.

[Kai121]

Your getting subscription discounts? (eg: 10% off for a month ect...)

 

Those offers generally come from PAT (Program Advisory Team) and generally arent main offers =P. Mains offers would be equipment upgrades, free line rental ect...and are unstackable, subs offers you can issue one depending on how large it is (best I ever saw was 50% off for 6 months but it went after 2 days).

[Acropolis]

As has been previously said, if you have multiroom then you must have the box connected to a phone line so it can call back.

 

I have had this problem when i have moved box's around in the past and not moved phone lines.

 

Take the box, plug it into the phone line, ring sky and ask them to do a call back. Call back will go through, problem will go away for a while.

 

When the letters come back through again, do the same again. Or run a phone line into the room.

 

You agreed with the T&C's, it isnt that unreasonable really to have it connected to a phone line for this reason.

[Suzukihaggis]

Just on the slightly off topic of offers from Sky, one of my mates works in the TV Tech department and he said that there is a 2 months 1/2 price upgrade to Movies & or Sports on at the monent, it's supposedly only in the Tech department not anywhere else. You only need to keep the channels for 30 days, so if you feel after one month, what a load of rubbish, you can call back and downgrade.

 

p.s. the offer is for a half price Upgrade, i.e. you will go off the phone paying more, you cant add anything on and expect to be paying less, although that would be nice!

 

Hope this is of interest to someone out there that might be thinking about adding a little something on for the cold and dark nights.

[00765]

Hi all, Since September 2009, SKY increased the monthly extra charge by almost £80 per month.

I contacted SKY again in May 2010, telling them that I had switched on all the boxes so why were they still charging exorbitant amounts. They responded that, they were still not getting call backs.

I dealt with 2 particular Sky reps who were very helpful,l saying that they would get to the bottom of what was going on.

Initially in May the 1st rep said she'd sent an engineer but that I had to pay the £125 extra in order for the system to allow her to schedule an engineer. She also told me that once the situation was resolved all extra payments would be refunded in full. I paid the £125 SKY’s engineer came & the situation was not resolved. I spoke to another helpful rep who also said tha,t she would have to send another engineer out but that again, I would have to now pay £225 in extra charges before she could schedule the engineer. She also assured me that I would be refunded extra payments amounting to a total of over £450, once the situation re the call backs was resolved.

When the 2nd engineer came in July 2010, he said that it was the viewing card which was 'dead'. I told the 2nd rep, she told me that, that would not have been the cause of the failure for the box to call back. She told me that due to the unusual time it was taking to resolve the matter since September 2009, she would reduce my Sky payments by half, for 6 months & she said that she would in addition, have personally refunded the £450 to my bank account but that she was going on holiday but that she would leave a note in the system & that another rep would refund the money.

The issue with the call back was finally resolved 2 weeks ago. When I rang to get the refund, I was told, No that I could not get a refund; then I insisted they read the last reps notes, Sky then said OK we'll return £225 but nothing else, as I had first raised concerns in May 2010. They then said that even the £225 would not be returned to my bank account but used as credits to my SKY account. When I told them that the 2nd rep had assured me & written it in her notes that I would get all the £450 returned to my account, Sky said that, whilst they could see the reps notes, she was wrong to have made any such promise.

The 2nd rep herself then rang me last week & told me that she was very sorry about what had happened; that she would have been extremely upset if she was in my shoes but that her supervisor had told her that she cannot refund any money to my bank account. She advised me to contact Ofcom & send a letter of complaint to SKY.

Can SKY say “yes we'll refund £450” & then rescind on it? Is there anything I can do, to get my money back from them.

If SKY did not in effect have a monopoly on cable TV, I would have left them but for now I want them to return in cash, the money that they not only owe me but the funds which a SKY wrote in their system, would be returned to me.

Can anyone please assist? Thanks

[loopinlouie]

Just as well I left sky tv due to shoddy services of sky talk as they have slammed my phone line and its gone dead, I would have a little problem getting them to be able to ring the box, let alone make a call as they for nearly two weeks have been saying nowt to do with them, now told me they have my line, but not thier fault

 

AVOID THEM