Complaint about billing

[Paulg3]

Hi, Sky customer since 1998 but could be my last year.

I am in a two year contract of Sky TV ending November 2026.  In April 2026 my bill went up from £84.00 to £100.49 - that's +19.6%.

On 22 March they emailed me saying my TV contract was going up £2.49 a month and I could cancel within 31 days if I didn't like it.
It went up £16.49 instead.

I just had a fruitless 70 minute phone call with Sky.  The adviser could not explain why I was given the wrong information.

I said that if I knew it was going up £16.49 I would have cancelled the contract.

She referred my problem to a manager who refused to budge on the price.

I said I'd take the matter up with the Communications Ombudsman and she said I was free to do it.  I don't know if she knew that I couldn't - Sky hasn't signed up to them and they won't help me.

So looking for someone in Sky to help.

[Daniel0210]

@Paulg3 

This link explains the methods of making a complaint.

https://www.sky.com/help/articles/how-to-make-a-complaint 

Sky will then have up to another 6 weeks to resolve it or you can then request a deadlock letter potentially allowing you to take it further.

Also see this link

https://www.sky.com/help/articles/sky-customer-complaints-code-of-practice/ 

[Paulg3]

Yes I saw this, thank you - I'm writing them a letter now.  Crazy that you cannot email them - it's obviously done to discourage complainants.

[Daniel0210]

@Paulg3 

There is an email option on there. 

[PandJ2020]

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@Paulg3 wrote:

I am in a two year contract of Sky TV ending November 2026.  In April 2026 my bill went up from £84.00 to £100.49 - that's +19.6%.

On 22 March they emailed me saying my TV contract was going up £2.49 a month and I could cancel within 31 days if I didn't like it.
It went up £16.49 instead.

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What does the itemised billing show?  Sounds like a discount had ended (for which they don't explicitly tell you when it expires).

The price increase mails only list increases to subscriptions - not the actual potential bill change if discounts vary at the same time.

[Me134]

@Paulg3 "On 22 March they emailed me saying my TV contract was going up £2.49 a month and I could cancel within 31 days if I didn't like it.
It went up £16.49 instead."

Just to add, the April rises are based on the non-discounted base price of the package, not your total discounted price so the 19.6% figure is not correct.

It does sound as if some discounted part of your subscription has ended, you would need to check your online bill and compare previous and future bills to see what has fallen off. Anything on a rolling monthly subscription can be removed if necessary to bring your costs down. Of course it may be that you're out of minimum term entirely in which case you need to contact them to try and negotiate a better deal for yourself, they'll be able to remove some items for you at that time.

[Paulg3]

My discounts are all still in place and they don't end until the contract end date.  
All the increases are in the top line, eg Sky Signature has gone up from £17 to £23 (+35%).
I have an email from Sky saying they won't increase more than 10% as well, so that wasn't worth the email it was printed on.
Sky;s adviser admitted that they didn't inform the price increase correctly, so I lost the chance to cancel the contract.  Just seems like a law has been broken somewhere.

[MightyQuinn]

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@Paulg3 wrote:

eg Sky Signature has gone up from £17 to £23 (+35%).

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Hi @Paulg3   You are incorrectly calculating your increase on your discounted price! Sky works out the percentage increase on your total list price. In my case the list price for Sky Signature alone on Sky Q is £42.50. The list price was £40.50 so Sky Signature has increased by 4.9%.

[Paulg3]

Am I doing this right?

March bill:

Sky Signature £36.50 reduced to £17.00
In-Contract discount:-£5.00
• Offer end date: 27th November 2026
Sky Signature Discounted:-£14.50
• Offer end date: 27th November 2026

June bill:

Sky Signature £42.50 reduced to £23.00
In-Contract discount:-£5.00
• Offer end date: 27th November 2026
Sky Signature Discounted:-£14.50
• Offer end date: 27th November 2026

So it either went up £36.50 -> £42.50 (+16.4%)
or £17.00 -> £23.00 (+35.2%)

[MightyQuinn]

Hi @Paulg3   You are not the first person to highlight that your Sky Signature list price was £36.50 where in fact it should have been £40.50. We can only guess that Sky finally caught up with their mistake (who knows). So yours increased by 16.4% (I didn't check the maths). So do you only have Sky Signature and nothing else? Remember the 10% is on the total list price so you may have a case. Mind you, you have massive discounts, for example I pay £30.50 for Sky Signature.

[Paulg3]

The discounts are a bit misleading too.  I've got Sky Cinema now, which I didn't have last time I renewed and I didn't want.  So they gave me extra discount on the main package for signing up to it.  It was their way of reducing my price from the crazy one they tried to get me to renew for.  Because the overall bill went down, I said yes.

I'm not holding out much hope of a resolution but I do feel that they misled me when they wrote to me to say the increase was £2.49 when it was in fact £16.49.  They admitted it was wrong.  They can talk about list prices etc all they like but you have to be transparent and honest and that email fell short in my opinion.  Makes it very hard for me to trust Sky going forward - so I've got a note in the diary to cancel the contract when it approaches the end.