Recurring payment attempts despite manual payment (Account in Credit)

[awc789]

Hi everyone,

I am hoping to get some advice regarding a billing issue. 

I have been a Sky customer for 3 years. My Direct Debit/payment date is set for the 22nd of each month. However, my routine for the past 3 years has been to manually pay the bill early (usually around the 10th-15th) to clear the balance before the due date. This has always worked perfectly, and the automatic payment on the 22nd is usually suppressed because the balance is already £0. 

This month, I made my manual payment on November 10th as usual. However, for some reason, Sky still attempted to take the automatic payment on November 22nd. Because I do not keep excess funds in that particular bank account (since I had already paid the bill), the transaction was declined. Sky has now attempted to charge my card repeatedly on the 22nd, 23rd, and 24th. All attempts have failed.

Confusingly, my Sky account dashboard shows that the payment on the 22nd was "received" and my account is currently showing a "Credit" of £48.50. It seems the system thinks the payment went through, even though my bank declined it.

I do not want to pay twice for the same month. Could someone advise how to stop these continuous retry attempts? Is this a known glitch?

Thanks in advance

[caesarome]

@awc789 

You might have been doing this for 3 years but really you shouldn't be as you should be letting Sky take it via the direct debit you have set up which appears is what it will be doing.

You would need to call them about the "missing" payment and to get the credit refunded if this is what you want or you could leave it so next months bill is paid from it.

[awc789]

Many thanks @caesarome for your response.

Just to clarify, I don't have a Direct Debit set up, but I am using a card payment. And I'm not actually missing any payment; the previous manual payment has been accepted, and the new payment is shown as a credit balance on it.

I have visited a branch of Sky this afternoon. The staff confirmed that manual payments are fine since I'm not on a contract or have set up any direct debit (not really sure how this is realated to a contract). However, we figured out the potential cause: I have a Debit Card saved in the app for the recurring card payment, which is also the one I usually use for manual payment. But this month, I manually paid using a different Credit Card. It seems this switch completely confused the system. (Which sounds quite stupid. I can't believe such a rigid system glitch is happening in 2025)

Although the staff confirmed my bill is paid, they warned me that because the system is still repeatedly trying (and failing) to take money from the stored Debit Card, I might be charged a £10.00 fee for "failed payments"—even though I've already paid! Their suggestion was to top-up my Debit card and "pay again" (let the auto-payment go through) to stop the retries and avoid the fee, which would just leave my account in credit for next month.

[GD1]

@awc789  You've been  misinformed, as you have a service with Sky you are on a contract (your discounts may have ended, so you aheva  rolling contract usually at full price), you have agreed to the terms & conditions to pay either by recurring card payment or direct debit, Sky have your card details so you don't need to be making manual payments as advised above.